I Dream of Jeannie: The Complete Second Season DVD Review
By A.J. Carson
In the first season of I Dream of Jeannie, astronaut Tony Nelson (Dallas' Larry Hagman) made an emergency landing on an uncharted island and stumbled upon Jeannie (Barbara Eden), a gorgeous genie in a fancy bottle. Tony wanted nothing to do with Jeannie, but she insisted on serving her new master, so she followed him home to Cocoa Beach, Florida. Tony struggled to keep her existence a secret from his friends and coworkers, but suspicious base psychiatrist Dr. Alfred Bellows (Hayden Rorke) was a constant, hapless witness to Jeannie's hijinx. Tony's best friend, Major Roger Healey (The Bob Newhart Show's Bill Daily) soon discovered that his pal lived with a 2,000 year-old genie and jealously coveted her magical powers. In the meantime, Jeannie tried to "help" her master, but her methods often got Tony into trouble. In season two, everything changes. Yep, this time, everything's in beautiful, living color!
In the first season, Jeannie hoped that their relationship would turn from master and genie to husband and wife. In season two, she steps up her campaign. Having been trapped in a bottle for thousands of years, however, Jeannie mostly expresses herself through jealousy. When Roger arranges a date for Tony, she turns Roger into a poodle so that he can't pass along the information to Tony ("What's New, Poodle Dog?"). She keeps Tony in a jail cell when she thinks that he is going out on a date and then turns the woman into a monkey ("Who Needs a Green-Eyed Genie?").
Having Jeannie pursue Tony is nothing new, but he actually begins to fall in love with her this season. When Jeannie invents a faux suitor, Tony nearly admits that he loves her.until he discovers her deception ("How Do You Beat Superman?"). He later discovers that dissatisfied masters can return their genies on Haji Day and decides to act on this loophole, but soon realizes that he has made a mistake ("There Goes the Best Genie I Ever Had").
With all of the "help" that Jeannie provides it is difficult to understand why Tony would fall in love with her. Her idea of making her master happy is giving him what she thinks will make him happy, whether he wants it or not. When she decides that Tony needs more time to relax, she makes every day of the week Sunday ("Always on Sunday"). She writes a book on child rearing and publishes it under Tony's name, prompting his superiors to send him their problem children so that he can sort them out ("My Master, the Author"). She tries to help with a miniaturization project, but ends up shrinking Tony instead ("My Incredible Shrinking Master"). The mouse-sized Tony then has to avoid the neighborhood cat. She also has a habit of sending Tony on trips and adventures. He journeys to the Wild West ("Fastest Gun in the East"), gets transported to a pirate ship ("My Master, the Pirate"), and heads to France to visit Napoleon ("My Master, Napoleon's Buddy").
Several of the episodes are lazily plotted and seemingly offer conflicting information about the life of a genie. In "There Goes the Bride," Jeannie casts a powerful spell on Tony in order to get him to marry her. This is a strict genie no-no, and Haji (Abraham Sofaer), the leader of all genies, warns her that if she does not reverse the spell, he will take away Jeannie's powers. Indeed, as the episode goes on, Jeannie begins to lose her powers. When Tony is injured on the way to their wedding ceremony and Jeannie discovers that she cannot help him, she decides that maybe he needs a genie more than he needs a wife, so she removes the spell. Only two episodes later in "The Birds and the Bees Bit," Tony learns that if genies marry, they automatically lose their powers. This news doesn't come as a shock to Jeannie, yet she didn't seem to know about it just two episodes earlier. This inconsistency could have something to do with the fact that "The Birds." is one of the few episodes of the season not written by series creator Sidney Sheldon, but surely someone could have caught and corrected this. "The Birds." is definitely worth watching, however, for a glimpse at Tony and Jeannie's future, including a hysterical scene in which Anthony Jr. flies around the patio in a toy fire engine (he really wanted an airplane).
As with the first season, I Dream of Jeannie's goofy, unsophisticated plotlines often seem to be aimed squarely at kids. Oddly enough, though, the series plays better in color. It is so shiny and sparkly that watching The Complete Second Season is often like staring at a Christmas tree. Sure, it doesn't take much brain power, but it's pleasant nonetheless.
Fans of cult oddity Paul Lynde (Bewitched) will be happy to know that he makes a funny guest appearance in "My Master, the Rich Tycoon." When a guest (Lynde) criticizes the quality of Tony's furnishings, Jeannie decides to conjure up a few objets d'art to make the home a little more impressive, including a Rembrandt painting, a Ming vase, and a safe filled to overflowing with money. Jeannie's good intentions backfire when Tony learns that the man works for the IRS and now plans on launching an investigation to find out why these items never showed up on Tony's tax returns. Lynde again manages to squeeze laughs out of lines that weren't even meant to be funny. An amusing subplot involves Dr. Bellows watching with relish as another person is foiled when trying to pin something on Teflon Tony.
Sammy Davis, Jr., again proves that he never met a TV guest spot he'd even consider turning down (see also Archie Bunker's Place and Charlie's Angels) when he appears in "The Greatest Entertainer in the World." This particularly flaccid episode involves Tony (and Jeannie) trying to convince the performer to sing at a party for General Peterson (Barton MacLane).
Other familiar faces in the second season include Michael Ansara (Broken Arrow), tennis pro Pancho Segura, Dick "Please don't squeeze the Charmin." Wilson, Hoyt Axton, Whit Bissell (The Time Tunnel), Joan Patrick (Dr. Kildaire), composer Frank DeVol (The Brady Bunch), John McGiver (The Patty Duke Show), Butch Patrick (Lidsville), Groucho Marx, Kathleen Freeman (Broadway's The Fully Monty), Bill Quinn (Archie Bunker's Place), Booth Colman (Planet of the Apes), and Dabney Coleman (That Girl).
The thirty-one episodes that make up the second season are divided onto four discs. The discs are housed in two slim, clear plastic keepcases, each of which holds two discs. The fronts of the cases are decorated with publicity stills of Eden and Hagman. The backs of the cases include titles and brief synopses for each episode. The interiors of the cases feature a stylized illustration of the desert island on which Tony Nelson originally found Jeannie's bottle. The DVDs employ a smoking bottle/Arabian cityscape theme. The keepcases slide into a cardboard outer sleeve.
The DVD menus, which start off full-motion before freezing on a static image, mimic the series' animated opening credits. Viewers can play all of the disc's episodes or choose an individual one. The episodes are divided into chapters, but there are no scene selection menus.
