Recommended: Barney Miller season 1

Just out on DVD, street price in the low $20s. Mine arrived Friday
and I'm afraid I watched the whole thing over the weekend.

It's 314 minutes on two discs, 1.33:1 , with no extras worth
mentioning. There are no subtitled but there _are_ closed captions.
The menus are bare-bones, "play all" or episode selections, no scene
selections. However, each episode that I checked has a chapter mark
at the end of the opening credits, a convenience.

The colors seem a bit drab, but that may have been the look of the
original show. Sound is just fine. I dimly remember that the show
was filmed, not taped, which might account for it. I didn't notice
any digital artifacts.

As for the program material, season 1 was the first 13 episodes
because Barney started as a midseason replacement in 1975. While not
yet fully developed, even season 1 shows a lot of the witty writing
and excellent ensemble work that have made this my favorite comedy.

Jack Soo (Yemana) and Ron Glass (Harris) were not listed as regulars
in the opening credits but were in about half the episodes and
listed first in the closing credits. James Gregory (Inspector Luger)
and Jack de Leon (Marty) were in two episodes each, IIRC.

Disc 1 is the first 9 half-hour episodes, and disc 2 is episodes 10-
13. The original pilot, which had aired earlier with a different mix
of actors, is not included.

The episodes average 24 minutes plus a few seconds. Kind of amazing
that back then less than 20% of our network viewing time was
commercials.

(followups set to rec.video.dvd.titles only)

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
DVD FAQ: http://dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html
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Stan Brown

Stan Brown <> wrote in message news:<> ...

> The episodes average 24 minutes plus a few seconds. Kind of amazing
> that back then less than 20% of our network viewing time was
> commercials.

There was a study just published that said something on the order of
for every 3 hour block of prime time programming there is now over an
hour of commercial advertising.

Gee, I wonder if that may be why viewership numbers are slipping?

- Jordan

Jordan Lund

In article <> , Jordan
Lund <> wrote:

> Stan Brown <> wrote in message
> news:<> ...
>
> > The episodes average 24 minutes plus a few seconds. Kind of amazing
> > that back then less than 20% of our network viewing time was
> > commercials.
>
> There was a study just published that said something on the order of
> for every 3 hour block of prime time programming there is now over an
> hour of commercial advertising.
>
> Gee, I wonder if that may be why viewership numbers are slipping?
>
But given that more people are watching cable and that seems to have
more comercials then network tv, I doubt there's a relationship.

--
Chris Mack "Refugee, total ****. That's how I've always seen us.
'Invid Fan' Not a help, you'll admit, to agreement between us."
-'Deal/No Deal', CHESS

Invid Fan

>given that more people are watching cable and that seems to have
>more comercials then network tv, I doubt there's a relationship.
>
>--

where did you hear that? The last I heard (read from sources like newspapers
and tv guides) wqhich was pretty recent is that more people still watch the
regular broadcast networks than watch the cable networks.

although the viewership numbers of the broadcast networks are indeed declining
as you say.


I don't think it's because of the commercials (although that may be part of it)
, at least not totally.

I think it's because of the poor quality of most recent programming on the
broadcast networks.

Waterperson77

(Jordan Lund) wrote:

>> The episodes average 24 minutes plus a few seconds. Kind of amazing
>> that back then less than 20% of our network viewing time was
>> commercials.

There used to be law; the law was repealed; "deregulation".

>There was a study just published that said something on the order of
>for every 3 hour block of prime time programming there is now over an
>hour of commercial advertising.
>
>Gee, I wonder if that may be why viewership numbers are slipping?

Could be, but the business is run by Harvardites; Harvard MBAs are
morons.

Mark Gold