Product: Soap - The Complete Third Season (1977)
Rating: 4.0
Bubbly and entertaining improved over last 2 sets
Continuing to break new ground, Soap dived right into a number of new issues for this comedy series. The plot lines continued to be "out there" as Burt (Richard Mulligan) is abducted by aliens and tries to escape. On Earth Burt has been replaced by an alien who acts even stranger than before. The only one to notice is, of course, his wife Mary. Benson (Robert Guillaume who would soon star in his own spin-off playing his popular character) saves Billy (Jimmy Baio) from a cult and finally Jodie the first gay character portrayed positively on TV finds out he has a baby daughter from an affair Jodie had with a woman. In other words, all's wrong in the world of Soap which is exactly as it should be.Improving on the first two sets Soap: The Complete Third Season looks positively robust by comparison to the first two sets. With better clarity, image quality, sharper and better color reproduction, this set shows that Columbia Tristar spend the bulk of the marketing funds to make the series look as rich as possible for this DVD release. While there are still analog imperfections (and what could you expect of a series videotaped over twenty years ago?), the show looks the best it ever has on DVD. Likewise, the sound also comes across with better presence than the previous set although it is muffled on a couple of episodes throughout this three disc set. Overall, CTHE have done an exceptional job of improving the video and audio quality of this series over seasons one and two.As I said, it's clear that most of the budget went to improving the video and audio of the series which would explain the complete lack of extras. The only extras we get here are previews for other CTHE releases. My memory isn't always the best but it does appear as if the episodes presented here are (for the most part) uncut when compared to the syndicated episodes. What about vintage interviews that CTHE might have in the vaults for future sets?This is the one area where Columbia could have improved the series. Having Susan Harris, Katherine Helmond or Billy Crystal do a commentary track would have boosted the sales of this set for fans that have recorded it off TV over the years. Again, I'm sure it was a budget issue.Overall, a fine job from Columbia on preparing this release for DVD. Sure it could always be better but keep in mind that the studio has to work with the budget for each set their given. It's clear that most of that budget went to improving the video and audio of the series. Does it look stellar? No but it would be difficult to improve this beyond what we see here.