The Media Report of Me:
CD Player (at home): Bounce cast recording (I'm re-evaluating it.)
CD Player (at work): Ella and Louis Armstrong's Porgy & Bess
DVD Player: Northern Exposure First Season set. At first I was not happy about this set at all. First, NE's first season consists of only eight episodes. Second, Universal did this on the cheap because it double sided the disks--all eight episodes and their extras are on just two disks. Third, the first disk is mis-labeled, so I started playing episode three before watching the first and second ones. Finally, there is a preview of other Universal boxed sets on Disk 1, Side 1 (or, I should say, Disk 1 Side 2) that you can't skip--you can only fast forward through it!
But! But! But--all these misgivings were thrown out the window once I actually started watching the episodes. They are absolutely, fantastagorically gorgeous! When NE originally aired, I still had a twenty year old 19" Goldstar color TV, so I never fully appreciated the beautiful cinematography this show employed. And the color! The color is so amazingly vivid that it pops from the screen and yet it never looks artificial. On the basis of visuals alone I would highly recommend this set.
But wait! There's more! There's the show, itself, which is wonderfully written and directed. The cast is terrific, particularly Rob Morrow Barry Corbin in the early episodes I've watched so far.
NE was a favorite of mine during the 90s and one of the few shows I went out of my way not to miss each week. Even when it went formulaic in the third or fourth season (three storylines each episode, the "Will they or won't they" thing between Joel and Maggie), the overall quality never wavered. It wasn't until the final season when Morrow and the original creative team left did it hit the skids.
