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Modern Family: The Complete First Season
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Chris Brown (5th December 2010). |
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The Show
 "Modern Family" is one of those "next gen" sitcoms. No laugh track. Shot documentary style and eschewing slap stick and cheap laughs for cringe inducing embarrassments, wry observation, and occasional insight. It forgoes the moralizing that was a sitcom staple for so many years. Sure there is the occasional lessons learned denouement, but for the most part the issues facing the extended Pritchard/Dunphy clan are something we can all relate to on one level or another. The show revolves around the lives of three generations of one family. The patriarch Jay (Ed O’Neill), an older guy who’s recently married a much young and very attractive Columbian woman, Gloria (Sofía Vergara), and Manny (Rico Rodriguez), Gloria’s coffee drinking, astute, and mildly neurotic ten year old (going on 40) son from a previous marriage. Then there’s Jay’s daughter the long suffering, pragmatic, and borderline OCD Claire (Julie Bowen), her goofy but well meaning husband Phil (Ty Burrell) who is one of the highlights of the show. Their kids round out this particular nuclear unit, the easily distracted youngest child Luke (Nolan Gould), the overachieving geeky middle child Alex (Ariel Winter), and the eldest Hayley (Sarah Hyland) a pretty, typically self absorbed but well meaning popular girl. Phil’'s desire to be relevant (or hip) to his kid’s results in some of most extreme cases of embarrassing dad syndrome I have ever seen. Brilliant! Finally the third family is Jay’s gay yet straight-laced son Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and his flamboyant boyfriend Cam (Eric Stonestreet), who have just returned from overseas with their brand new adopted daughter, Lily (Ella Hiller and Jaden Hiller). Each episode is a self contained story with it own set of problems and comedic outcomes, there are often breaks in the actual storyline where the viewer will see "interviews" of different characters who offer insight into the goings on in a particular story or shed light on what they were thinking during a previous scene. This follows the mockumentary format, similar to "The Office" (2005-Present) It took me a couple of episodes to get used to this format as there is never any mention of the film crew and many of the scenes wouldn’t be possible if there was a documentary film crew present. Still it’s a minor niggle and one I got past very easily. "Modern Family" is easily one of the funniest shows playing at the moment. The writing is sharp and intelligent. The acting top notch, and the situations equally compelling and laugh out loud hilarious. One word of warning, if you found either Ricky Gervais or Steve Carrell too much to bear in either incarnation of "The Office" then you may find some of Phil’s antics similarly cringe worthy. This Blu-ray set includes all 24 episodes from the first season: - "Pilot" - "Run For Your Wife" - "The Bicycle Thief" - "Come Fly With Me" - "The Incident" - "Coal Digger" - "En Garde" - "Great Expectations" - "Fizbo" - "Undeck the Halls" - "Up All Night" - "Not in my House" - "Fifteen Percent" - "Moon Landing" - "My Funky Valentine" - "Fears" - "Truth be Told" - "Starry Night" - "Game Changer" - "Benched" - "Travels with Scout" - "Airport 2010" - "Hawaii" - "Family Portrait"
Video
Presented in the show's original broadcast ratio of 1.78:1 mastered in HD 1080p 24/fps using AVC MPEG-4 compression. The image is nice and crisp, detailed and features vivid and striking colors. The image is clean and created direct from the source. There's no noise or compression issues on any episodes despite 8 episodes mastered on each disc. Depth of field is excellent, textures hold up well especially in close-ups and despite the hand-held documentary style of shooting. Skin tones appeal natural and blacks are nicely bold.
Audio
A single English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz/24-bit) surround track has been included in each episode. This show isn't an all-out audio spectacle, there isn't any action or complicated effects to mix, it's a mostly dialogue heavy show and the majority of that audio is front focused. The results are adequate and suitable for the show. Dialogue is clear and distortion free, surrounds are used for music cue and the occasional directional effect. There's limited depth but the mix works for the show and that's all we can really ask for. Optional subtitles are included in English, English for the hearing impaired, French, Portuguese and Spanish.
Extras
Each disc contains deleted/extended scenes and deleted interviews from the episodes presented on that particular disc, the final disc features a collection of featurettes as well. Below is a closer look at these supplements. DISC ONE: This disc features deleted/extended scenes from the episodes running a collected 14 minutes 54 seconds. These are fairly typical of any TV show deleted scenes montages for each episode. They range from mildly amusing to very funny. A vast majority are scenes featuring Ty Burrell’s brilliant adlibbing comedy. Although interesting and funny for the most part it’s easy to see why these scenes were cut or trimmed from the show. Still well worth a viewing. Also included are a number of deleted family interviews running a collected 8 minutes 51 seconds. These are technically deleted scenes as well. Once again they run the gamut from mildly amusing to laugh out loud hilarious. There are some gems in the selection, and well worth checking out. bonus trailers are included for: - "Fox TV on DVD" runs for 1 minute 27 seconds. - "Knight & Day" runs for 2 minutes 27 seconds. DISC TWO: More of the same deleted/extended scenes from the episodes presented on this disc and runs for a collected 20 minutes 45 seconds. Deleted family interviews on this disc only runs for 1 minute 36 seconds. There's some more funny stuff here but can be easily forgotten after being viewed. DISC THREE: The deleted/extended scenes runs for a collected 9 minutes 24 seconds. These scenes are occasionally funny, but there's a reason they were cut, either not good enough or for runtime reasons. A typical gag reel follows and runs for 5 minutes 38 seconds. "Real Modern Family Moments" is a featurette running 10 minutes 24 seconds, the shows writers and producers candidly discuss the real life inspirations of some of the situations portrayed in the show. An interesting and entertaining insight into how some of the shows funnier situations. "Before Modern Family" featurette runs for 12 minutes 53 seconds, the cast discuss what they were doing before their roles in "Modern Family" and how they landed their current roles. It includes snippets of their screen tests but very little else. This could have been a compelling extra, but it’s too truncated and filled with too many spots from the show to offer any real insight. A shame really. "Fizbo the Clown" featurette runs for 4 minutes 11 seconds, Eric Stonestreet discusses the creation of Fizbo the Clown. Mildly entertaining. Two "Making of Modern Family" featurettes take us behind-the-scenes of the production of two episodes, I have a love hate relationship with “making of” featurettes. If they offer some insight into the film making process, or present the nuts and bolts of how a movie or show is made then I really enjoy them. If it instead merely presents inane conversation with cast and crew without offering any real information then I really don’t enjoy them. Unfortunately the "Modern Family" making-of featurettes fall in to the latter. There are interesting tidbits around some logistical issues when shooting on location, but for the most part both featurettes are rather bland. They are: - “Family Portrait” runs for 9 minutes 11 seconds. - “Hawaii” runs for 5 minutes 15 seconds.
Packaging
Packaged in a 3-disc Blu-ray case housed in a cardboard slip-case.
Overall
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