The King of Queens- 6th Season
Picture: C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D Episodes: C
We as an
audience have seen this type of situation comedy for years now (in reruns or
otherwise); a fat guy with a lovable and attractive BUT strong willed
wife. The Honeymooners and even
The Flintstones employed the same
situation comedy of the goofy, lam brained husband whose wife seemed always one
step ahead; but the truth of the matter is The
King of Queens lacks the charisma and heart these other series demonstrated. Kevin James is no Fred Flintstone.
This is,
as has been said in the past, nothing more than a very light situation comedy
that has seemingly outlived its life expectancy. Kevin James starting as a stand-up comedy
clearly penetrates the stringy plot lines of the series, often times just about
to jump out of his socks to spew his now formulaic punch lines. On occasion
Kevin James throws a bone to his lovely, co-star, wife Leah Remini allowing her
to share in his jokes, but seems far less than James himself.
So with
all this criticism of the show one may ask, why is the show still on 8 seasons
later? The reason behind this lies
purely in the casts’ chemistry. With the
shows plot lines apparently not more than pure dribble at times it is the
interactions between Doug (Kevin James) and his wife, his father in law, and
close friends that is the glue of the show.
Though this TV box set was hard to swallow at times, I found myself
often chuckling at the personal chemistry of the cast. Overall, it can be said
that the enthusiasm that the cast demonstrates for their show is admirable to
an extent.
This 528
minute/24 episode box set is lack luster as far as special features. As is seen in many recent TV on DVD box sets
the studio has seemed to have left this box set sparse with special features,
and the one that did exist were uninteresting to say the least (future DVD
previews). Being a newer show the 1.33:1
full screen picture and produced in professional analog NTSC video, it was
adequate and colorful, but at times lighter than it should have been. Having viewed this set on a surround sound
system the Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound quality was weak and unexciting.
In the
end, The King of Queens may capture the hearts of some viewers, but this viewer
was left unimpressed. At times the
characters seemed like shadows of their once entertaining selves. Jerry Stiller misses the loudness on
Seinfeld…Kevin James should have stuck to is stand-up roots….and Leah Remini,
well I always liked her on Saved By The
Bell.
- Michael P. Dougherty II
