In Living Color – Season Five

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: D     Episodes: C

 

 

The fifth season of In Living Color was the last.  Not only did Jennifer Lopez leave as a Fly Girl after one season, but Fox had a huge fallout with the entire Wayans family about the show’s humor and direction.  This caused their exodus permanently and with them, the show was finished.  Though Jim Carrey, David Alan Greer, Tommy Davidson and Jamie Foxx stayed, plus new talent was added, the joy, heart and soul was gone.  You know its bad when all that talent cannot save the show.  This was the 1993 – 1994 season and the end of the road.

 

The ironic highlights include the real Tupac Shakur before his mysterious murder making a cameo in a skit, Busta Rhymes before he went solo and some tapped out skits that seem rushed.  This includes the usually reliable Ugly Woman.  A new Honeymooners ’93 skit has the original monochrome white cast going Hip Hop in their own special way, but it never gels.  Mary Tyler Mo also misses the boat by just making the same racial joke over and over again, but the show overall just ran out of stream, the audience does not seem to be impressed and everyone seems to be there just to get their paycheck.  As compared to the previous seasons, it is shocking how unmemorable this all is.  It was The Wayans show and without them, it was just a hollow shell.

 

As it was in the previous editions, the 1.33 X 1 full frame, color footage is in great shape, as clean and clear as it is going to get for professional analog NTSC videotape of the time on DVD.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is good for its age, but offers no surrounds of any kind.  Combined, the show again has never looked so good.  There are once again no extras, but at this point, there is nothing more to say.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo