Customer Reviews

All in the Family: Complete Seasons 1-6

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This truly groundbreaking series had a run of nine great seasons, and for five consecutive seasons was the most watched comedy program on television. 'All In The Family' is ranked #4 on TV Guide's list of the greatest television shows of all time, comedy or drama. The show earned Emmys for all of the main actors, and earned three for Best Comedy Series. The show also resulted in several highly acclaimed spin-offs. Why do I mention all of this? Because I think that this is one of those rare instances where all of the recognition and accolades just could not be more deserved. When it comes to music I am affected by excellence and passion, but I've also found that the excellent writing and passionate performances in this show have often moved me. I cannot pay a higher compliment to this show than that.

I was very young when 'All In The Family' premiered, but thanks to reruns now showing in perpetuity I think that I've now seen every episode of this monumental television series. Although I was very young when the show premiered, the show ran for nine seasons, so as a youngster I can remember watching the show from time to time. And while I do remember liking the show, I am certain that at the time I had absolutely no idea what a historic and significant series it would end up being. Simply put, in my opinion, this is the best sitcom of all time, with nothing else really coming all that close. And I am not all that old, so I can and do appreciate some of the other outstanding comedies of the last 30 years, but AITF is simply without peer; literally. Admittedly, there have been several other outstanding comedies which supplied more frequent laughs, but none were as thought-provoking and cleverly written, especially given the deliberately contentious subject matter. And I don't think it would slight anybody to say that for the most part we have the late great Carroll O'Connor to thank for the wonderful and timeless appeal of the show.

Shortly before his death Carroll recognized and expressed that Archie Bunker was the greatest role of his life. I must agree, and Carroll O'Connor is absolutely without question the most indelible actor to ever appear in a television comedy series. I was unusually saddened by Carroll's passing in 2001, and as such was compelled to submit this retrospect/review, which is my first for a television program. RIP Carroll.

I love being able to watch this great show again, brings back memories!
DVD's are in great condition.

My husband has enjoyed it very much. He's an avid TV fan who wishes the "oldies" were back.

'All In the Family is a classic series that holds up very well , is still very relevant and just as funny and poignant as it was during the years it was originally shown. The writing and acting is among the very best in all of television. With that in mind, this review pertains mostly to the DVD sets themselves, the video and audio quality of the discs and the packaging.

Unfortunately these sets are now packaged in the one hub stack-able DVD cases, with the discs all sitting on top of each other. The original cases were of the fold out variety and much nicer, but Sony has taken the low road here with these new 'eco-friendly' (read: cheap) cases. For instance, to get at Disc 3 you would need to remove them all to get at it. While they certainly take up less space than some larger multiple disc holders, they are cheap , inconvenient and an insult to this great series. I immediately went out and purchased 3 disc cases and just transferred the paper insert into each new case.

How is the overall video quality of the first 6 Seasons? In a word: Terrible! 'All in the Family' was shot on network quality video tape, presumably 3/4 inch. It has significantly degraded over the years much like a VHS cassette you have played one too many times. Some episodes have held up better than others, but generally speaking you will get blurry pictures, fading color, banding, streaking, video noise, shifting contrast and color levels (during the same episode) and little red or white dots in various corners of the screen. Sometimes the frame has a vertical line running thru the picture on the right or left side. A few episodes look so bad that even the worst TV Land reception will look better to you. Usually the closeups are pretty clear but not always.

Basically what you get with the video is a higher resolution look at old broadcast video tape and much of time it is not a pretty sight. From what I understand the Shout Factory releases of Season 8 and 9 look a far sight better than these do. This leads me to believe that Sony had bad source masters , did a very poor job of transferring, or any combination of those two things.

Basically, if you LOVE All in the Family, you will soon get over the fact that these are very very bad to look at. The best they will look would be to play these DVD's on an old standard CRT 4:3 standard definition set. The problems with the video will not be as apparent. But with an HDTV you will see all I have mentioned, and the better resolution you have, the worse these DVD's are going to look. I personally have them upconverted to 1080p using an Oppo BDP-93 which does wonders for all my DVD's , but in this case it just doesn't help all that much.

There are a VERY FEW episodes here and there that almost look good, but that is the extent of it.

As for the sound, it was originally recorded in mono along with the video on the same tape. The sound doesn't suffer quite as much as the picture does. Most of the time it is clear enough but it is far from being high fidelity. The recordings were only marginal to begin with, nothing special really, so you can't expect much here. Basically, you can see and hear the show, albeit at varying degrees of quality.
A few of the shows have very bad sound, but you can still hear what they are saying.

'All in the Family' is one of my all time favorite programs and owning every season was something I really felt I needed to do. Unfortunately the quality of these first 6 Seasons distributed by Sony are pretty bad.

ON the plus side, you get ALL the shows from the first 6 years, unedited, commercial free and with everything intact, such as the end tags that came after the last commercial before the credits roll. Those haven't been seen in many years, after long being chopped off in editing for syndication. I have decided to pretty much ignore the bad quality video and just enjoy the show. If you want ALL of 'All in the Family' uncut and in chronological order, this is your only choice. You might be able to get better quality video from recording TV Land episodes and editing out the commercials yourself, but you will not have the entire program as they chop a good 5 minutes at the very least out of them. Bottom line, if you love "All in the Family' then you will be happy you bought this. (eventually) If you are expecting great or even good quality video transfers, this is not the set for you. Remember, the better your TV is, the worse this will look.

Even with all the problems with these transfers I still totally recommend this series. It is SO GOOD that the show rises above the lousy transfers. As such I still give this selection FIVE STARS although I would give the transfer and packaging only 2 and 1/2 stars.

I am very glad that I purchased this set of DVD's of the Classic 'All in the Family' series.
It is giving us continual laughs when we really need them in these hard times! The picture
quality isn't the best, but it is good enough for an old show.

I bought this collection for my Mother. She has always enjoyed the show. Now she can watch it anytime.

The American version has surpassed it's British origin "Till Death us do Part"

Seasons 1 + 2 have English subtitles which is very nice. From seasons 3 onward - only closed captions, that can be read only by some DVD players.

Could have been great if Rob or Sally were to contribute some commentaries. Rob has done a wonderful job on his Spinal Tap Criterion Edition and on Princess Bride Special Edition from Lionsgate.

Sony Pictures, selling All in the Family to MPI Home Video would be a perfect idea for the fans, who have waited 7 years to collect all 9 Seasons of the series on DVD. Please do not say no to my suggestion. MPI Home Video will be willing to re-release the first 6 seasons, and release the 3 remaining seasons with no problems. Please sell All in the Family to MPI Home Video!