Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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90 of 98 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Absurdly bad episode reordering mars excellent show, February 11, 2003
Like a lot of people, I loved the first few years of Mad About You, when it was really well-written romantic comedy about a newlywed couple negotiating the difficulties of settling into a marriage. The video quality on these discs isn't perfect, but it's certainly good enough to enjoy these episodes all over again.HOWEVER, some insane person made the decision to run the episodes on the discs in *production* order instead of *air-date* order, and the consequence is that parts of the series make no sense whatsoever -- for example, the discs swap episodes 2 and 4, so that the couple have in episodes 2 and 3 the couch they buy in ep 4 (originally episode 2). Something even worse is done with the last two episodes of the season, swapping them and thereby ruining both the story arc and the symmetry intended for the season finale. I think we should all write angry letters to the studio protesting this idiotic decision and demanding better treatment for future releases. And, when available, a free replacement with the episodes in the right order. In the meantime, if you loved Mad About You, you'll probably have to buy the set and reorder the episodes manually. wg
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69 of 74 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
An Awful Way To Treat a Great Show..., October 26, 2002
While "Mad About You" would go on to become one of the definitive sitcoms of the 1990s, its first season was a little rocky. To be certain, much of the later greatness could been seen (especially at the beginning and end of the season), but rotating characters and a few truly awful episodes made for a rocky start for this series.The first season showed that Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt had great chemistry together as newlyweds Paul and Jamie Buchman, but many of their friends had difficult beginnings - especially Paul's friends Selby (who disappears by episode 13) and Ira (who appears, initially, as an even less-likeable version of the eternal bachelor Selby). The episodes that really stand out from the season are the ones that deal with Paul and Jamie's newlywed issues - how they met, whether Paul should give up his old bachelor pad, their first anniversary - but there are also some truly unfortunate episodes from the season, especially Jerry Lewis' execrable turn as an eccentric billionaire. Likewise, the first episode featuring Paul's father shows only a little of the depth that his family would later have. All that aside, though, the first season is definitely strong enough to want to buy - unless, of course, you look at the discs from a technical perspective. While the price for the series is great, I would happily have seen them add another ten or twenty dollars to the price tag to have another disc. Not only is the set devoid of any extras (save multilingual tracks), but the compression of 11 episodes on to each disc makes each look impressively bad on a laptop or HDTV system. On a normal TV from six feet or more away, it looks fine, but I pity the person taking this set with them on an airplane flight. All in all, it'd hard not to be disappointed in this release. I'm always glad to see more TV series released in full-season formats on DVD, but presentations such as this make you very disappointed in the companies that release them. Maybe Columbia-Tristar will get the hint for Season 2 and put out a much better release. It would be a shame to see them stop with this season just because they did a bad job with it technically.
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not too bad, but has some flaws, March 15, 2003
Mad About You has finally made it's way to DVD, but is it worth the price. In my opinion yes, but with some flaws.The series is on two discs, with eleven episodes on each disc. A Spanish language track is available as are closed capitioning for English and Spanish. Visually the series looks the same as it did when it aired, minus the annoying logo in the corner. I've heard some complaints that the picture looks grainy, but I have not noticed it. I have noticed that there are some scenes that have been removed from the syndicated series are back in the show, so that is a plus. The major problem that I have with this set is the fact that the episodes do not have chapter stops. So if you want to skip ahead in the episode, you have to fast forward through the show. Another problem that I have is that there aren't any extra's on the disc. Not a major deal, but it would be nice to at least have a 'behind the scenes' featurette. If you like Mad About You, you should probably pick this set up. But be forewarned, all you are getting is the shows and nothing more.
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