Get a Life: The Complete Series

[Ubiquitous]

The complete series wil be available next week:

http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/getlifecompleteseries.php

Premiering in the early(ish) days of the Fox network, there was
absolutely nothing like Get a Life on TV when it showed up in 1990. In
fact, there hasn't really been much like it on TV since�but many network
sitcoms have come closer to what Get a Life was trying to accomplish in
the years since. It is, in many ways, the precursor to now-beloved shows
like 30 Rock and Arrested Development, pushing the format forward, never
compromising its sense of humor and offering something viewers couldn't
find anywhere else. It was practically designed to be a cult show.

Get a Life stars Chris Elliott (There's Something About Mary) as Chris
Peterson, a thirty-something man-child living above his parents' garage
and delivering newspapers for a living. His best friend is Larry (Sam
Robards, American Beauty), whose wife, Sharon (Robin Riker, Alligator)
passionately hates Chris. It's with good reason, too; he is selfish and
immature, clueless, arrogant and, at times, borderline psychotic. And
he's the main character of a situation comedy. In the 35 episode run of
Get a Life, he'll lead a police chase, defeat a murderous
paper-delivering robot, get trapped in a submarine (in his bathtub),
become the most hated man in the big city, get turned out as a male model
and, of course, die.

Like a live-action version of The Simpsons, there is no story too silly
or bizarre for Get a Life. In fact, the show usually went out of its way
to be as offbeat as possible, but avoided the trap of being weird for
weirdness' sake. It presented us with an utterly unsympathetic
protagonist with a complete inability to learn, change or grow. It had no
interest in serializing its storylines; every week, every new episode was
basically a reset. As can be expected, Get a Life only gets better as it
goes along, partly because the show continued to refine its voice, partly
because it was growing more confident in its absurdist tone and partly
because, at some point, the writing was on the wall that the show wasn't
long for the world and everyone involved decided to go all in on the
crazy darkness of the humor. Had the show continued beyond two seasons
(more like a season and a half, really), I'm not sure the momentum could
be sustained�after all, where else was the show going to go?�but for
these 35 episodes, it's pretty sublime. The fact that it existed at all
feels like some sort of mistake.

The show's cult status and long-delayed DVD release has given Get a Life
a reputation to which it would be difficult to live up; many of us have
memories of being floored by how audacious and bizarre and funny it was
in the early '90s and haven't been able to confirm whether or not our
memories are accurate for 20 years. The reality is that the series isn't
quite as funny as we remember it being, but also that it's exactly the
show we remember it being. One of the first episodes I can remember
seeing (which, it turns out, was pretty late in the series' run) involved
Chris befriending an alien who can't stop throwing up pus on everyone and
everything. And it was hilarious. That's the kind of show Get a Life was
and is, and it's a miracle that it ever even got on the air. The fact
that it was canceled pretty quickly wasn't so much a surprise as it was a
forgone conclusion. A show like this doesn't really even stand a chance
on the air now, much less in a TV landscape dominated by Full House,
Murphy Brown and Murder, She Wrote.

All 35 uncut episodes of Get a Life's two seasons on air are included on
the "un-special non-anniversary edition" of Get a Life: The Complete
Series, spread out over six discs. The shows are offered in their
original 1.33:1 full frame TV format, and look about as good (maaaybe a
little better) as old VHS tapes. That sounds like a huge knock to the
transfers, but it's not; it's a 20-year-old show that didn't cost much to
begin with and to which little restoration has been done, and it's fine.
Not great. Not even good all the time. But fine, and it gets the job
done. The 2.0 audio track delivers everything up in the front and center,
and though it sounds somewhat thin, it, too, is serviceable. This is not
a first-rate presentation by any means, but it's acceptable, and if it
means finally having Get a Life on DVD, I'll take it.

Shout! Factory has done its usual strong job on creating extras for the
set. Every one of the 35 episodes comes with a commentary track, most of
which are from producer/writer/director David Mirkin (an alum of The
Simpsons and future director of Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion).
There's a lot of information and anecdotal stuff here, so much so that
Mirkin often pauses an episode and talks over a freeze frame for several
minutes. For several scenes throughout the fun, Mirkin is joined by
psychologist Dr. Wendy Walsh, who provides analysis for just what is
wrong with Chris Peterson. It's a silly gimmick, but kind of amusing in
how it applies series psychological principles to such a goofy show.
Every episode is also playable without a laugh track, which is a really
interesting exercise. The laugh track is clearly out of place on the
show, but the episodes don't play the same without it; yes, it takes the
show out if its early '90s context and makes it feel more contemporary
(like future single-camera, laugh track-free sitcoms The Office, 30 Rock
and Arrested Development), but it messes with the timing. There are long
gaps of silence where there shouldn't be. Still, it's a cool addition and
proof that the people at Shout! Factory understand how ahead of its time
Get a Life was.

Several extended retrospective documentaries have been included, most of
which can be found on the sixth and final disc, and featuring the likes
of Mirkin, James L. Brooks and Judd Apatow. First up is "Looking for
Noise," which covers the beginning of the show and places it in the
context of the Fox network at that time (and even features comments from
two former Fox executives). "Death of Life" focuses on the other side of
the run, when the show was canceled after two seasons and developed a
devoted cult following. The two documentaries together run for nearly an
hour in total. A third featurette, which runs almost an hour by itself,
is called "Horrible Secrets from the Writers' Room" and features Mirkin
and writers Steve Pepoon and Jace Richdale, who talk about writing the
show and discuss their theories of comedy overall. It's a pretty great
conversation. The final featurette is a panel discussion from Paleyfest
2000, featuring Mirkin, Pepoon, Richdale, co-star Brian Doyle-Murray, Bob
Odenkirk and Oscar-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, who was a writer
on the show.

Notice something from the description of the disc's supplemental
material? There's no Chris Elliot. Anywhere. He doesn't participate in
any of the bonus features, and that's a bummer, since the show was such
an expression of his comic voice. It's hard to imagine any Get a Life
retrospective without any memories from him, and, yet, here we are. It's
a testament to the work that Shout! Factory has done that the extra
features are so good even without Elliott, but he is sorely missed.

Finally, there are script excerpts from three episodes.

Shout! Factory really must be commended for once again bringing a
long-unavailable television series to DVD, and doing their usual great
job of packing it with bonus content. There really is no other studio
that can touch them when it comes to this stuff. The release of Get a
Life: The Complete Series is sure to delight everyone who watched it in
the early '90s (all 20 of us) and who have waited years to see it again.
Anyone who never saw it might be left scratching their heads as to what
all the fuss was about, but if you're a fan of cutting-edge comedy and
missed it during its run, now's the chance to see one of TV's great lost
gems. It's far from a perfect show, but I'll take this kind of
imperfection over almost anything that's been on Fox since. Not you,
Arrested Development. Yes you, New Girl.


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