HTF REVIEW: Frasier - The Complete Fifth Season (1 Viewer)

[Scott Kimball]

Frasier - The Complete Fifth Season





Studio: Paramount Television

Year: 1997 - 1998

Rated: NR

Length: 588 Minutes

Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1

Audio: Dolby Digital English Stereo

Special Features: None

Estimated Street Price, $30 USD

Release Date: June 7, 2005

Season five of Frasier continues the hilarity rather consistently throughout the season. We pick up where we left off at the end of season four, with Frasier on a plane to distant shores, having followed a beautiful stranger.

Season five ramps up the sibling rivalry between Frasier and Niles, with several episodes devoted to their constant one-upmanship. These tend to be among the best episodes of Frasier, and there is no shortage, here.

The cast deals with an unexpected pregnancy, finding a gift for dad, “Frasier Crane Day”, Bulldog the hero, and more.

All 24 episodes from season five are here, split across four discs, each disc with a “Play All” feature.

The Transfer
The Video for Frasier season five is much like the previous seasons - quite good. Contrast is good, with good definition in the whites as well as in the shadows. The picture is adequately sharp and detailed. Color saturation is good. there were no compression artifacts of note in the random episodes that I screened for this review.

The audio is Dolby Digital 2.0. Frequency response is good. Dialog sounds great - clean, clear and broad in range. Music sounds excellent, with good bass response. This sounds as good as one would expect a TV sitcom to sound.

Special Features
As in Season Four, there are no special features.

Final Thoughts
Frasier fans have no reason not to buy this set, given the good transfers and low price of the set. There are no extras, but given the fluff on early seasons, it isn’t a great loss. There are still several seasons to go before Frasier begins to run out of steam, and I’ll be collecting each one along the way.

 

[PhilipG]

Thanks for the review

This season contains one of my favourite episodes, The Ski Lodge.

Has Paramount changed the packaging at all (i.e. to individual thin disc cases)?

 

[Andrew Radke]

"The Ski Lodge" is by far my favorite episode of the show. That has to be one of the best written episodes in this (or any other) series. I swear the first time I saw it, I laughed until I cried.

Another great episode on the set is when Roz meets her baby's father's parents.......both of which have rather large noses. Again, top notch writing all around.

I haven't gotten around to picking this up yet but I intend to very....VERY soon. Thank you very much for the review Scott.

 

[MattHR]

No. It's the same DigiPak as the previous sets.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

While I like the thin disc packaging, I hope they don't change it, it would be nice to have consistent packaging throughout the run of the series.

Thanks for the review Scott, I've definitely got to pick this one up.

 

[David Williams]

Which they really haven't done. They redesigned the packaging after S2, then again after S3. S1-3 have little Eddies on the side, which have been dropped starting with S4, in favor of Frasier himself. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they don't decide to change things again after S6.

Another vote for The Ski Lodge, while not my all-time favorite (S4: Ham Radio), it's a close second. Thanks for the review.

 

[Matt Stieg]

Actually, seasons 1-3 have the same style, they started changing the type-face of "Frasier" with the release of the final season (for some reason, the word "Frasier" is now much bigger). It's a little annoying, but overall not too big a change, they should definitely stick with the digipaks though (I think I'm the only person who prefers digipaks over thincases, I just think they look nicer).