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The Simpsons - The Complete Fifth SeasonRating:
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The Simpsons - The Complete Fifth Season Reviews
The start of the greatest show of all time
In my opinion, this season along with season 4 are the start of when their funding for the show increased and they had some of the best writers and freshest ideas. This is definitely a dvd set you will not regret buying, you'll get many good laughs. I can't wait for the next seasons to come out, they get better and better until about season 12.
"Principal Skinner? I got carsick in your office." -Ralph
I was especially excited about season 5 coming out on DVD. The David Mirkin era (seasons 5 and 6) is my personal favorite among the show's history, although I know not all fans agree with me. The series changed in tone during this time, largely due to show-runner Mirkin's personality and writing style. When Al Jean and Mike Reiss ran seasons 3 and 4, they produced high quality stories that were relatively plausible and down-to-earth. Mirkin was (and still is) respectful of what had been established during those seasons, but he took the show to a new level by exploring the characters more deeply and by not shying away from broader stories and wackier jokes. Mirkin also has a very sarcastic and cynical sense of humor, which is apparent in the episodes he worked on, as well as in the commentaries. Season 5 contains some of the jokiest episodes that push boundaries that hadn't been pushed before that point, and many of them are my personal favorites in the series for that reason. These include "$pringfield", "Homer Goes To College", "Boy Scoutz 'N the Hood", "The Last Temptation of Homer", "Homer and Apu", "Deep Space Homer", "Burns' Heir", and "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song". Actually, I love all the episodes on this DVD, but those are some of the more memorable ones for me.
The DVD presentation is excellent, with clever animated menus, Easter eggs, and an improved collection of Bonus Extras. Each disk contains an animatic, and two of them feature a highly entertaining "illustrated commentary" by Wes Archer and David Silverman (the other two have regular commentaries by Silverman and some animators). There are lots of deleted scenes included on the DVD, which can be played within the episodes, or back-to-back as a separate feature on disk 4.
The commentaries are fun, as unsual, with Matt Groening, David Silverman, and David Mirkin on almost all of them, along with writers, directors, a few of the actors, and Jim Brooks on some of them. I was disappointed that a few directors (particularly Jeff Lynch and Jim Reardon) and some writers were unavailable to do commentaries this year, but the rest of the commentators picked up the slack well. Mirkin has a tendency to over-explain things, but at least he has a pleasant speaking voice and he's a funny guy. Also, this DVD features Conan O'Brien's final commentaries, and he is always a delight.
Overall, this DVD set is a gem. My one minor complaint is that turning on the subtitles was a bit more cumbersome than on previous DVD sets. Other than that, the season 5 DVD set is the best yet. Bring on season 6!
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