Television. One DVD at a Time.

Anything But Love: Volume One DVD Review

By A.J. Carson

Hannah Miller (Jamie Lee Curtis) is a twenty-nine year old teacher who always dreamed of becoming a writer. As a kid, she even dressed as Lillian Hellman for Halloween. Her dream always seemed out of reach, but when she is dumped by her longtime boyfriend, she decides to give up her safe life as a teacher, return home to Chicago, and try her hand at writing. While on the airplane home from Los Angeles, she meets Marty Gold (Richard Lewis), a writer for a Chicago-based magazine. Marty is terrified of flying, but Hannah manages to keep him calm - mostly - during the flight. In return, Marty helps her to get an entry-level job at his magazine. The two become fast friends, but will it develop into something more?

Many TV romances - like Dave and Maddie's on Moonlighting - thrive on a "will they or won't they" tension. Anything But Love takes a slightly different approach, focusing instead on "should they or shouldn't they." Sure, Hannah and Marty are attracted to one another, but if they act on this attraction, they run the risk of ruining their friendship and their working relationship.

Anything But Love: Volume One includes all episodes from the series' first two seasons. The show began a six episode midseason run in March 1989 and returned for its first full season in September. During the interim, the series was totally revamped. The changes are so great that it is almost like watching two different sitcoms.

In the first season, Hannah and Marty work for the magazine Chicago Monthly. Marty is an award-winning writer while Hannah is a newly-hired research assistant. Their editor is the grumpy Norman Keil (Louis Giambalvo). Norman's protective, efficient assistant is Jules (Richard Frank). Pamela Peyton-Finch (Sandy Faison) is the magazine's snooty, meddlesome gossip, fashion, and trends reporter. Hannah lives with her retired cop father, Leo (Bruce Kirby), in his cabin.

In season two, Norman, Peyton-Finch, and Leo are out. The magazine is now a weekly edited by Catherine Hughes (Ann Magnuson), a headstrong fashionista with rather unique ideas. She brings in a witty British writer, Brian Alquist (Joseph Maher) as the magazine's pop culture critic. Hannah is given a promotion - she is now a full-fledged writer - and even Jules is given more writing responsibilities. Hannah lives in the same building as her childhood best friend, Robin Dulitski (Holly Fulger). Each episode now begins with short coffee shop teasers featuring Hannah and Marty discussing random topics.

Because of the series' numerous changes in tone and focus, seasons one and two often feel like works in progress. Some ideas work better than others. Robin and Hannah, for example, have the annoying habit of referring to each other as "Mrs. Schmenkman." This feels like a desperate - and unsuccessful - attempt at creating a "catch phrase." Robin's character also isn't very well drawn - she's like a cardboard cutout of a best friend. Still, thanks to a winning cast and believable chemistry, Anything But Love usually manages to be romantic, funny, and watchable.

Guest stars in Volume One include Taylor Negron (The Hughleys), Wendy Malick (Just Shoot Me), Tia Carrere (Dancing with the Stars), Austin Pendleton (Oz), Richard Kind (Mad About You), Corbin Bernsen (L.A. Law), Andy Dick (NewsRadio), Courtney Thorne-Smith (Melrose Place), Gail O'Grady (NYPD Blue), and Gregory Itzin (24).

The twenty-eight episodes that make up Volume One are divided onto three double-sided discs. The discs are housed in two slim, black keepcases, one of which holds a pair of discs. The front of each case features the same publicity still of Curtis and Lewis. The back of each case includes a listing of episode titles, and airdates. No plot synopses are included. The cases slide into a cardboard outer sleeve which also features the same publicity photos found on the individual cases.

The static DVD menus are simple and functional. On the main menu, viewers can choose to play all episodes or pick an individual one. From the individual episode menus, viewers can play the episode, view the scene selection menu, and view the language selection menu.

Video and Audio

Anything But Love: Volume One does have a few video problems, but they seem to be inherent in the source material. Colors vary slightly, for example, from shot to shot in the same scene. Even the lighting seems to change depending on which camera is in use. Most viewers probably won't even notice these sometimes subtle variations.

The English stereo audio is perfectly fine. Spanish mono tracks are available for most episodes.

English and Spanish subtitles are also included. The episodes are also closed captioned.

Extras

Two episodes feature commentary tracks with the cast and crew: Jamie Lee Curtis and Richard Lewis on "Fear of Flying" and director Robert Berlinger on "Hotel of the Damned." Curtis and Lewis spend much time complaining about their hair and clothing. They touch on the creative differences that led to a change in producers and direction in season two, but are maddeningly short of details. Their oblique comments also don't seem to jibe with the explanations offered in the featurette discussed below. Berlinger's commentary isn't much more interesting. He reminds us several times that this was his first TV gig after spending years in theater and points out each time his laugh can be heard on the laugh track...and he laughed quite often.

The remaining extras are found on disc 3, side B. First up is "All About Anything But Love" (26:22), a featurette which includes interviews with actors Jamie Lee Curtis, Richard Lewis, and Ann Magnuson; creator/executive producer Wendy Kout, co-creator/producer Dennis Koenig, executive producer Robert Myman, showrunner Peter Noah, writer Janis Hirsh, and directors Michael Lessec and Robert Berlinger. Fans of the series will be thrilled by this featurette. Apparently the original pilot for the series was a romantic comedy about a love triangle and featured DW Moffett as Richard Lewis' competition. Filmed in 1988, the pilot was rejected by ABC, but test audiences were so smitten by Lewis and Curtis that the network asked the creators to go back to the drawing board and come up with a series centered around their characters. While clips from that 1988 pilot are shown here, the pilot is unfortunately not included in its entirety. The featurette also includes behind-the-scenes footage from the series shot by E! and clips from other seasons. WARNING: Those clips from other seasons contain spoilers, so newcomers should avoid watching the featurette until they have seen the episodes in Volume One. Also explored is the series' surprise cancellation - the cast showed up for a table read in the fourth season only to discover that the set was being torn down.

Finally, "Stories from the Set" (5:24) features interviews with the cast members who discuss the series' family atmosphere.

Summary

Anything But Love: Volume One presents us with a series struggling to find its voice. Is it a glib romantic friendship comedy ala When Harry Met Sally? An out-and-out romance along the lines of Mad About You? Or maybe a workplace comedy about the family we make, like The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Either way, Hannah Miller's gonna make it after all.

2/9/07