Review(s): DVD The Golden Girls - The Complete Seventh and Final Season
GIRLS! GIRLS! WHAT ABOUT "GOLDEN PALACE"?
I know that the show wasn't that great, but, it would certainly complete the present collection.
Another interesting tidbit...
One reason to look forward to the Season 7 DVD would be the "extra" footage that was aired during the end credits of this season (i.e., an additional 30 seconds of funny moments). One example--in the episode where Rose has boudoir photos made for Miles, we see her actual photo shoot at the end of the episode where she is wearing a flannel nightgown. Lifetime and other networks on which the GG's have been syndicated edited these out! Looking forward to February...
The Golden Girls - Season Seven
At long last, the seventh and final season of "The Golden Girls" will finally be out on DVD. It's been great watching the first six seasons of this truly wonderful sitcom on DVD, shown just like it did when it first aired on NBC. True, there are a couple of episodes from seasons four, five, and six that featured some brief editing while seasons one, two, and three were pretty much edit free. The brief editing was a little disappointing, but nothing like the hack job that Lifetime has done to the episodes that have aired on the cable network for years.
SEASON SEVEN (1991-92)
Season Seven of "The Golden Girls" is just a notch below Season Six. Season Six was a pretty good season, though not quite as good as the first five seasons. Season Seven was in my opinion the weakest season of the show's seven year run, but that doesn't make it a completely bad season. There were episodes that made me laugh out loud; there were episodes that were marginally funny; and there were episodes that weren't as funny as they should've been. But the show made a very strong comeback to end the series with the last two episodes: the next-to-last episode (a two-parter) and of course the final one hour episode that ended the series' seven year run.
The best episodes of Season Seven include: the girls going on a murder mystery weekend and Dorothy becoming a detective when a real murder occurs and Blanche is the prime suspect; Dorothy hiring a nurse to care for Sophia while Blanche enters her granddaughter into a kids beauty pageant; Stan going into therapy in trying to help him forget about Dorothy; a hurricane hitting Miami while Dorothy's sister Gloria visits; the girls traveling to Atlanta so that Blanche can make an attempt to save her grandmother's plantation; Sophia starts to date a man she met through the personals column only to be distracted by his sister who goes with them everywhere on their dates; Dorothy starts dating one of her high school teachers, while she and Blanche go on a talk-show that Rose is working for to talk about what it's like living together as roommates, only to find out at the beginning of the show that they are mistaken as lesbians, which infuriates them in the process; Dorothy trying to get on the game show "Jeopardy!"; and Blanche inviting Dorothy out for a night on the town at Blanche's favorite bar, and Dorothy becoming the center of attention with her terrific singing talent.
And of course there are those final two episodes, which work brilliantly not just for the laughs, but for the drama too. The two-part next-to-last episode, titled "Home Again, Rose" is an episode that combines big laughs with high drama. In this episode, Rose suffers a heart attack that requires serious open heart surgery. It's one of the most seriously dramatic episodes of "The Golden Girls", but it does contain some upbeat hilarious moments. The high comic point of the episode: Rose's dream that she, Dorothy, and Blanche all have their heads frozen. This scene is a comic masterpiece as the three ladies look absolutely ridiculous with their heads sticking up through the kitchen table simultaneously. And then there's the final episode: "One Flew Out of the Cuckoo's Nest", in which Dorothy finds true love with Blanche's Uncle Lucas (played by Leslie Nielsen), and in the end decides to marry him, which in the process breaks up the old gang. The final scene of "The Golden Girls" is so touching that it brought a tear to my eye when it aired back on May 9, 1992. It was a wonderful ending to a wonderful show.
Before the beginning of the seventh season of "The Golden Girls", Beatrice Arthur announced that the seventh season would be her last. She apparently had had enough, and wanted to move on to other things. One major change the show had to endure for Season Seven was a new time slot. For its first six seasons "The Golden Girls" aired on NBC in the same time slot: Saturday nights - 9 p.m. Eastern/8 p.m. Central, and all six seasons the show finished each season in the Nielsen Top 10. For Season Seven, "The Golden Girls" continued to air on Saturday nights, but got moved up an hour to 8 p.m. Eastern/7 p.m. Central. This move backfired, and the show fell out of the Nielsen Top 10 for the first time in the show's history. As a result, the show ended after its seventh season. But it didn't end for Betty White, Rue McClanahan, and Estelle Getty. They went on to reprise their roles in the "Golden Girls" sequel show "The Golden Palace."
For its final season, "The Golden Girls" didn't fare well at the Emmys. It only received three nominations for its last season, and for the first and only time it did not receive a nomination as Best Comedy Series. Betty White and Estelle Getty were nominated again as Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, respectively. White and Getty were nominated for all seven seasons. The other nomination it got for Season Seven was for a technical category which it won. So for its seven seasons "The Golden Girls" finished with a total of 68 Emmy nominations and 11 Emmy wins. Very impressive.
"The Golden Girls" always has and always will be my favorite show. Some great shows have preceded it ("Soap", "All in the Family"); other great shows have followed it ("Desperate Housewives", "House"). But nothing will ever top "The Golden Girls". It's the best TV show ever made.
Related DVD's The Golden Girls - The Complete Seventh and Final Season
It's a good sign when a new year begins with Jeffrey Tambor (The Larry Sanders Show, Arrested Development) and ends with Harry Shearer (Spinal Tap, The Simpsons). Tambor shows up as Dorothy's doctor in the The Golden Girls two-part fifth season premiere ("Sick and Tired"). Unfortunately, he isn't able to determine why she's feeling run down, so she pays a visit to Empty Nest's Dr. Weston (Richard Mulligan, who returns a few episodes later). Blanche (Rue McClanahan), meanwhile, decides to become a romance novelist, despite the fact that she can't write. Dorothy (Bea Arthur) will eventually find out she has chronic fatigue syndrome (an affliction shared by writer/creator Susan Harris, who'll soon exit the show), while the flighty Blanche will retire... More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 09 May 2006 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The wisecracks, hugs, and late-night servings of cheesecake continue in the sixth season of The Golden Girls. At the end of the sitcom's previous year, Blanche's daughter, Becky (Debra Engle), announced her pregnancy. In the sixth, Blanche (Rue McClanahan) becomes a grandmother ("Blanche Delivers"). Other developments: Dorothy (Beatrice Arthur) starts seeing ex-husband Stan (Herb Edelman), Sophia (Estelle Getty) dons a habit, and Rose (Betty White) discovers the true identity of Miles (Harold Gould). As The Golden Girls moves on into the 1990s, the earrings--and Dorothy's shoulder pads--remain as out-sized as ever, but the show takes on more contemporary issues, like cross-dressing ("Ebbtide's Revenge") and sexual orientation ("Sisters of the Bride"). Despite the bevy of... More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 14 November 2006 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Long before reality-show staples "Big Brother" and "The Real World" tapped into the drama and high-hilarity of cohabitation, the long-running "Golden Girls" paved the way into that prime-time show format. Only difference is that "Golden Girls" was pure fiction. Season Four stays true to the format that earned the series three Emmys and a Golden Globe Award: Three widowed/divorced friends in their '50s and one octogenarian mother and grandmother all share a home and their retirement in Miami, Florida. In a season that includes a UFO sighting and government cover up; the implications of drug addiction; a late-in-life wedding; the ridiculous '80s aerobics craze--spandex, headbands, leg warmers and all; a nightmarish nursing home; lesbianism; an intergenerational love triangle; and a trip to... More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 14 February 2006 Usually ships in 24 hours
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As the saying goes, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," and the second season of The Golden Girls picks up where the first ended. The same classic quartet--Blanche, Rose, Dorothy, and Sophia--is back, along with their snappy retorts, shoulder pads, and cheesecake. Well, there was one change. In the season premiere, "End of the Curse," Blanche (Rue McClanahan) goes through menopause.
Highlights of the 26 episodes include "Ladies of the Evening," featuring a cameo from Burt Reynolds, just a few years prior to his own network sitcom, Evening Shade. As Blanche exclaims, "Mr. Burt Reynolds is one of our finest living actors...I mean, you put Sir Laurence Olivier in Cannonball Run--see what he can do." Then there's "Isn't It Romantic?" with Lois Nettleton (In... More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 17 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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