Releases Reviewed:

For the most part if you liked or disliked the way ALF season 1 was handled you can expect more of the same with season 4 except for some glaring issues that may make you want to hunt down a corporate executive and incite nearby cats to scratch a certain someone's eyes out. It's like these people decided that if the crew making ALF quit caring about making good episodes they were going to quit caring about making good TVD's (working on the premise that season 1 can indeed be considered to be a “good” TVD set).

You have 1 TVD option. There is no series box set.

Season 4 is a 4 DVD set.

Video:

1.33: This is the old TV standard ratio. The video is on par with the previous seasons. It's not impressive compared to modern shows, but if you've only seen the broadcast versions you should be satisfied.

Audio:

2.0 Dolby: Once again, it's nothing impressive by today's standards, but this remastered audio is better than I remember from the broadcast. There are numerous things that I will complain about on this release, but audio/video quality is not among them.

Packaging:

On the plus side the DVD case doesn’t stack the discs on top of each other like some of the other packages have. It's a standard plastic case.

The insert is just a thin sheet of paper. If you don't lay it in the case just right you'll crumple it all up. It does have a list of what episodes are on what disc (more or less) with the director and writer for each one. With the other blunders in this set it comes as no surprise that they can't get their act together on writing down the episodes for us, either. The list is inaccurate to the point of being virtually useless. If you’re ever looking to watch a specific episode you can't rely on the list to help you figure out which disc to put in.

The interface is simple as far as menu options go. The episode list has thumbnails with the episode titles and some fun elements that I'll talk about below.

Extras:

-Menu hosting: If there is anything positive here it is ALF himself hosting the menus in original and humorous segments. This time he’s selling show segments for portable devices. While not as funny as some of the past menu scenarios it’s still pretty amusing. Each disc has a different segment forming an original mini-episode all together.

-Episode Summaries: As always ALF also gives an audio description for each episode. I’ve always thought these should be more entertaining than they are. They’re real summaries and are almost never amusing. Tell a few jokes, ALF! Select the “?” by the episode thumbnail to hear the summary.

Easter Egg:

-Comedy Sketch: There is only one other extra feature. It’s ALF talking about a new show (which I assume is a joke since I've seen no evidence of an actual show in the works) with 2 bimbos to help him out. It’s rather perverted and not something I would recommend letting younger kids watch. Come on, guys, ALF is supposed to be family friendly! Despite my distaste I couldn’t help but laugh at it. It’s hidden on disc 4, page 2 of the episode list. Move down to reveal a “Babe Magnet” icon and select it.

Other Editions:

There are none.

Final Thoughts:

What I don’t understand is why Lion’s Gate and Paul Fusco put the effort into filming brand new scenes for the menus and Easter egg, yet they couldn’t do so much as record an ALF and/or Paul commentary or any kind of interview as a retrospective of the series. Past seasons have included some manner of bonus features even if just episodes of the cartoon series. This one, though, offers next to nothing.

Not only do we not get extras some of the content is repeated making this a smaller package than it would initially seem. Why not ax the repeats and include the ALF follow-up special from a few years later (as bad as it is)? What about ALF’s many appearances on commercials and other shows? Surely the comical commercial bumpers (“If you’re getting up to get a snack, bring me one I’ll be right back!”) would have been easy to gather up. There’s a lot they could have included but must not have cared. In addition to missing portions of each episode we’re missing 2 episodes entirely which is a big downer. It’s mainly for that reason that I don't recommend this set unless you are especially wanting a complete (or as complete as is possible) ALF TVD collection on your shelf. Just watch the episodes on Netflix or Amazon or something like that.

Review

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Episodes:

There are 20 unique episodes plus 4 more repeats. Reruns in a TVD collection? Seriously?? Two of them were already included in earlier TVD sets while 2 are in this same set twice. It seems the designers couldn’t decide between airing and production chronology and ended up using a mix of both. This wouldn't be quite so infuriating if two episodes hadn't been omitted as a result: “It’s My Party” and “Make ‘Em Laugh” are not included. They’re listed on the insert which leads me to believe they were omitted accidentally due to poor attention to detail in the design process. Does Lion’s Gate not have a quality assurance department to check things like this? So in other words if you buy every TVD release available you will not have all the episodes while you'll have 4 of them more than once.

Most episodes are between 21 and 22 minutes long with a few closer to 20. All the TVD’s include the syndicated versions of the episodes which means a couple of minutes have been trimmed from each episode as they originally aired. If you haven’t seen the uncut versions you won’t miss anything, but there are moments I remember that are now gone. Part of the point of buying a TVD collection is to have a complete collection so missing material is an unfortunate strike against any release like this.

The one thing they get right is the chapter division. Each episode has 4 chapters with one of the stops being after the theme. Don't want to see the opening credits every time? A quick skip gets you past them. There's another division in the middle of the episode and one right before the end credits. It's amazing how many TV releases don't recognize how handy this kind of chapter division is!