Give Me A Ring Sometime [HD]

The best first season of any TV situation comedy ever
"Cheers" is an atypical classic television situation comedy in that its first season (1982-83) is arguably its best. The show won the Emmys for Outstanding Comedy Series, Lead Actress in a Comedy Series: Shelley Long, Directing in a Comedy Series: James Burrows, "Showdown (Part 2)," Writing in a Comedy Series: Glen Charles, Les Charles, "Give Me a Ring Sometime," and even Outstanding Individual Achievement/Graphic Design and Title Sequences: James Castle, Bruce Bryant. This would explain why the series, which finished 75th in the Nielsens with a 13.1 rating, survived on NBC's Thursday night lineup.

Looking back on the series as a whole it becomes clear that one inherent advantage for "Cheers" was that no matter what joke the writers came up with there was the perfect character to tell it. If you had a sarcastic barb then that went to Carla (Rhea Perlman), a dumb comment would come out of the mouth of Coach (Nick Colasanto), the arcane bar...

At least all the episodes are here!
If you are Cheers fan, obviously this is a must have. Where else can you get every episode from the first season in one package? The lack of extras is unfortunate, but the reason I purchased the set and the reason I watch it is for the show itself.

Sadly, though, the episodes are not presented in their original order. How hard would it have been to put episodes 1-6 on disk 1, and so on? What's episode 7, Coach's Daughter, doing placed as the second selection of disk one? I may not watch every episode in order every single time I view the disks, but upon my first viewing I would have liked if I could watch the episodes in order without switching disks until I completed each disk.

After all these years, Cheers still sparkles
It has been a long wait for those of us addicted to Cheers. But patience is rewarded.

The clarity of the images makes it seem like one is watching each episode for the first time. It is easy to forget how REALLY good the first year was (and still is). The shows are very intelligent, noticeably more so than later years, and witty. It is fun to observe the inconsistencies in the characters -- in one episode Norm is clearly not married and Sam brings his "ex-wife" into the bar. But at the same time the characters, without the more clearly defined "roles" of later years, are often more interesting, most especially Carla.

I met Rhea Perlman and she was understandably not all that proud of the rather 2 dimensional Carla of the later years. Here the character is wise-cracking, but with more depth and Perlman's considerable talents have room to shine. Also, Coach is a a great character, expertly realised, and more. One episode has the scene with Coach and his daughter Lisa, who is "not...

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