DVD Review: Perfect Strangers - The Complete First and Second Seasons

Everyone has their favorite television shows from years past. Some shows from our childhood will always hold a special place in our hearts. Watching some of these programs on DVD years later can be a depressing experience. Well, the television show Perfect Strangers, which has just released its first two seasons onto DVD, is just such an experience.

The show, launched as a mid-season replacement in 1986, was a success and aired through August of 1993. It followed the story of Larry Appleton (Mark Linn-Baker) and his (very) distant cousin, Balki Bartokomous (Bronson Pinchot). The show starts out with Larry, a mid-20-something man from Wisconsin having moved to Chicago to live alone and pursue his dreams of becoming a photojournalist. One day (the day the show begins) Larry answers a knock on the door to find out that a cousin he never knew, Balki, has arrived from the island of Mypos to live with him.

The culture clash is instant as Balki has little to no idea about U.S. customs other than the dribs and drabs of pop culture references that he is able to misuse (or sing) at a moment's notice. Larry, recognizing that Balki needs help, takes his cousin in. He also gets Balki a job at his current place of a employment, a discount store run by a less than reputable man, Donald Twinkacetti (Ernie Sabella).

Also present in season one is the quickly jettisoned character of Susan Campbell (Lise Cutter) who disappears after the first season. She is replaced by Jennifer (Melanie Wilson) and Mary Anne (Rebecca Arthur) who would become love interests for Larry and Balki, respectively.

The vast majority of plots in the first two seasons (and the rest of the series) take one of two forms. In the first, Balki gets into trouble due to his not understanding U.S. customs and Larry makes the problem worse before Balki is able to right everything through the same lack of understanding that got them in trouble in the first place. In the second, Larry wants to impress someone (often a woman) and declares that he can perform tasks he is in no way capable of and Balki ends up bailing him out. With Balki's naïve ways and Larry's high-strung attitude both of these formula led to some wonderfully funny moments.

Article Author: Josh Lasser

Josh Lasser, formerly known as "TV and Film Guy," and complete with a Masters Degree in Critical Studies in said areas, gives his opinions on TV, Film, and Entertainment in general. All of which he does in a shameless attempt to try to get paid to do the exact same thing. …

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