Everybody Loves Raymond-Complete Seventh Season (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Audio Deleted Scenes-For 7 episodes Audio Commentary-For 4 episodes Outtakes
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	547:47
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered Multi Disc Set (5)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Gary Halvorson Will Mackenzie Jerry Zaks Kenneth R. Shapiro
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	None Given
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Rick Marotta Terry Trotter

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Dutch Finnish Norwegian Portuguese Swedish English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, some episodes

    This seventh season of Everybody Loves Raymond is a fantastic season of a great sitcom in its prime. This season alone attracted 13 Emmy nominations and won five, including two for Doris Roberts & Brad Garrett and of course the overall Outstanding Comedy Series award. The show has since folded at the end of the Ninth season. This season was first shown on US television in 2002/03.

    Everybody Loves Raymond is a domestic sitcom, set around the titular character, Ray Barone (Ray Romano) and his family. The title is meant to be sarcastic and comes from Ray's older brother constantly being jealous of his success, family and popularity.

    The main characters are:

• Ray Barone (Ray Romano) - Ray is a reasonably successful sports writer who writes for a New York Newspaper and lives on Long Island with his wife and children. Unfortunately, his parents and older brother live directly across the road. Ray has a good heart but is not the best husband and father on the face of the planet, tending to try to avoid helping around the house and being much more interested in watching sport on television or sneaking off with his friends to play golf or some other sport. Ray tends to play the straight man to the rest of the family's eccentricities.
• Debra Barone (Patricia Heaton) - Ray's long suffering wife. Debra not only has to cope with a five year old daughter, Ally and 2 year old twin boys but also with Ray and his incredibly difficult family. Debra came from a well-to-do and cultured family and finds adjusting to Ray's less cultured family difficult, especially taking into account their eccentric and intrusive behaviour. The quality of Debra's cooking and her housekeeping abilities are constantly picked on by Marie.
• Robert Barone (Brad Garrett) - Ray's older brother who was previously married but is now divorced. He is bitter about his lot in life and blames most of his misfortune on Ray. He has many strange habits such as touching every bite of food that he eats to his chin before placing it in his mouth. He is a policeman.
• Alexandra 'Ally' Barone (Madylin Sweeten) - Ray & Debra's daughter. Madylin Sweeten is slightly precocious but not in the over-the-top way that some child actors can be. Her younger twin brothers in real life, Sawyer & Sullivan Sweeten, play her younger twin brothers on the show.
• Marie Barone (Doris Roberts) - Ray & Robert's mother. Marie is manipulative, interfering, controlling, critical of everyone around her, especially Debra, and has a power over her sons which stems from her ability to create guilt. She is also a great cook. Marie sees nothing wrong with turning up at Ray & Debra's at any time. A critical character to the success of the series. In her mind, everything she does comes from love.
• Frank Barone (Peter Boyle) - Ray & Robert's father. Frank is a slob with some annoying and obnoxious habits such as undoing his trousers while watching television, even while he is in someone else's house. Frank is the only member of the family (other than Debra) who stands up to Marie on a regular basis. He has not been much of a father to Ray & Robert as he tends to look after himself first at the expense of others. He has a love/hate relationship with Marie with the two are constantly sparring. He loves her cooking.
• Amy MacDougall (Monica Horan, the wife of creator Phil Rosenthal) - Robert's on-again, off-again girlfriend and Debra's best friend. During this season we meet her puritanical parents (her father is played by Fred Willard, a very funny actor) and oddball brother. Her character becomes more important as her relationship with Robert restarts and gets more serious.

    Most of the comedy stems from the difficult and sometimes painful interactions between these characters, and interestingly a lot of the situations and even character traits come from the actual families of Ray Romano, Phil Rosenthal and the other writers. Unlike most of the other seasons, a vast majority of the episodes in this series do not have a credit sequence at the beginning. A few have one based around the song Jungle Love but its nowhere near as good as some of the classic ones of the other series.

    This series includes 25 episodes, all of just under 23 minutes duration each (except the final double episode which runs for 32 minutes). This time the episodes are spread over five discs.

    In detail, the episodes included are:

Disc 1

1.The Cult - Robert joins a self-help group to find happiness but the family get very worried about him.

2.Counseling - Ray & Debra's friends Bernie and Linda have been going to marriage counselling and this encourages Debra to want to go. Very funny.

3.Homework - Ray complains about the amount of homework Ally is getting because he needs to spend time helping her.

4.Pet the Bunny - The kids find a eulogy that Ray wrote about Frank. A funny, Frank-focused episode.

5.Who Am I?- Debra thinks Ray is finally growing up and takes him to a lecture which doesn't go well. Ray starts to worry about where he really belongs.

Disc 2

6.Robert Needs Money - Robert is having money problems due to a cut back in overtime in the police force. Debra wants Ray to help him.

7.The Sigh - Debra shows her frustration with Ray by sighing loudly which leads to him moving out of their bathroom.

8.The Annoying Kid - New friends of Ray & Debra visit with their son who Ray finds annoying. Really the only sub-par episode in the whole season.

9. She's The One - Robert is going out with a girl who he thinks might be 'The One', but Ray sees her doing something weird.

10.Marie's Vision - Amy and Robert are back together. Marie is having vision problems but everyone is afraid to point it out.

Disc 3

11. The Thought That Counts - Ray organises an expensive present for Marie's birthday but it does not go down well with anyone.

12.Grandpa Steals - Frank helps himself to a snack in a supermarket and the shop assistant accuses him of stealing. Ally witnesses the fallout.

13.Somebody Hates Raymond - Ray's friend, Andy gets a job on a new sports show. Ray gets rejected as a guest because the host says he hates him.

14.Just a Formality - Classic episode in which Robert asks Amy's parents for her hand in marriage but it doesn't go according to plan.

15.The Disciplinarian - Ray is having trouble disciplining the kids. When he tries to he overreacts.

Disc 4

16.Meeting the Parents - Another classic episode in which Frank and Marie are going to Amy's place for lunch and her parents turn up unannounced.

17.Sweet Charity - Debra wants Ray to volunteer for charity work. He initially resists but starts to enjoy it.

18.The Plan - Amy puts Robert in charge of organising the wedding invitations. Frank & Ray advise him to stuff it up so Amy takes it over.

19.Sleepover at Peggy's - Ally is going to a sleepover at the house of a woman who Ray dislikes. She pats his bottom and Ray freaks out.

20.Who's Next? - One of Marie's friends dies and she is especially upset because she had decided the woman should replace her, as Frank's wife, if she dies.

Disc 5 

21.The Shower - Debra organises a bridal shower for Amy but Marie tries to do it as well. Debra ends up in jail.

22.Baggage - Very funny episode. Ray & Debra return from a weekend away but then have a drawn out fight over who should put the bag away. Emmy award winner for writing.

23.The Bachelor Party - Ray is in charge of organising the bachelor party but, of course, things don't go very well.

24&25.Robert's Wedding - The double episode finale of the season.

    This is a very funny TV series and definitely one of the best US comedy series in recent years. To my mind this series has great replay value as despite having seen most of these episodes before, I greatly enjoyed them. Highly Recommended.

Video

    The video quality is good.

    The feature is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio, 16x9 enhanced, which is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was reasonably clear and sharp throughout, with no evidence of low level noise. The backgrounds were fairly soft and appeared to be afflicted by grain and some macro-blocking. The shadow detail was good.

    The colours were quite bright and vibrant with no major issues to report.

    Artefacts other than those already mentioned were restricted to some white spots and marks. These were irregular.

    There are subtitles in seven languages, including English and English for the hearing impaired. The English subtitles were clear and easy to read and very close to the spoken word.

    The layer changes occur between episodes or are very well hidden.
    

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is perfectly suited to the material.

    This DVD contains an English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround soundtrack encoded at 192 Kb/s.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand and there was no problem with audio sync. Obviously, in a comedy show this is the most important audio item and it comes through here with flying colours.

    The score of this series by Rick Marotta features the theme tune and some other incidental music. It does its job without standing out particularly.

    The surround speakers added some mild atmosphere.

    The subwoofer added some bass to the theme tune but this is a function of my amplifier's bass management rather than the soundtrack.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    The extras are located on all five discs. All the extras are 4x3.

Menu

    The menu included scenes from the shows, stills of the actors, the ability to select each episode, and a plot synopsis of each episode.

Disc 1

Episode 1 - Deleted Scene (2:12)

    A funny scene where Gerard introduces Robert to the cult.

Episode 2 - Commentary

    This commentary is by Ray Romano and creator Phil Rosenthal along with writer Mike Royce. An average commentary which is more jokey than informative although does include details of the inspiration for this episode.

Disc 2

Episode 6 - Deleted Scenes (1:36)

    2 very funny scenes.

Episode 10 - Deleted Scenes (0:44)

    Funny but unnecessary.

Disc 3

Episode 13 - Deleted Scene (0:34)

    Pointless.

Episode 14 - Commentary

    This commentary is by Ray Romano and creator Phil Rosenthal along with both their wives. Amusing but not overly informative. They discuss how this episode was based on both their marriages and includes some trivia.

Disc 4

Episode 16 - Deleted Scene (0:36)

    Includes one top quality line.

Episode 16 - Commentary

    This commentary is by Ray Romano and creator Phil Rosenthal along with Fred Willard (Hank) and Chris Elliott (Peter). Very jokey commentary which has its moments. Chris Elliott is annoying, Fred Willard tries to be serious.

Episode 20 - Deleted Scene (0:39)

    Nothing special.

Disc 5

Episode 21 - Deleted Scenes (1:11)

    More amusing stuff from the bridal shower.

Episode 22 - Commentary

    This commentary is by Ray Romano and creator Phil Rosenthal along with Tucker Cawley, the writer of this episode. Probably one of the best commentaries on this set but that isn't saying much.

Bloopers (7:00)

    Mildly amusing stuff-ups from this season.

    The sets released in each region are identical except for PAL/NTSC differences. The Region 1 has French & Spanish soundtracks. Let's call it a tie.

    The video quality is good but certainly not without issues.

    The audio quality is fine, doing everything this show requires.

    The set has a large selection of extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall