The Good
This show certainly lost something when James Evans, Sr. “departed,” but I still enjoyed what they tried to do with it.
The Bad
No special features came with this DVD set.
Norman Lear was truly gifted. He had a way of creating shows that showed things within the culture that we knew were there, but sadly, they didn’t find there way on to TV until Lear had the guts (and the pull) to get them on there.
Good Times was one of those shows that showed us African American culture in a way that we had never seen it. It was raw, gritty and it said things that other shows at the time couldn’t or wouldn’t say. Then, due to a conflict between show creator Lear and John Amos, Amos was killed off and a lot of the bite and impact left the show. In this, Good Times: The Complete Sixth Season, the show was coming to an end and it had sadly become the kind of sitcom that it seemed it precisely did not want to be.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
The Evans’ family was still in the ghetto, J.J. was dreaming of becoming a big artist, Thelma was married but living at home with her husband Keith, Michael was still trying to advance the cause of Black people, Florida was still spreading sunshine and Willona was trying to be the best mom she could be. While nothing really happened in this season that stirred the pot like it did when Amos was around, this three disc set is still enjoyable and worth adding the collection.
Features
No extra features came with this DVD.
Video
1.33:1. I was a little disappointed by the picture quality on these discs. Overall, it was fine, the colors were muted and didn’t seem any less sharp than how they look in syndication. The problem that I found was that in a few episodes a weird light thing would appear on the bottom edges of the screen. I don’t think the compression had anything to do with this, I think it’s more the fault of poor handling of the DVD’s initial assets. Now, considering that other shows like Perry Mason can look basically pristine, there is no reason why a show that came out 20 or so years later, shouldn’t look equally as good. Unless of course the whole issue of black and white vs. color has come into play.
Audio
Dolby Digital. Close Captioned. Interestingly, I had turn up my TV a lot louder than I normally do. I can’t really pinpoint why this was as most of the other DVDs I have reviewed from Sony have been really well leveled. The sound wasn’t bad it just seemed overly lower than normal. Once I turned it up (going way past the halfway mark), everything was fine for each of the subsequent discs.
Package
The main cast sits on a couch on this simple front cover with the title Good Times looming above them. The back cover offers up some pictures from the show, as well as a description bringing us up to date with where the characters are in their lives. A piece of packaging with three separate trays for all the discs unfolds out of the box, and it contains an episode index and description of each show. The best part about this packaging was the wedding portrait featuring Florida, Keith, Thelma, J.J. and Willona.
Final Word
My biggest bone of contention with this final season is the last episode. While I didn’t find “The End of the Rainbow” as jolting as the final episode of Roseanne, I just didn’t buy the coincidental nature of Willona and Florida ending up as neighbors in an upper-class apartment building. Not that I don’t think that that is possible, but so much of this show was predicated on showing the rough breaks that people were having to deal with. I think that to artificially tie up this show like they did, really undercuts what Good Times was all about in the first place.
Six years is a long time and it’s hard to keep anything shiny, bright and new forever but this was a show that seemed like it could have concluded itself in a less conventional way.
Good Times was released .
