"I do declare, you're just about the most attractive man I've seen in Florida since Mr. John Forsythe performed Hamlet at the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre." - Rue McClanahan as Blanche Devereaux
The Golden Girls: The Complete First Season DVD Review
By A.J. Carson
Good God, do I feel old. It seems like yesterday, but it's been almost twenty years since The Golden Girls premiered on September 14, 1985. I was in junior high then, but now I'm just about Beatrice Arthur's age. But even though I'm a wizened oldie now, it's comforting to know with the release of The Golden Girls: The Complete First Season that the series is as fresh and funny as it always was.
For those three readers who missed the show on its original NBC run or its three hundred daily reruns on the Lifetime cable channel, The Golden Girls follows four mature women sharing a home in sunny Miami. Blanche Devereaux (Mama's Family's Rue McClanahan), the house's owner, is a moderately well-off widow and a not-quite-demure Southern belle who has seemingly dated every man in Dade County. Rose Nylund (The Mary Tyler Moore Show's Betty White) is a sweet, naïve widow who somehow works as a grief counselor even though she is a little...well...slow-witted. Dorothy Zbornak (Maude's Bea Arthur) is a sharp-tongued substitute teacher whose lout of a husband, Stan (Herb Edelman), left her for a younger woman after thirty-eight years of marriage. In the first episode, Dorothy's mother, Sophia Petrillo (Estelle Getty), moves in when her retirement home burns down.
The Golden Girls is old fashioned in a good way. No new ground is broken plot-wise. The same basic stories could have been used in any number of other sitcoms, and, frankly, many of them were. It works, though, because the jokes are sharp and funny, and the characters are finely drawn. Even the most unoriginal plots seem new simply because of the characters. Television typically ignores older people. Sure, TV shows occasionally present a grandparent or older character, but in series like The O.C. and Felicity, even a thirty-six year-old is downright elderly. Here, though, is a show that dares to center around mature characters. We've seen countless shows that feature plots in which two female friends are nearly split up when the boyfriend of one hits on the other. When this happens to Dorothy and Blanche in "The Triangle," the familiar plot seems reborn simply because of the characters' age and who they are.
The terrific pilot episode was directed by Jay Sandrich, who helmed many classic episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The two shows have totally different styles of humor, but in a way, The Golden Girls and MTM share a basic theme: both center on the families that we make for ourselves, not the ones into which we are born or marry. Through divorce, death, and other circumstances, the women have grown apart from their traditional families. They do, however, have each other. They may kid or criticize each other, but they are there to help each other through difficult times - and to cheer each other during the good times. The pilot effortlessly sets up this theme while simultaneously being uproariously funny.
Other standout episodes include "Rose the Prude," in which Rose has to decide whether to reenter the world of sex for the first time since her husband's death, "In a Bed of Rose's," in which Rose seems doomed to kill every man she sleeps with, and "The Way We Met," which flashes back to Rose and Dorothy's first days living with Blanche.
The show is sometimes formulaic - whenever an outside force threatens the status quo, the women bicker (Dorothy with her snappy comebacks, Blanche with sex jokes, Rose with naïve observations, and Sophia with her stroke-fueled candor), and then the status quo is restored. One of the women seems to be on the verge of marrying in practically every other episode. The show also suffers from an endless procession of fathers, sisters, children, and other family members who show up for one episode before being forgotten. Still, the show is always amusing. Much of the credit lies with its stars. Arthur's comic timing was always great on All in the Family and Maude, but here it reaches a heady perfection. She impeccably knows just how long to hold a withering stare before stabbing the other characters with a put-down. White, who won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for this season, is funny even when she isn't speaking. For a good laugh, look at her reactions while standing in the background during scenes in which the other actors are featured. McClanahan is so perfect as Blanche that she doesn't even seem to be acting. And Getty? Her machine gun quick delivery, shuffling walk, and ever present purse in the crook of her arm can reduce viewers to a puddle of laughs almost instantly. All four deservedly won Emmy Awards at least once during the show's run.
Guest stars in season one include Designing Women's Meshach Taylor, Rhoda's Harold Gould, Sheree North, Jeanette Nolan, Billy Barty, Jeanne Dixon, Alex Rocco, Priscilla Morrill (who played Edie Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and appeared in several After School Specials), Star Trek: Voyager's Robert Picardo, Invasion of the Body Snatchers' Kevin McCarthy, Alice's Polly Holliday, and WKRP in Cincinnati's Gordon Jump.
The twenty-five episodes that make up season one are divided onto three discs. Each of the three pastel-colored discs are decorated with portraits of the gang - Dorothy and Sophia on disc one, Rose on disc two, and Blanche on disc three. The discs are housed in a golden yellow foldout case decorated with publicity stills. The three discs attach to two panels - one of the panels holds two discs one on top of the other in a figure eight pattern. One panel of the foldout case lists the title and the writing and directing credits of each episode. Unfortunately, no plot synopses are included, making it a little more difficult for viewers to choose individual episodes. The case slides into a cardboard sleeve. The design of both the outer sleeve and the foldout case are eye-catching and classy. Sure, it is inconvenient to remove one of the DVDs in the figure eight in order to get to the other, and an episode guide would have been welcome, but overall, this set looks great.
The DVD menus - which feature full-motion clips from the series in small windows while an instrumental version of the theme song plays in a loop - are simple and easy to navigate. Viewers can play all episodes or choose an individual one. There are no scene selection menus, but the episodes include chapter stops, including one immediately after the opening credits.
