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Rating: 
Summary: Lateline
Review: A very funny inteligent comedy. I can only guess that Lateline was ahead of its time. Considering some of the shows that have been held onto for more than one season it is a shame Lateline was not given more of a chance. NBC really screwed up.
The series only gets better as the viewer goes through the season. At the end I was depressed that the entire series is only 19 episodes. Lateline has a strong cast who play well off of each other, it's storylines are quite clever and the spoofs and satire of the media and politics are first rate.
I can only imagine what this show would have been like over the last few years. NBC really missed out letting this show go, its to bad HBO did not pick it up.
Rating: 
Summary: Al Can Laugh At Himself - Can We, Too?
Review: Al just recently released this DVD set of his "Lateline" TV series. It was an aborted sitcom, with all the quality and production values you'd expect from a sitcom, about a member of a TV news team. The writing is horrible, there is a laugh track, and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" did the exact same thing much better.
Al was wise to get someone else to play the Ted Baxter role, leaving him free to pursue an alter ego part: a wannabe correspondent who is so earnest about everything that folks cannot help but not want him around.
[What a country: it's a place where a guy can essentially create a persona like that and sell it effectively. My sister had a great term for it: an "annoyoid."]
I like buying DVDs and, strangely, I like watching the classic TV series (Dick van Dyke, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, maybe even Mary Tyler Moore) over and over, finding even more to like on repeated viewing. I could probably only watch this series once. Al compromises his comedic gifts into the standard 90s sitcom formula, and it's heartbreaking to watch the result.
On "Lateline," Al's character is doing a sequence on auto crash testing and an airbag blows up in his face. The TV news folks sample this footage, and show the bag clobbering Al over and over again in the production office. And they laugh uncontrollably.
My wife walked in and said, "Why are you laughing, you putz - that looks horrible."
I could only say, "You had to be there."
Rating:
Summary: What a Pleasant Surprise!
Review: I am really not a sitcom person, so it was easy to ignore "LateLine" when it aired. Ah, but on DVD at my own convenience, that's another story. But this is still the only sitcom compilation I own. I'm halfway through the episodes, and there's really not a bad episode yet.
Miguel Ferrer and Ajay Naidu are the strongest players ("Minister of Television" especially showcases Naidu), while Franken wisely leaves us wanting more of his character.
The impressive list of guest stars adds an element of magic to the show. Allison Janney was surprisingly sexy as a deranged fan determined to seduce "Al Freundlich" ("She wants me? Gale, nobody wants me.") There's much more to be said, but hey, it's just a sitcom. A damned good one.
Rating: 
Summary: An overlooked comedy gem
Review: Living in the UK, this was what most people would call a "blind buy" for me. I decided to purchase as I am a big fan of Al's "Stuart Saves His Family" - one of the better SNL spin-off movies. "Stuart Saves His Family" is a smart comedy that gets better with each viewing. I was hoping for more of the same from Al's TV series, "Lateline".
On the whole that's what I got. "Lateline" is a smart comedy with a strong cast, clever storylines and spoofs and satire on news reporting.
The cast is led by Al Frankin as Al Freundlich, the browbeaten, clumsy chief correspondent for the show who somehow manages to report on the big stories. Al is joined by Falcon Crest star Robert Foxworth as the arrogant Pearce McKenzie, Miguel Ferrer as Vic Karp the show's producer and Megan Price as Gale, Al's producer. My favorite character is Catherine Lloyd Burns as Mona, Pearce's smitten mousey assistant.
There's some gems in here - the best episode probably being the one where vain Lateline anchorman Pearce McKenzie becomes a little too keen on appearing on the Conan show (this episode features hilarious guest spots from Conan O'Brian), but there's also lots of other moments and episodes that are almost as good including; Al meeting a besotted fan, Al and Vic going to prison for refusing to name a source and Ajay being held hostage in a sexual relationship with Pearce's latest beauty queen pick up.
However, like most comedies it takes a while for the characters, actors and writers to settle into their roles. The first few episodes are where everybody was finding their feet and this quite clearly shows, as these are of a much lower quality, and ironically considering it's Al's show, there's too much emphasis on his character, Al Freundlich. It's only in the later episodes, where more emphasis is placed on the ensemble that the show really takes off and is free to become what it should have been conceived as; featuring and focussing on a large ensemble, where every character is just as important as the other. I urge all purchasers not to judge the program based on the first few episodes.
From the second disc onwards I was hooked, and when I'd finally seen all 19 episodes (including 4 which have never been transmitted on television) I was sorry it was over. I can't really understand why this would have been pulled from the schedules; I understand it received lots of positive comments from critics. Perhaps ultimately it was just too intelligent to support a large audience?
Rating:
Summary: One Of The Best Sitcoms You Didn't Watch!
Review: NBC's critically-acclaimed-but-low-rated "Lateline", which deftly and hilariously spoofed all facets of late-night television news programs, was one of those unfortunate quality shows that simply was a casualty of sub-par scheduling shuffles and network support. Too bad too, cause the show had the necessary dynamics (great cast, sharp & hilarious writing) to run as long as say, CBS's "Murphy Brown". This DVD is definitely a welcome treat for me, as there are plenty of episodes I missed out on and never got the opportunity to watch in first-run.The incredible cast includes Al Franken ("Saturday Night Live") as lovable goofball Al Freundlich, the chief correspondent; Robert Foxworth ("Falcon Crest") as the hilariously vain and pompous Pearce McKenzie, anchorperson; Catherine Lloyd Burns ("Partners") as Mona, Pearce's secretary; Miguel Ferrer ("Robocop") as Vic Karp, the gung ho executive producer; Megyn Price ("Grounded For Life") as Gale, the sensible segment producer; Sanaa Lathan ("Love & Basketball") as Briana the booker; and Ajay Naidu as scene-stealing Raji, the production assistant. With all 19 episodes from the series (including 4 never-before-aired episodes), maximize fun with this politically-charged sitcom released in time for the 2004 Presidential elections.
Guest stars include Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader, Martin Sheen (The West Wing), Rob Reiner, Vanessa Williams, Conan O'Brien, and many more! This 3-disc collection has a running time of about 7 hours. Full-screen video, Dolby Digital Stereo, and closed captioning for the hearing impaired. Highly recommended!
Rating: 
Summary: 19 episodes? Why so many?
Review: This is more a review of the reviews, as I would not watch Al Franken on a bet. The Democratic Party in 2004 lost a close election, but clearly a majority of Americans rejects the message from that political party out of hand. Thus, the Al Franken media empire pretty much is written and produced specifically for a minority market. I was not surprised to find a small minority of reviewers to be critical of Al's work. Most Americans react to Al Franken just like we do to Michael Moore, with visceral disgust for the left-wing idiocy and immorality that permeates his work. Most reviewers here, though, carry their radical socialist politics on their sleeves. American "mass media" have actually already driven away a lucrative segment of their potential audience with their leftist cultural sewer.
It still is startling that NBC, Showtime, HBO, etc. bowed to economics and pulled the plug on this low-rated show, instead of subsidizing the unwatchable for ideological reasons.
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