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Barney Miller - The First Season

Barney Miller - The First Season

List Price: $29.95
Your Price: $23.96
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: love the show
Review: Fantastic show! The mix of crime and humour. Also paved the way for "Hill Street Blues" another one of my favorites. Where is season two! It's been a year still waiting.......

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: a Good show
Review: I dug this show more so from when it first came on as to later years.it was a interesting way of telling the Force's story.the cast had good chemistry&this show worked really well for It's time period.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Smart, Funny Comedy That's a True Classic
Review: I just got the DVD today, and it's really nice to see Barney Miller, free of network logos, annoying voice-overs and split-screen credits. Not to mention the fact that the picture quality is better than on TV.

As you may know, Barney Miller is a great sitcom. The actors are so natural in their roles, right from the start. The writing is clever, very human and thoroughly funny. It's testament to the great writing that a show that takes place essentailly in one room can be engaging week after week. The ethnically diverse cast was also pretty radical for the time. No wonder this show is considered a classic. My sugggestion is shell out the $25 or so and buy it. There is so much great humor (and humanity) in the first season alone that it's worth the price, and the later seasons just kept getting better.

My one compaint about the DVD is that I noticed the first episode is only about 23 minutes. I'm assuming this episode is edited, because the other episodes I've watched so far run 25 minutes. Or maybe it originally ran this way?

I am really enjoying the DVD, and I'm Glad Columbia/TriStar did the right thing by releasing a well-produced season set of this landmark show. Its good to see the guys at the old one-two back on the beat.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Fantastic Show but POOR Reproduction
Review: I love this show and look forward to purchasing all seasons. However, note that the DVD's video reproduction is LESS THAN STELLAR! The picture quality seems faded and out of focus and not at all what one expects from the DVD experience. Even so, this is a must own season 1 set. Just don't expect to be blown away by the picture quality.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The best police show ever!
Review: I remember watching this show with my dad as a kid. Even though the first couple of seasons I dont remember, I rediscovered the show through TV Land and was thrilled when season 1 was brought out on DVD. I'm with everyone else, let's have the rest of the seasons! I had joined the Columbia House Library for this show on Video but I HATE when they put episodes out in not chronological order. They produced a handful of tapes and then stopped. Argh.

I really hope the rest of this show is brought out! The one episode I havent seen in years is the one with the man that thinks he's a werewolf. Brilliant.

May I just say that the world of entertainment lost a truly gifted actor when Jack Soo died.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Why can't they make them like this anymore?
Review: I've been waiting for Barney Miller to come out on DVD for a while and I'm not disappointed. Well, maybe a bit disappointed in the picture quality, but not in the show. Why, oh why, can't they produce a TV comedy with the same subtlety and intelligence as this show had so long ago. The only show that I can compare it to today might be the British "As Time Goes By". PLEASE Sony, put out the rest of this fine series as soon as possible!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Show!
Review: I've been waiting for Barney Miller to come to DVD and it was worth the wait. This was/is a very funny show. I hope they continue to release each and every season.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Season 1 Great!
Review: I've gone back and watched this set several times, and I crack up every time. This was easily one of the funniest shows on TV. I've written to Sony several times, and aside from the vague answer that the subsequent seasons will be released on DVD, they won't give a straight answer as to when that might be. It's been almost a year since season 1 came out, so we're well overdue for season 2. Has anyone else been able to get a firmer answer on a release schedule for the remaining seasons?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: there has never been a better sitcom
Review: It's disheartening to realize that what is arguably the greatest sitcom ever (there has surely never been a _better_ one) -- would almost certainly not have made it in today's market.

The first four episodes aren't very good. The Flicker/Arnold wit is present, but the overall tone is loud and raucous (as is the laugh track). Hal Linden - a broad and unsubtle actor - is given too many comic lines, which are not only inappropriate for a police captain, but which he handles poorly. The "goofy criminal" format is in place, but the plotting too often falls back on sitcom clichés. Wojo is stupid, obnoxious, and mean-spirited. And the impeccable comic timing the series was justly famous for is missing.

There's a good chance that, if these episodes were aired today, "Barney Miller" would not have time to "find itself" or build an audience, and ABC would kill it after a half-dozen episodes. We would never have had "Mooshi-mooshi!" or "Too many carbohydrates?" or "Oh, my God! I ate my eraser!" (Not really. On a 36" screen, you can see it's still there.)

Episode 5 marks the turning point. The arch, over-the-top tone is gone. There is no "plot" leading up to any sort of "payoff." Barney is more of a straight man reacting to the craziness going on around him, and his wife is on her way out. The laugh track is subdued; it sounds as if it's coming from a live audience watching the performance. Wojo is morphing into a complex, sympathetic character -- and we start to see what an exceptionally fine actor Max Gail is. (God, what cute little ears!) Most significantly, the show is not afraid to have a serious moment - in this episode, Wojo's fixation on reforming prostitutes, which would become a running story element. "Barney Miller" is _finally_ "Barney Miller" -- one of the finest examples of impossibly clever writing and inspired ensemble acting ever to grace American TV.

The improvement is so substantial that the last episode of the first season is one of the greatest sitcom episodes of all time. It handles a serious subject -- how does a policeman react to having to kill a criminal? -- and reduces the audience to tears.

One of the high-water marks in the history of television. Unhesitatingly and unreservedly recommended.

A note about picture quality... The image is slightly soft and occasionally smeary. ABC's cameras are badly adjusted, with severe misconvergence and poor inter-camera matching. There is noticeable improvement at episode 8, but the image is still (no surprise) not up current standards. My gut feeling is that "Barney Miller" always suffered from a lack of sharpness and detail, and whatever problems exist with this transfer were present in the original tapes. But my memory isn't perfect -- and 30 years ago I was watching on a Sony KV-1920, which, though one of the best color TVs of its day, was not appropriate for critical monitoring.

PS: My local Best Buy ordered exactly _one_ copy of Season 1, and it sat there for over a week until I bought it. If you want Sony to release the other six seasons, you'd better darned well buy _this_ one.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Welcome back, Barney!
Review: It's great to have the first season of Barney Miller back! Here's hoping the remaining seasons become available soon!


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