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Released by: Shout! Factory
Released on: October 20th, 2015.
Director: Various
Cast: Charlotte Rae, Lisa Whelchel, Nancy McKeon, Kim Fields, Mindy Cohn, George Clooney
Year: 1985 - 1986
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The Series:
What self-respecting child of the eighties didn't watch The Facts Of Life religiously when it was sweeping network TV by storm? Spun off from Diff'rent Strokes in 1979 the series ran for nine seasons (only the first five of which made it to DVD before the release of the complete and massive full series set earlier this year) making it one of the longest running sit coms of its era. Even if The Eastland Academy For Girls was a hotbed of girl trouble, melodrama and comedy that's a considerable achievement. Shout! Factory are now releasing some of the later seasons on their own, and here we are with the entire run of the seventh season on DVD.
The series still revolves around the exploits of a few different teenaged girls now, seven years in, basically young women - a snobby hot blonde socialite named Blair (Lisa Whelchel), a tough biker chick named Joe (Nancy McKeon) from The Bronx, a chubby but ridiculously vibrant middle class bookworm named Natalie (Mindy Cohn) and the youngest of the bunch, a token black girl named Tootie (Kim Fields). They all grew up under the watchful eye of one Edna Garrett (Charlotte Rae), their former house matron who went on to leave the school and start her own business - Edna's Edibles. When this season starts, that business has burned to the ground! Not the types to be knocked down, Edna and the girls decide to let go of Edna's Edibles and start a new business, a gift shop called Over Our Heads that seems to specialize in terrible eighties junk (which at the time did, admittedly, seem kind of cool - you had to be there).
Other recurring characters in these later episodes include a boy named Andy Moffet (Mackenzie Austin) and a hunky guy named George Burnett (George Clooney). Not surprisingly, these later episodes aren't as good as the earlier seasons, and they wind up going to fairly gimmicky lengths to keep things from becoming stale. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does. The show continues, throughout its long run, to tackle real life topics, the kind of issues that do have an effect on its intended target demographic and in that regard it is at least consistent. The amount of laughs you'll get out of it will vary.
Much of the series' success is due not only to the writers but to the talented cast as well. McKeon and Whelchel did a great job, even in this seventh season where the show is definitely starting to jump the shark, of creating a really fun rivalry on the show. Rich kid Blair still continues to flaunt her money and street kid Jo still pushes back every step of the way. Cohn and Fields, the younger girls in the series, formed a very believable friendship between Tootie and Natalie early in the run and that still matters here. Once again, however, the real star of the show is the completely insane Mrs. Garrett. Charlotte Rae isn't afraid to take her character's emotions to ridiculous extremes in this show, often times coming off as a menopausal lunatic as she caterwauls around the store hooting and hollering about this and that.
The episodes that make up this seventh season are presented in this collection across three DVDs as follows:
Disc One: Out Of The Fire… / Into The Frying Pan / Grand Opening / Teacher Teacher / Men For All Seasons / A New Life / Doo-Wah / Truck Stop
Disc Two: Born Too Late / 3, 2, 1 / We Get Letters / Ballroom Dance / Christmas Baby / Tootie Drives / Stakeout / The Agent
Disc Three: The Reunion / Concentration / Atlantic City / The Lady Who Came To Dinner / The Candidate / Big Time Charlie / The Graduate / The Apartment
It's interesting to note that at this point in this show's run it had been moved to Saturday night where it went up against… AIRWOLF! The show still does a pretty good job of seeing the characters deal with real life issues in a manner that you don't have to use your imagination to understand. The characters are obviously older here so it's not such a stretch when they go into business collectively, while it's both nostalgic and flat out weird to see Clooney show up often as their contractor. The funny thing is, as good an actor as he'd become, here he's just sort of a hunk of the month: amusing enough to watch but hardly remarkable.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The 1.33.1 fullframe video is about as good as an eighties TV series is going to look. The video quality is sometimes a bit soft and as such, the colors fade slightly here and there but overall the quality is certainly quite watchable. Skin tones look good, there aren't any problems with compression artifacts, and any problems noticeable appear to be related to the source material rather than the transfer.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono soundtrack is on par with the video in terms of quality. Dialogue is clean, clear and well balanced and there are no problems with hiss or distortion to note. It's not all that exciting a mix but it certainly gets the job done.
There are no extras here, just static menus and episode selection, though the reverse side of the cover art insert does contain episode synopsis and a content listing for each of the three DVDs in the collection.
The Final Word:
The seventh season of The Facts Of Life is not its strongest, in fact the show's best days were behind it at this point but there's still enough feel good humor here to keep it amusing. The presentation is what it is, an accurate representation of a series shot on video in the eighties, so you can't expect miracles here. There's enough fun to be had in this run that fans of the series who didn't opt for the boxed set and who want to complete their runs should have no trouble plunking down for this one, while those who are new to the show should start with the earlier and superior collections.
