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The Single Best DVD in Creation? A Scientific Conclusion |
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Dr. Samuel Says -
Arts & Science
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Friday, 03 October 2008 |
Well, I just finished up one of my biggest and most ambitious research projects this week. This is a task that has taken me, literally, an entire calendar year to complete. I worked in fits and starts, but usually devoted several hours every week to the project. On balance, I must say this has been the most rewarding experiment in recent years. To wit: I watched Seinfeld -- The Complete Series DVD box set. Yes; all of it.
I concede this is only tangentially relevant to consumer technology,
but in my defense I did watch the DVD on several different platforms:
Our big five-disc home theater system, a variety of Windows laptops, my
MacBook, and the little portable DVD player we keep around for the lab
monkeys. (They love Discovery Channel discs.)
 Seinfeld is generally considered to be the best sitcom of all time, in
terms of raw popular success and critical appraisal, and you won't get
any argument from me. Rather miraculously, the complete series DVD box
set is equally impeccable, filled with more than 100 hours (!) of
detailed, compelling extras. But at 33 discs and 180 episodes, it's a
big time investment. After completion on my Herculean task, I feel
compelled -- in the name of consumer advocacy -- to pass along my
hard-earned knowledge.
At many rental stores, and via online services like Netflix, you can
dip into the Seinfeld collection one disc at a time. But because the
extras are scattered throughout the series, it's hard to know which
exact disc to rent. So I've narrowed down the set into a few critical
discs. Here's a sampler, and -- if you're well-behaved, gentle reader
-- I'll drop some additional recommendations in future posts.
Season 3, Disc 4
Season 3, most fans agree, is when “Seinfeld” really started hitting on
all cylinders. Disc 4 has six solid episodes, all with additional with
commentaries and trivia. Most compelling is the 21-min documentary
“Kramer vs. Kramer: Kenny to Cosmo,” a revealing look at the Kramer
character, as invented by actor Michael Richards. As cast and crew
discuss the evolution of the character, it's clear that Richards was
every bit as intense and eccentric as the character -- a solitary
comedic technician who rehearsed physical bits for hours and demanded
professionalism from everyone around him. Icing on the cake: This is
one of only a handful of individual disks that features a blooper reel.
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