By Ken Shallcross
Oh boy. Are you ready for a rant? There is absolutely zero value in this DVD
set, and I am about to tell you why…
For starters, in case you have been living under a rock,
The Simpsons seasonal DVD sets have
been surfacing for the better half of the last 10 years at a rate of one to
three releases a year. So far, the first 12 seasons have been released on DVD.
Each one is brimming with extras, including audio commentary on every episode,
animatics, delete scenes, featurettes and lots more. They have always been a
shining example of what other TV-shows-on-DVD sets should aspire to. [NOTE:
Visit this
page for a list of our Simpsons sets reviews.]
In the middle of the
20th season's original broadcast run, the series made the jump to high definition!
Fans couldn't have been more pleased… but something inside the minds
of the DVD creators must have tweaked or gone on the fritz, because what
they did was the worst… idea… ever. Skipping seasons 14 - 19, a bare
bones 20th season DVD set went into production.
The Simpsons: 20 Years - the Complete Twentieth
Season has now been released on Blu-ray and DVD, completely devoid of
any bonus material! That's right, there are no commentaries, animatics, delete
scenes, featurettes or anything else. To make matters worse, FOX
sent us the DVD
version to review, which has even less value than the Blu-ray due to the
lesser-quality video (see below for more on that).
THE SERIES:
Skipping exposition on the series here - if you don't know
what The
Simpsons is, why are you reading a review on the 20th
season's DVD set?
THE EPISODES:
The 20th season of The Simpsons aired in
the 2008 - 2009 season. Episodes in airdate order are: "Sex, Pies and Idiot
Scrapes," "Lost Verizon," "Double, Double, Boy in Trouble," "Treehouse of Horror
XIX," "Dangerous Curves," "Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words," "Mypods and
Boomsticks," "The Burns and the Bees," "Lisa the Drama Queen," "Take My Life,
Please," "How the Test Was Won," "No Loan Again, Naturally," "Gone Maggie Gone,"
"In the Name of the Grandfather," "Wedding for Disaster," "Eeny Teeny Maya Moe,"
"The Good, the Sad and the Drugly," "Father Knows Worst," "Waverly Hills
9-0-2-1-D'oh," "Four Great Women and a Manicure" and "Coming to Homerica."
SOUND + VISION:
The
video is the second big debacle (after the missing bonus features)
in this DVD set.
Because of the way Simpsons episodes
are produced, each season actually starts off with the last few episodes produced
for the previous season. This is due to the long turn-around time of the animated series.
The 20th season's first nine episodes are actually left over from the 19th season's
production. Thus, the first nine episodes here are presented in 4:3 Full Frame. In the past, I
have remarked that the episodes look good considering the source and age. Up
until recently, all of the sets hailed (for the most part)
from the 1990s. But this set feels rushed. Dare I say the
episodes don't look as good as I thought they would. But
that is nothing in comparison to how poor the second half
of the set looks…
The big rush on this
set was for the benefit of Blu-ray owners (like me); this set is the first
chance to own Simpsons episodes in high definition. But if you just
buy the DVD set, well, this is just another show in 16x9
Widescreen. The episodes look nowhere near as good as they did
in the original HD broadcast, and only half as good as
they would on Blu-ray.
Bottom line: if you are still
a non-Blu-ray household, know that the video quality for the DVD
set is not as good as the HD broadcast. So ask yourself:
what's the point of buying a set on standard definition DVD
that was purposely rushed into stores for the HD-audience, specifically, the
1080p visuals on Blu-ray.
Thankfully, audio is the same here
as on all previous releases: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, Spanish,
Portuguese and French Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround. Subtitles are available in
English, Spanish and Portuguese.
PACKAGING/ LAYOUT:
So after the terrible packaging of Season 11,
the DVD producers made alterations for a very nicely packaged Season 12.
But as if to try and get us on all fronts, they have slightly altered the packaging
again… and again, it's for the worst.
Packaging for The Simpsons: 20 Years - the
Complete Twentieth Season utilizes the six-panel accordion style
digipak. Discs are easy to slide out and the wonderful booklet is still present
(apparently they skipped out on it for the Blu-ray - for shame!), but the
digipak is held in a fully closed cardboard box, which then slips into a plastic
sleeve. So you have to take the box out of the sleeve, open the box, and take
out the digipak, all to remove a disc. It's a cumbersome, lengthy process. They
should have just exactly duplicated the near perfection that was exhibited in
the Season
12 release (which
did not have a fully closed box).
Artwork is of a celebratory/look-back nature. Menus are the same style as the
last few sets. Nothing worth noting there.
As always, Simpsons episodes run
21-22 minutes and are split into 6 chapters each. The Simpsons: 20 Years
- the Complete Twentieth Season
runs a total of 456 minutes.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
The only item in the entire set that
is not an actual episode is a preview for the already-aired "20th Anniversary
Special" (3:31), created by Morgan Spurlock. I believe I have already covered
the extreme lameness of this part of the set.
D'OH!
So what's the point? There is none… not for the
DVD at least. I never thought I would say this, but this Simpsons DVD set is
'nothing but episodes.' Unless you are such a rabid die-hard fan that you must
have access to every Simpson's episode at any time, there is no need for this
set. The complete lack of what has come to be expected bonus features and just
barely average video make this set an all-around loser. It's a blatant cash
grab. Please do not waste your money on this set. Wait until they decide to
release the 20th season in proper style, or wait for the price to drop to $10…
or go buy a Blu-ray player first, and then contemplate buying the bare-bones
Blu-ray version - at least then the video will be worth the price.
SERIES SEASON SCORE: B
DVD SOUND + VISION SCORE: C-
DVD PACKAGING/
LAYOUT SCORE: B-
DVD SPECIAL FEATURES SCORE: F
OVERALL DVD
SCORE: D-
