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The Odd Couple: Season 1
R1 - America - Paramount Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (30th March 2016). |
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The Show
 Based on (or at least cherry-picked from the pages of) the stage play and Oscar-nominated film by Neil Simon (California Suite), this new iteration finds executive consultant Garry Marshall (Happy Days) and star/executive producer Matthew Perry (Friends) hoping to repeat the success of Marshall's beloved 1970-1975 series adaptation. This time around, Perry is divorcé Oscar Madison, a loudmouth sportscaster "marinating in booze and filth" who does a radio show in the (pantsless) comfort of his own apartment. Reno 911's Thomas Lennon is obsessive-compulsive, germohobic, hypochondriac, photographer Felix Under who has just been thrown out by his wife after fifteen years of marriage, eight years of which was spent in counseling (in addition to the eighteen therapists he has also been seeing for individual therapy in the same fifteen years). Despite trying to cram the entirety of Simon's play into the first episode amidst various hip additions – including an obnoxious reworking of Neal Hefti's (Batman: Movie) iconic theme song by Trombone Shorty (more recently the adult voices of The Peanuts Movie) – the show still feels so far removed from the source material as to resemble any generic mismatched duo sitcom more so than Marshall's earlier television iteration (and any of his subsequent duo sitcoms). However much the crew tries to muss up Perry and his apartment – the Frasier apartment set recycled and remodeled – this Smartphone- and TV wall-equipped Oscar Madison's slovenliness is never convincing enough to balance out the obsessive-compulsiveness, germophobia, and hypochondria of Lennon's Unger; indeed, Perry is at his funniest not when rehashing Simon's jokes ("It took me three hours to figure out that 'F.U.' was Felix Unger!"), but when he inadvertently channels Chandler Bing. Yvette Nicole Brown (Community) as Oscar's personal assistant Danielle, Wendell Pierce (The Wire) as Oscar's agent Teddy, and Dave Foley (Newsradio) – once the engaging, snarky straightman of Newsradio– pretty much playing a caricature of himself as Oscar's best friend Roy give us no more than elsewhere while Sabrina the Teenage Witch's Lindsay Sloane goes from the pilot's bitter divorcée to the series' hapless part-time klutzy waitress/aspiring jewelry designer with an unrequited crush on Felix. At its best, The Odd Couple is a mildly amusing, inoffensive alternative to NBC's 2015 "Must See TV" Thursday night line-up which still has not recovered from the loss of Parks and Recreation, Community, Parenthood, 30 Rock, and The Office (even though the latter finally needed to be taken out and shot). Season One Episode Breakdown: 1.01: "Pilot" (21:33): After Felix's wife throws him out, Oscar invites him to be his roommate and quickly regrets it as the fastidious and sensitive Felix alienates his buddies and elicits the sympathy of Casey, a hot neighbor Oscar is trying to woo. 1.02: "The Ghostwriter" (21:37): Oscar's plan to dash off a ghostwritten "autobiography" for retired baseball player Murph (The Finder's Geoff Stults) is complicated when Felix plays therapist and turns the man into an emotional wreck.  1.03: "The Birthday Party" (21:13): When Oscar realizes he forgot Felix's birthday, he wheedles his friends into throw together a last minute party in order to cast himself in a favorable light to Casey. NBA player Dwight Howard guest stars. 1.04: "The Blind Leading the Blind Date" (21:36): While Felix plays matchmaker for single Dani who does not want to go to her high school reunion alone, Oscar secretly sets up Felix on a blind date. 1.05: "The Wedding Deception" (21:36): When Oscar and Felix get invited to the wedding of a mutual friend, Felix hopes to prove to Ashley (Flashforward's Christine Woods) that he has changed while Oscar tries to reconnect with an old flame (Dark Ride's Andrea Bogart); both of them inveigling Emily to be their dates at opportune moments. 1.06: "Heal Thyself" (21:37): When Oscar starts dating Felix's doctor Sharon (Childrens Hospital's Erinn Hayes), Felix's belief that he has contracted an extremely rare and exotic disease may be more than hypochondria. 1.07: "Secret Agent Man" (21:36): When Oscar gets the opportunity to become a guest panelist on a TV sports show, Teddy advises against it but Felix encourages him to go behind his agent's back with disastrous results. 1.08: "The Unger Games" (21:35): When Murph pulls his groin running from a married woman's husband, Felix takes his place on the softball team. Oscar's jealousy of Felix's natural athletic prowess leads him to challenge Felix to a decathlon in order to best him. 1.09: "Sleeping Dogs Lie" (21:03): When Felix starts to hallucinate after days without sleep, he and Oscar decide break into ex-wife Ashley's apartment in order to retrieve his special pillow but end up opening old emotional wounds. NBA player Chris Webber guest stars. 1.10: "Enlightening Strikes" (21:31): Dani and Oscar get stuck on the subway while Felix tortures the rest of the gang crazy when he takes over a yoga class. Regis Philbin and 'Weird Al' Yankovic guest star. 1.11: "Jealous Island" (21:37): Oscar becomes apprehensive about his sexual prowess when he discovers that Murph has previously slept with a woman (Episodes' Mircea Monroe) he is now dating. Emily tries to get close to Felix when they join a historical reenactment club. 1.12: "The Audit Couple" (21:36): Felix offers to mediate between Oscar and his ex-wife Gaby (Gilmore Girls's Lauren Graham) when they are audited and realizes that he may have been the reason they were audited in the first place. 
Video
Paramount splits twelve episodes between two dual-layer DVDs that barely edge over onto the second layer (the running time of the combined episodes on each disc is just over two hours), but the interlaced, anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1) encodes get the job done. 
Audio
Audio options include English Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 Surround options. As with most live audience sitcoms, the surrounds are mainly used for music and audience laughter/applause. Optional English SDH subtitle are also included. 
Extras
The first disc features wisely deleted scenes for "Pilot" (0:36), "The Wedding Deception" (2:09), and "Heal Thyself" (0:37). The second disc includes "Season in Review: New Odd Couple, New Laughs" (11:50) in which the cast and executive producers Bob Daily (Desperate Housewives), Kim Tannenbaum (Two and a Half Men), and Eric Tannenbaum (Notes from the Underbelly) discuss and reflect on the character arcs of the first season. It is most interesting to hear more from the supporting cast on their characters who do not get enough time onscreen to give their characters more depth. It was either shot during production of the second season (season two starts airing in April) or with them being hopefully optimistic about there being a second season. In "Reviving The Odd Couple" (7:26), executive consultant Garry Marshall (who is even seen relaying anecdotes about the original series with the studio audience in between scenes, including the network's insistence that he add more female characters so that Oscar and Felix were not perceived as "homosexuals"), Perry, the other producers, and the crew discuss the desire to remake the television series and the challenges of modernizing the "property." Disc two closes out with a gag reel (4:31) which includes some blown or forgotten lines, some amusing mishaps, and a few pranks. 
Overall
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