Rarely will you find a TV show that pushed boundaries like All in the Family. It's amazing how well the show holds up; it still feels controversial. Over 30 years later, it's impossible to imagine how it continues to push decency, but without Archie Bunker, the world would be a far less entertaining place.
While the entire supporting cast deserves credit, it will forever remain Carroll O'Connor's show. His racist, incoherent, and flat out stupid diatribes sets up a show that's unlike anything we've seen before. Even if you didn't see the show when it initially aired, you can only imagine people talking after each week's episode about "what Archie said last night". Entire episodes fly by with barely a single dialogue line leading to the actual plotline of the episode. Instead, we focus on Rob Reiner's counter-attack to O'Connor's Archie Bunker character. It's the most enjoyable time on television.
Future seasons would dig deep into the Bunker character, while this initial set of 13 episodes brings out every opinion from deep within the bowels of Archie's mind. It creates some of the most memorable episodes the series would have (after Reiner and Sally Struthers left, it was never the same), like "Archie Gives Blood", "Judging Books by their Covers", and "Lionel Moves into the Neighborhood". The unforgettable scenarios still prove pushy for TV, and needless to say, we'll never have another All in the Family thanks to a world far too politically correct.
To take the show as meaningless racism is missing the point. Like classic Mel Brooks' comedy Blazing Saddles, they showcase the ignorance of racists, not embrace them. To view All in the Family any other way is to miss the point. (**** out of *****)
While it never looked great on cable, this DVD set makes no attempt to clean the show up. It's dirty, faded, blurry, and coated in an odd greenish tint. It's not just the gaudy carpeting of the house (of which the interior doesn't even come close to matching exterior at the start of the show) that causes it. This is simply a bland, ugly transfer. (*)
Article comments