Seinfeld-The Complete 8th Season (1996)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Audio Commentary Alternative Version Deleted Scenes Additional Footage Featurette-Making Of-Inside Looks Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Jerry Seinfeld - Submarine Captain Main Menu Audio & Animation Outtakes-Not That There's Anything Wrong With That Trivia-Notes about Nothing
Rating	?
Year Of Production	1996
Running Time	?
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Andy Ackerman Tom Cherones David Steinberg David Owen Trainer
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	None Given
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Jonathan Wolff

    Well here we are, the 8th season of this all-time classic comedy series is out now on DVD, packaged as a 4-disk boxset. This release follows the same format as the previous sets (except for Season 1 & 2 which were packaged as one boxset). This means it contains all the episodes from Season 8, remastered for higher quality picture and sound, as well as a bounty of extras. I can't believe it was 1996-1997 when this particular season was first aired on TV!  Season 8, the penultimate series, contains some of the funniest episodes of the entire series. As always, each fan probably has their own particular favourites, but some of mine include: The Nap, The English Patient, The Muffin Tops and The Summer of George.

    This boxset also includes a whole load of extras such as 12 commentary tracks, trivia subtitles, as well as plenty of deleted scenes, alternate endings and a lengthy collection of gags and outtakes from this season's episodes. There's only one documentary as such, focusing on Jerry's role in bringing the whole show together and keep it running so well throughout a season's worth of filming.

   The Episodes

    I won't provide the story for each episode as many detailed guides can be found on the Net. One good example is at the www.tv.com website. Details of episode-based extras are provided under the title of the relevant episode:

DISK 1

    1. The Foundation

        Inside Look (7:14) -  short compilation of recent interviews with cast and crew members with excerpts from the episode.

        Deleted scene (0:46)

        Notes about Nothing - trivia track which contains much useful background information on scenes, characters, locations.

    2. The Soul Mate

        Notes about Nothing

    3. The Bizarro Jerry

         Inside Look (4:33)

        Commentary with writer David Mandel         

        Notes about Nothing

    4. The Little Kicks

        Inside look (5:37)

        Commentary with Julia-Louis Dreyfus, Jason Alexander and writer Spike Fersten

        Notes about Nothing

    5. The Package

         Deleted scenes (0:42)

         Extras

         Documentary - "Jerry Seinfeld - Submarine Captain" (runtime 23:29).

         A great in-depth documentary focusing on what is was like for cast and crew doing a full season's filming. There are plenty of recent interviews with cast and crew mostly focusing on how Jerry brought everyone together to make this hugely successful show. The title refers to the view that filming the whole batch of episodes in one go was like a crew being locked away in a submarine.

DISK 2

    6. The Fatigues

        Inside look (5:04)

        Deleted scene (0:38)

        Commentary with writers Gregg Kavett and Andy Robin

        Notes about Nothing

    7. The Checks

        Commentary with writers Tom Gamill and Max Pross

        Notes about Nothing

    8. The Chicken Roaster

        Inside look (5:34)

        Deleted scenes (0:54)

        Commentary with Jerry Seinfeld and director Andy Ackerman

    9. The Abstinence

        Inside look (7:15)

        Commentary with Jerry Seinfeld, Director Andy Ackerman and writer Steve Koren

        Notes About Nothing

    10. The Andrea Doria

        Notes about Nothing

    11. The Little Jerry

        Deleted Scene (0:52)

        Notes about nothing

        Extras

        Sein-imation   "The Del Boca Vista Express" (1:08). Imaginative depiction of one of Jerry's stand up routines, meant to look like pencil-drawn animation set          to the original audio recording.

DISK 3

    12. The Comeback

      Inside look (4:15)

        Deleted Scenes (2:00)

        Commentary with writers Gregg Kavett and Andy Robin

        Notes about Nothing

    13. The Money

        Inside look (1:56)   

        Deleted scene (0:57)

        Notes about Nothing

    14. The Van Buren Boys

        Inside Look (2:43)

        Deleted scenes (1:55)        

        Notes about Nothing

    15. The Susie

         Commentary with writers David Mandel and Peter Mehlman

    16. The Pothole

        Inside Look (6:53)

        Commentary with Jerry Seinfeld, director Andy Ackerman and writer Dan O'Keefe       

        Notes about Nothing

    17. The English Patient

        deleted scene (0:56)

        Notes about Nothing

        Extras

        Sein-imation - "Pinky Toe's Wild Ride" (2:06). 'Hand drawn' animation of a verbal scene from an episode.

DISK 4

    18. The Nap

        Inside Look (3:52)

        Deleted scenes (2:50)  

        Commentary with writers Gregg Kavett and Andy Robin

        Notes about Nothing

    19. The Yada Yada

        Inside look (6:55)

        Commentary with actors Julia-Louis Dreyfus, Jason Alexander and writer Peter Mehlman

        Notes About Nothing

    20. The Millennium

        Deleted scenes (1:29)      

        Notes about Nothing

    21. The Muffin Tops

        Inside look (7:49)

        Deleted scene (0:45)

        Commentary with actors Julia-Louis Dreyfus, Jason Alexander and writer Spike Fersten

        Notes About Nothing

    22. The Summer of George

        Inside Look (8:27)

        Deleted scene (0:50)

        Commentary with writers Jeff Schaffer and Alec Berg

        Notes About Nothing

        Extras

        Gag Reel - "Not That There's Anything Wrong with That" (24:01). A great collection of bloopers and gags from most of Season 8's episodes.

Video

    The episodes are presented in their original ratio of 4:3 fullscreen. Some of the extras, such as the Inside Looks, are presented in 1.78:1 letterboxed, with clips from the show being shown in 4:3.

    Sharpness is great, considering the nature and the age of the source material. Shadow detail is good at all times. There is some slight grain visible in outdoor shots (especially whenever 'stock' location footage was used), though it seems much less than in earlier seasons.

    Colour is consistent but does have a very slight reddish tinge to it which gives skin tones a slightly ruddy hue.

    Overall a good clean print that has been restored well with very few visible positive or negative film artefacts.

    Subtitles are available in a number of languages and are all selectable 'on the fly' via the remote, or via the setup menus.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    As with the previous boxsets, the slight speedup that results from the NTSC to PAL conversion means that we have to put up with a slightly higher-pitch soundtrack. This makes some of the naturally high voices rather screechy at times!  But you get used to it pretty soon and it's really only obvious if you compare it with the locally televised version of the show.

    The audio tracks are available in the original English, as well as in French and German.

    Dialogue is well synchronised to the actors' lip movements at all times (except in the dubbed soundtracks of course). The dialogue is clear and undistorted at all times.

    The music, by Jonathon Wolff, is really only used during the opening and closing credits, as well as the 'return from commercial breaks'. It's upbeat and catchy and suits the show nicely.

    The sound is spread mainly across the front speakers and there's nothing piping into the rear surrounds.

    The subwoofer chipped in to fill out the bottom end of the soundtrack, such as during any the musical cues, though of course there's no dedicated 0.1 LFE channel.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    Main Menu Audio and Animation

    Each disk has a menu that's themed to one of the episodes on the disk. The submenus are themed likewise.

    Audio Commentary - 'Yada, yada, yada'

    Commentary by various cast/crew members is provided on a number of the episodes. The commentary varies in terms of information and entertainment between the various parties doing the commentary tracks. However overall they are an extremely valuable and enjoyable addition.  Once again it's a pity that there's no sign of Michael Richards ("Kramer") on any of the commentary tracks.

    Featurettes - 'Inside Look'

    These are short (usually around 5 minute duration) documentaries about the particular episode in question with recent interviews with relevant cast and crew. These are presented in 1.78:1 letterboxed with the clips from the episodes presented in 4:3 fullscreen.

    Informational Subtitles - 'Notes About Nothing'

    These are continuous streams of information on characters, actors (including the many background actors), locations, production snippets relating to each episode. They continue the counters for such things as Kramer's entrances and Jerry's and George's girlfriends. Extremely worthwhile inclusion from which even the most ardent fan will learn something new.

    Deleted Scenes

    Included for many of the episodes. These range from extensions to existing scenes, or alternative takes on a scene, or scenes completely left out. Once again, highly worthwhile inclusions.

   Featurette - Outtakes - "Not That There's Anything Wrong With That" (24:01)

    Huge collection of bloopers and gags from Season 8 episodes. Very funny indeed!

    There doesn't appear to be any material on the R1 release that is not on the R4 release.

    Hence I would strongly recommend the R4 version.

    Although Season 8 does contain some very funny episodes, I felt that overall it wasn't as consistently entertaining as Season 7. There were a few storylines, or scenes that were a little flat compared to earlier seasons, perhaps due, at least in part, to Larry David's departure the previous year. In fact, Season 8 was meant to be the show's final season, hence the chequered flag behind the "Seinfeld" logo in the opening credits. However, it did go on for one more season.

    Like the previous boxset releases, they've done a very good job putting this 4-disk set together. It includes all the episodes from the season, in their entirety, and remastered for better quality video and audio. There are a lot of extras including commentary tracks, trivia tracks, deleted scenes and a documentary.

    Obviously, any fan who already has the first 7 seasons would be rushing out to get this latest set!

    Picture and sound are noticeably better that they were on TV, with the significant benefits of no commercial breaks and the loss of a precious few words of dialog that often happened on TV when they cut to a break.

     The discs are filled with great and worthwhile extras, though not as many documentaries as in the previous season's box sets.

    A highly recommended purchase, especially for Seinfeld fans.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall