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BUT, this DVD set has many, many shortcomings that are unacceptable in this day and age.
1) AUDIO & VIDEO: the quality of these film prints is, in many cases, abysmal. Dirt, scratches and other damage abound. I find it TERRIBLY difficult to believe that Rhino couldn't find a better copy for transfer. Rather, I suspect they didn't want to spend the money 'cleaning' up the picture. I work in TV & Film and ALL of these scratches and dirt marks COULD have been removed digitally. But, they were not. Likewise, the audio is often muddy and at very inconsistent volume. Some passages are soft while others are way too loud. A little quality control would have corrected this problem.
2) AUDIO COMMENTARY: With the sole exception of Mike's commentary on "Fairy Tale Monkees", all the commentaries on the episodes are 99% worthless. We're lucky if, in a given 28-minute episode, there are 5-10 minutes of actual commentary. Most of the time, Davy or Peter just seem to be silently watching the episode alongside us. And most of their comments are of the "Hmm. I remember that shirt!" variety. Just totally inconsequential and very few and far between. If your major contribution on an audio commentary is, "Hmmm, I remember that shirt!", why bother even doing it? It boggles my mind that Rhino even included these commentaries. That's how inconsequential they are. One would expect slightly more insightful commentary given that the commentators are, in fact, the Monkees themselves.
3) EXTRAS: The inclusion of "33 1/3rd" is almost worth the price of admission alone. It's great to have and in the best quality I've seen thus far. The other "extras" are two :30 clips of the Monkees as a trio in '69 on a variety show. You will watch them once, and that's probably it. Also, there is an interesting but overlong interview with the series Editor who sheds many interesting insights into putting the show together.
Bottom line: even though Rhino came through with "33 1/3rd", we're supposedly buying the set for the episodes of the series: and that is where Rhino has totally dropped the ball. Rhino must either a) feel that Monkees fans are not sophisticated enough to enjoy properly restored audio and video a la the Beatles Anthology, or, b) simply not wanted to spend the money doing a proper job.
This box set, we must hope, will NOT be the definitive collection of the Monkees TV series on DVD for very long.
The axe I have to grind is not with the show, the music, or the (1960's) Monkees themselves. Those aspects of the show get a 5-star rating from me. (And if you are reading this, then I assume you are also a big fan.) It's just that while Apple was able to wonderfully restore the Beatles' legacy in the "Anthology" DVD collection, Rhino chose not to do the same thing here...
My first problem is the fact that Rhino (or more precisely, AOL Time Warner, which bought Rhino in 1998) did not bother to spend any money to restore & clean up the audio or video of any of these episodes. If you bought the mid-90's VHS box set and were expecting an audio & video upgrade, you're going to be in for a disappointment. Rhino seems to have used the same video masters they used for the earlier collection (the 1994, 1995, & 1996 "program content" copyrights on the DVD boxes would support this theory).
The audio portions of each episode sound much softer than the title screens. As a result, you have to crank the volume up when you watch an episode. When the episode is finished, and you go back to the title screen (and forget to reset the volume), it's almost like being hit on the head when you are blasted by the *very* loud Monkee's Theme that will greet you there. Granted, this is a minor annoyance, but after you are startled a number of times, it starts getting to you.
The video quality is also rather poor. The episodes appear *very* dark and murky. Lots of details cannot be seen as they have faded into the shadows. The prints used for syndication were a bit edited in places, yet they had MUCH more vibrant colors and were not as dark as the prints Rhino used. If you saw the show in the 1970's, then you should remember how much more colorful it looked at that time.
If you are lucky enough to own one of the early 1990's Japanese Laserdisc box sets, you'd know how much better those episodes look when compared to the ones released by Rhino. The LD box only contained 40 of the 58 episodes, yet that's what I still reach for when I want to watch the show.
Now, let me direct my attention to the audio commentaries:
In a perfect world, all four of the Monkees would have done the commentaries together and they would have been complimentary to the producers who gave them the show, the fans who have supported it all of these years, and the other guys in the group. In a less perfect world, they would have at least done a little fact-checking before they got behind the microphones.
It's sad to say that in the Monkees' world, none of this happened. All four of the Monkees (with the exception of Davy, maybe) don't come off very well. Their commentaries are short on anecdotes, and collectively, they appear to be rather dysfunctional. I'd bet that paychecks were driving force behind a few of the commentaries, not out of respect for the fans or the show.
Micky comes off the worst. He may have believed he was being cute and funny, but his rather obnoxious commentary is like a poor-man's version of MST3K. He offers precious little insight into the episode he co-wrote and directed. He is also quite blistering in his assessment of the 33 1/3 special. It really seemed like he didn't want to do the commentary and he was carrying on just to prove a point.
Mike seems to show bemusement that the show was and continues to be popular. He says the intelligence level of the show appeals to 9-year olds. He can't seem to understand that adults like (and continue to watch) the show. While he has mellowed in regards to his place in the Monkees' legacy, it still appears he feels the show was beneath him (and that its fans might be too).
Peter (or "Former Monkee Peter Tork" as he identifies himself at the start of each commentary) uses his commentaries as a platform to rip into Mike and (to a lesser extent) producer Rafelson. Some of his Monkees' history is a bit faulty (like going on about how his song "For Pete's Sake" was edited onto the end of *first* season shows when the show was in syndication in the 70's - it wasn't). Peter has replaced Mike as the group's curmudgeon.
Davy is the only Monkee who is gracious to the others, and who appreciates the fans who have kept the show going for all these years. His commentary is light on the facts and anecdotes, but it's not mean, dismissive, or obnoxious. He definitely comes off the best.
Conversely, the two non-Monkee commentaries here (by Bob Rafelson and Brian Auger) are the most informed and interesting. Mr. Rafelson is very gracious to the group he created and he is very complimentary of the guys. Mr. Auger shares some interesting insights about the 33 1/3 special and he never attacks it (unlike a certain Mr. Dolenz). Both Rafelson & Auger enhance this collection, unlike the Monkees themselves.
So, unless AOL Time Warner / Rhino decides to spend the dough and really restore these classic TV episodes, then this rather disappointing collection is all we're going to get. I recommend it for the inspired content it contains (the original episodes), not for its presentation.
And, by the end of season 1, critics were complaining that the mnusic wasn't "theirs". As a result of this and Mike Nesmith's subsequent prodding, the music used in this season was done BY the Monkees and not behind-the-scenes artists. Many songs that even bested some of the "legit" music of the time, include "Salesman", "For Pete's Sake", "Randy Scouse Git", "The Door into Summer", "Zor and Zam", "Daily Nightly", "Pleasant Valley Sunday", "You Just May Be The One", "You Told Me", and there are many others...
The best episodes include:
* Monkees Marooned (Peter sells his guitar for a treasure map and, after being berated by the others is joined by the others to see what it's about. The one liners in this one are great...)
* The Picture Frame (The group is conned into pulling a bank robbery by a "producer" who is actually a crook!)
* Monkee Mayor (Mike Nesmith runs for mayor in an attempt to drive out the corrupt incumbant. One of my top 5.)
* Hillbilly Honeymoon (A spoof of The Beverly Hillbillies and ironically more realistic... One of my top 5.)
* Fairy Tale (A surreal and outrageous spoof on old fairy tales; Mike also dresses up in drag and there's a lot of fun to be had here. The lack of laugh track is also intriguing. Another top 5.)
* The Devil and Peter Tork. (A great plot, which contains one of their best-ever songs, almost banned by NBC because of a hidden drug reference (though the song is clearly AGAINST drugs...). It's my absolute favorite. (the 5th one being, of course, "Monkee vs Machine" but that's season 1...))
* Mijacogeo (aka "The Frodis Caper") - unusual social commentary about television, even if the story is written and directed in such a bizarre (and likely deliberate) manner by Mickey Dolenz himself.
As for the DVDs themselves:
Menu/layout:
A+++ for the menuing system. I was impressed by the use of audio noise between the master and sub-menus, and the layout. Very impressed indeed.
Trivia:
A nice addition with some interesting bits and pieces, along with guest cast filmography.
Video:
Colors look deep and saturated and flesh tones remarkably accurate from a filmed ~38 year old show. As the show was filmed and not taped, that has led to
The prints seem reasonably sharp too.
There are some dust and other film-related issues, but that is unavoidable and I only know of one TV show whose restoration team actually removes by hand all signs of scratches and dust...
The only problem is DVD compression artifacting, which tends to make the picture seem a bit muddy; particularly with background/darker areas; they suffer the most from this artifacting. It's not entirely bad, but bad enough for me to make a mention of. :-)
Audio:
Sounds great but please stick to the standard Dolby 2.0 mono. I tried out the 5.1 and maybe they thought the viewer ought to be on LSD while listening to the show. The 5.1 produces a very bizarre sort of echo effect that makes everything difficult to understand. And as I don't have this problem with any of my other 5.1 movies/shows, it must then be a problem with the encoding. But the Dolby 2.0 is crisp and clean; like how it was originally, minus that wretched hiss. :-)
In short, the MSRP is too high. Buying it used or clearance would be a better choice; $80 for BOTH seasons is a much fairer price given the video quality and that bizarre 5.1 transfer (B+ for effort but they needn't have bothered to take this step. I'd rather have better compression for the video.)
It's quite acceptable quality in the end, especially when compared to offerings from certain other vendors, who clearly don't put much time into their releases at all.
