Product: Soap - The Complete Third Season (1977)
Rating: 5.0
Absolutely hilarious!
Nominated for 17 Emmys in its short four-year run, Soap premiered in the Fall of 1977 as one of the most controversial shows in American television history (and all before a single episode ever aired). The show was opposed by many groups who thought its subject matter would be too mature for a prime-time audience. But Soap never overstepped its bounds, and the show became an instant smash hit with its brilliant and satirical spoofs of classic daytime programming. Sporting an all-star cast and talented producers, the show spawned successful spin-off Benson in 1979, a series that launched Robert Guillaume's career to a whole new level...Set in suburban Connecticut, Soap follows the lives of two sisters - Jessica Tate (Katherine Helmond), a wealthy yet dim elitist, and Mary Campbell (Cathryn Damon), a housewife in a more traditional blue-collar atmosphere. But regardless of their social station in life, neither woman manages to escape the scandal and intrigue surrounding a typical soap opera family. Jessica's daughter Corrine (Diana Canova) is smitten with a priest, yet they are both having an affair with the same tennis pro. Meanwhile, Jessica and her husband Chester (Robert Mandan) incessantly cheat on one another. As for the other side of the family, Mary's husband Burt (Richard Mulligan) is certifiably insane, her son Danny (Ted Wass) is a mobster, stepson Jodie (Billy Crystal) is an out-of-the-closet homosexual, and all of them are caught up in a family filled with promiscuous infidelities and quite possibly murder! Throw in the insubordinate and sarcastic Tate butler Benson (Guillaume), and Soap holds its own as one of the funniest sitcoms in TV history...The Soap (Season 3) DVD features a number of hilarious episodes including the season premiere in which Burt awakens in the hull of a spaceship. Eunice asks Dutch to strike a deal with the feds, and Benson organizes a posse to rescue Billy from the Sunnies while an alien clone of Burt takes the real Burt's place... Other notable episodes from Season 3 include Episode 52 in which the real Burt and his alien clone finally confront one another, and Episode 69 in which, with a guilty Chester by her bedside, Jessica dies, all while Jodie gives an impassioned courtroom defense of his right to be an openly gay single parent...The DVD Report