I Love Lucy: The Complete Season 1 DVD Review:

I Love Lucy: The Complete First Season

It is easy to take for granted “I Love Lucy”, a show which has been on reruns since before many of us were even born. I know that I personally grew up watching the episodes and never since have known television to be without Lucy’s crazy antics. What I didn’t realize was how much I didn’t even know existed, all of which has been compiled in one of the greatest television sets I have ever watched.

“I Love Lucy” features the schemes cooked up by the redheaded wife of a nightclub singer, Ricky Ricardo. Along with her neighbor friend Ethel, Lucy comes up with ways to get into show business. When they aren’t doing that, there are many battles of the sexes between Lucy, Ethel, Ricky, and Fred, Ethel’s husband.

It really is amazing how groundbreaking the show really was when it came out, featuring timeless writing which is still as funny today as when it was aired in 1951. Unlike many shows which took a few seasons to get into stride, “I Love Lucy” was instantly polished. The first season has some of the most memorable episodes, including a personal favorite of mine featuring Lucy as the Vitameatavegamin girl.

Although many would agree that this show is a classic, and a great one to own, there may also be some who would argue that it is pointless to buy what you can see for free on television every day. While this may seem to make sense, it is an argument which fails once you have seen what the DVDs actually contain. All 35 of the episodes from season one are in the set, including a pilot which was not shown for many years and is not likely to be aired often even now. Each of these 35 episodes have been restored to their original quality, before bits were shaved in order to add more commercials to programming.

Each of these episodes look much better than I ever remember them looking before in these digitally re-mastered versions. Although the sound is still rather flat, it is nothing worse than has been seen on television all of these years.

What makes this set so incredibly special is the special features included. Many television shows put all of the episodes on the first discs and then have a disc for special features, but the “I Love Lucy” set has a much better system. Each disc has special features for the episodes that are on that specific disc. That way you can watch the episode and immediately watch all of the special features for it as well. And these are not little special features. They are amazing pieces of history captured for your viewing pleasure. Each disc has the same special features adjusted to fit the specific episodes. The first is flubs by the actors or crew, including a description to show you what to look for. Next is a list of the guest cast members specific to each episode and a bio of them. There is special footage including lost scenes, differences made from the original episodes and the ones which are seen on television today, and restored music.

“I Love Lucy” has been known to have the same opening, with the heart over a satin background, but this was created when the show was syndicated. Before that there were animated cartoons of Ricky and Lucy at the beginning of each episode. These are featured on each disc, and often change. One of the most amazing special features on these discs include entire episodes of Lucille Ball’s radio show, My Favorite Husband, which inspired many episodes of “I Love Lucy”. In all of the discs there are thirteen full length episodes of this program. There are also production notes, giving insight to many trivia bits within the episodes, including photos, and Behind the Scenes material as well, often including photos, video, and audio tracks.

There were complaints when this season was first released, because of the fact that it was in a nine disc set, and extremely expensive and bulky. Although this rarely happens, the set has been reissued, now with only seven discs, all fit into four slim disc containers, making for a sleek box set with all of the bells and whistles which made the other one great. On top of that, the price has also been lowered a great deal, making this an amazing buy in so many ways.



Ryan Izay