The Bob Newhart Show - The Complete Third Season
by Peter Bonerz, Alan Rafkin, Bob Finkel, George Tyne, James Burrows
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Bill Daily, Bob Newhart, Marcia Wallace, Peter Bonerz, Suzanne PleshetteDirector: Alan Rafkin, Bob Finkel, George Tyne, James Burrows, Peter Bonerz
Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
Writer: Arnie Kogen
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 1.0; Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 610 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-04-11
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of The Bob Newhart Show - The Complete Third Season
Movie Review: Season Three not pivotal
Summary: 3 Stars
Seems that most long-running and successful sitcoms got it down by the third season. Yes, the *characters* have solidified, but strangely in this season, the writing seems, in too many cases, to be for *any* TV sitcom character.
Each episode has one or two classic lines, and there are some entertaining sight gags here and there. And, of course, Newhart's incredible one-two punch of delivery and reaction is a great feature, actually what drives the show.
Particularly curious are the roles of Hartley's sister and next-door-neighbor. "Ellen" is attractive and spirited but has little to do or say, and her fiance, "Howard", is impossibly eccentric. Sitcoms all seem to have a wacky neighbor down the hall, but this guy bounds into the Hartley living room to slow down the show and deliver silly soliloques. And to make it worse, he's given tight one-shots, instead of long shots which include Bob reading the newspaper, which changes the focus of the scene to Bob's reaction, not Howard's babbling.
Doctor Hartley's best foils were the staff at the office: the Dentist Jerry and the Receptionist Carol, always engaging. Indeed, one of the best moments in Season Three, and for my money, in TV history, is the scene in "Life Is A Hamburger", where Jerry and Carol passionately kiss when all other guests have left the engagement party. Carol's fiance, a wanna-be poet with nothing to say *or* write has departed, and the romantic move is mutual and real. Was it real, suppressed feeling coming to the surface because of the emotionality of the get-together, or a kind of relief that the door has been re-opened for some possible future occasion for them? The scene is quiet but the body language is impactful. Two fine actors.
The worst episode is "Emily Hits The Ceiling", where Emily is a summer camp planner and tries to enlist Bob as a Counselor. A bad premise, replete with foolish dialogue, including too much from Howard, in Native-American dress, providing all the stereotypical stuff you can imagine.
Runner-up is "Vote Smartly - Think Hartley": more uninspired writing and direction, in a bit about Bob being persuaded to run for Chairman of the local School Board because the incumbent has been a no-show.
Not to end this review on the downbeat, a very good show is "Serve For Daylight", about a charity Tennis Tournament with Bob trying to suppress his mad desire to win the trophy, then quickly losing it because wife nad tennis-partner Emily had tennis lessons which were...non-productive.
Interesting featurette with Bob Newhart around 2005, summing up the series. You might remark that he looks in shape to do another sitcom...but then realize that male-centered TV comedy is out.
Summary of The Bob Newhart Show - The Complete Third Season
Bob Newhart is back as successful Chicago psychologist Dr. Robert Hartley in the third season of this hilarious '70s sitcom. As the good doctor continues working with his patients on their issues, he continues to be a "master of denial" concerning his own personal issues at home. But Bob is finally forced to accept the fact that he may have a problem or two when his obsessive-compulsive behavior and inferiority complex cause his self-doubt to soar-and his patient list to shrink. Maybe it's finally time he took his wife's advice and scheduled a psychologist appointment of his own!It's more of the same in this box set from the third season of The Bob Newhart Show. That's altogether a good thing, as the mid-'70s series (these 24 episodes, compiled on three discs, come from 1974-75) remains a model of restraint in a sea of sit-com overkill, then and now. What a pleasure, not to mention a relief, it is to watch a comedy that manages to be more than a frantic cavalcade of shrill one-liners, would-be witty repartee, and endless sexual innuendo. Not that the show (the first of his two long-running series; Newhart followed in 1982), isn't funny. As Bob Hartley, Newhart brings his usual repertoire of deadpan takes, mild physical shtick, and exquisite timing to the part of a sometimes reticent, often confused Chicago psychologist who's not a whole lot more comfortable in his own skin than some of his group therapy patients; it's his equanimity as a performer that keeps the character amusing without going over the top. And while the other roles (including the reliable Suzanne Pleshette as wife Emily, Peter Bonerz as bachelor orthodontist Jerry Robinson, and Bill Daily as neighbor Howard Borden) are also well-defined, this is genuinely an ensemble program, dependent more on the characters' interactions than on the storylines and gags. Without a doubt, some of it will seem dated; when Emily (Pat Finley) moves in with Howard across the hall, the buttoned-up Bob treats his thirtysomething sister as if she were his teenage daughter, a dynamic that will hardly ring true these days. But The Bob Newhart Show makes no effort whatsoever to be hip. Indeed, its very squareness (cf. Bob's ironic description of one of Emily's outfits as "boss threads") is a big part of its charm, as is the fact that this is first and foremost a show for grownups. Bonus features include commentary (by Newhart and others) on five episodes, as well as a "making of" featurette. Nothing special, but with well over ten hours of material, the set is still a bargain. --Sam Graham
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