By Season Seven, The Simpsons had already eased comfortably into the role of "America's Favorite Sitcom" - gone were the half-funny, "what-I-learned-from-all-of-this" episodes of years past, while the "I-learned-nothing-at-all-from-this," non-sequitur punch line factories remained far off in the future. Such classic shows as "Radioactive Man," "Bart Sells His Soul," "Lisa the Vegetarian," "The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular," and the infamous "22 Short Films About Springfield" all appeared at this time, and further expanded the series' impeccable grasp of both hair-trigger humor and genuinely evocative storytelling; in fact, even a facile combination of episodes from Seasons Six and Seven alone qualifies the show as a placeholder among the best TV series of all time - animated or no.
But what is there left to say about this show, after seven different DVD sets? Would that IGN could find a writer - much less an preternaturally talented infant - who wasn't already familiar with the ins and outs of the Simpson family's fractured lives, we'd gladly pass on The Complete Seventh Season DVDs in the hopes that their fresh perspective could shed more light on the show than our almost two decades of nostalgic but deserved love. But since neither freelancer nor baby was available at press time (damn dial-up connection), it is yours truly's enviable burden to qualify why The Simpsons perseveres as one of the funniest, if not the funniest show ever conceived by mortal minds (the jury's still out on the creativity of Kang and Kodos' cadre of one-eyed aliens).
More even than its inventive humor, the key to the show's longevity is its sentimental but not gooey approach to storytelling and character development. In "Lisa the Vegetarian," for example, Lisa sabotages Homer's barbeque, which results in an unceremonious death for his prize pig. But rather than simply punctuating the episode with an iconic image of the porker soaring through the air, the writers actually develop a story into which the joke fits. The comedic effect is actually intensified because we care about the characters, are invested in the story, and primed for a great gag; so while imitators such as Family Guy are content to assail the audience with one goof after another without contextualizing the comedy in a legitimate narrative, The Simpsons secures its staying power long after the immediacy of a well-timed pop-culture jab has dissipated.
Included in Season Seven are the following episodes:
- Treehouse of Horror VI
- Two Bad Neighbors
- Bart on the Road
- Summer of 4 Ft. 2
My personal favorites from this season are the aforementioned "Radioactive Man" episode, as well as "22 Short Films About Springfield," "Homerpalooza," and "Treehouse of Horror VI," which features the CGI Homer tale as well as "Attack of the 50 Foot Eyesores ("don't scratch dem heads!"). But as far as the DVD sets released thus far are concerned, The Complete Season Seven features perhaps the most consistent collection of episodes available, and provides a terrific introduction for newbie freelancers and readers born between now and when I started this review. So both of you, get watching; meanwhile, the rest of us are already standing in line to fall in love with The Simpsons all over again - for the very first time.
Score: 10 out of 10
The Video
The Simpsons has always upheld high qualitative standards as far the presentation of the show is concerned, and Season Seven is no different, boasting a high-quality collection of transfers from start to finish. At the same time, some animated sequences - and not the excised pre-syndication footage, but random shots, including "deleted scenes" footage, reveal mastering inconsistencies; the resulting visual continuity isn't hugely erratic, but does occasionally prove distracting when immersed in the show's hermetically-sealed world. Otherwise, however, this set features the same superlative quality that was found in previous seasons.
Score: 8 out of 10
The Audio
The Complete Season Seven DVDs feature the same audio options offered in previous sets - Dolby Digital 5.1 Stereo Surround and Spanish and French Dolby Surround - and needless to say the quality is also just as high. Dialogue circulates mostly in the center channel while incidental noise, score and sound effects register modestly (but effectively) in the satellite speakers. An obvious benefit of watching the show on DVD is the opportunity to scan backwards and forwards through scenes to relive punch lines you missed have missed while laughing at others, but with a superlative sound mix the humor is conveyed even more clearly than during the original network broadcast.
Additionally, the discs offer English subtitles for the hearing impaired.
Audio: 9 out of 10
The Extras
Like previous Simpsons sets, Season Seven features a wealth of extra materials, including commentary tracks on all 25 episodes, deleted scenes, multiple languages and subtitles. These include long-awaited commentaries for episodes like "22 Short Films About Springfield" and the "Homer3" sequence from "Treehouse of Horror VI;" in the former, virtually the entire creative team piles into the commentary chamber to discuss how and why they created the show (evidently inspired by Flanders' time-filling short during Season Six), while in the latter, the animators observe that their computer-animated odyssey actually preceded the release of Toy Story, which is credited with launching the craze in CGI cartoons.
Additionally, the entire set features an introduction by none other than Matt Groening himself, who waxes poetic about his favorite moments in Season Seven (his favorite line of dialogue is Rainier Wolfcastle's anguished cry, "the goggles - they do nothing!").
In addition to the commentary tracks and Matt Groening's introduction, Disc One features the following extras:
- Picture-in-Picture Animatic
The highlight of this disc is obviously the extensive background information regarding the design and development of 3D Homer, and the extra material delivers and then some: the contributors really provide a historical context for the sequence, which was incredibly difficult and groundbreaking at the time, and then proceed to describe the various mathematical formulae that exist within the three-dimensional environment Homer explores.
Meanwhile, Paul McCartney's recipe for Lentil soup is mostly entertaining as a follow-up to the very funny "Lisa the Vegetarian," but the featurette's punctuating backwards dub of dialogue offers a clever in joke for Beatles fans.
Disc Two features deleted scenes in addition to episode-specific commentary tracks and no other extras. At the same time, what isn't completely clear is how many of the deleted scenes were excised completely from each show, and how many were part of the network broadcast and later cut for syndicated exhibition (this is a mystery that stretches across all four discs). Inexplicably, many of these deleted scenes feel very familiar - that is, like I've already seen them even though they supposedly make their debut on DVD; perhaps our readers can highlight which of these were shown before and which are completely new (due to time constraints, we weren't able to look through all of the myriad extra footage to discern new from old).
Disc Three features deleted scenes, commentary tracks and a "Super Illustrated Color Commentary" on "The Day the Violence Died." Disc Four, meanwhile, adds a special language feature (also seen on Season Six), an Animation Showcase that offers Picture-in-Picture storyboards or animatics, original sketches and "A Bit From the Animators," which allows the commentators to manipulate the episode "Summer of 4 Ft. 2" in order to point out specific directorial choices.
Meanwhile, there has been considerable controversy of the packaging for both Season Six and Seven, which come either in special packaging that resembles the head of a character (Homer for Six and Marge for Seven) or a more classically-styled box. We have no particular preference for one or the other, since the DVDs themselves are all the same once you crack open the collection, but the plastic on the "head"-style packages did begin to deteriorate quickly; so if you aren't going to lock up your DVDs in hermetically-sealed cabinets as soon as you buy them, you might want to stick with the tried and true cardboard box format.
Overall, however, the actual content is unsurpassed by almost any TV-on-DVD set currently available, so if you're looking for some good episodes of a great series, or in search of some spectacular commentaries, the four discs in The Complete Season Seven DVD set is a great place to start.
Score: 9 out of 10
