According To Jim The Complete Second Season + Dirt
Season Two + My Wife & Kids
Season Two + Raising The Bar The
Complete Second Season (ABC Studios/Lionsgate DVD Sets)
Picture: C
(Jim: C+) Sound: C+ Extras:
D (Dirt: C-) Episodes: D/C-/C-/C+
Disney/ABC
continues to allow and license a section of titles under the ABC Studios name
to be released by Lionsgate. Two are
sitcoms, two are dramas. We have covered
previous seasons of three of them, with According
To Jim being new to us. Here are
links to our coverage of the other previous show seasons:
Dirt Season One
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6575/Dirt+%E2%80%93+The+Complete+Fir
My Wife & Kids Season One
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8232/My+Wife+&+Kids+%E2%80%93+Seas
Raising The Bar - The Complete
First Season
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8782/Raisng+The+Bar+%E2%80%93+The
Jim and Kids are horrible family sitcoms that represent the regressive hit
nadir of what was once an artform, now with dysfunctional, goofy, childish
behavior celebrated, lionized and approved of by companies who want to
mindlessly sell product to the most dumbed-down consumers possible. Jim Belushi is capable of being funnier than
he is on his show and makes for an odd match with Courtney Thorne-Smith. Kids
gets slowly worse as it goes along.
Dirt is so bad, it is funny, but also
lives up to its name as the kind of nighttime soap opera trash that put Dynasty and Dallas
on the map, though this show is thinking more like 90210 and Melrose Place,
then and now. I will give star Courtney
Cox credit for being the only cast member of the all-time overrated hit sitcom Friends credit for going out of her way
not to repeat herself. Shes convincing enough in the role, but the
show is ridiculous, which is why enough people watch to keep it on the air.
That
leaves yet another Steven Bochco courtroom drama in Raising The Bar, which is not as bad as it could be, but even with
an interesting cast including Gloria Reuben, Mark-Paul Gosselaar (convincingly
growing into adult roles) and Jane Kaczmarek, it cannot escape the look and
feel of the cycle of such shows we have had since the 1980s, especially ones
produced by Bochco. Still, it is a smart
show and at this point, is far better than most scripted series today.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on all four programs likely originates
in various forms of 1080i High Definition video, with noise throughout all the
shows often being a factor.
Horrifically, Jim actually
looks a little better than the rest. The
Dolby Digital 2.0 sound on all four shows are stereo at best, with Jim trying to upgrade to Dolby Digital
5.1, but to no avail. It lands up making
the show sound flatter instead. Extras appear
on Kids (Audio Commentaries, New
Cast Interviews) and Bar (Deleted
Scenes), but that is all across the four sets.
- Nicholas Sheffo
