Katt Williams Standup

Barney Miller : Season 2

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The three-disc DVD set includes all 22 episodes from the second season, with guest stars Linda Lavin (TV’s Alice), David Doyle (TV’s General Hospital), and Adam Arkin (Hitch). Barney Miller is the kind of cop we'd all like to meet. He somehow manages to maintain order at New York City’s 12th Precinct in Greenwich Village and remains level-headed while dealing with a group of off-the-wall inner-city detectives. Among them is a gambler, another who attends renaissance philosophy conventions for fun, and a third who spends most of his time daydreaming about being an author. This season, the precinct deals with potential layoffs, a man who threatens to blow up the station unless he can speak with President Nixon, marijuana evidence that suspiciously disappears, and a job offer from Florida for Barney. Read more...

Changes are in store for the men of the 12th Precinct in the second season of Barney Miller, which is presented in its entirety in this three-disc, no-frills collection. Chief among the wrinkles to the show's proven formula are the departure of Gregory Sierra's Chano Amenguale, who would leave for his own series after this season; also, Barbara Barrie, who made a strong impression as Barney's wife Liz in the first season, would be relegated to the sidelines for much of this episode run before leaving the series, though she does earn her own storyline for the first and only time in "Social Worker." Otherwise, the second season is focused largely on Barney and the rest of the detectives (as most fans preferred) as they wrangle with crazed gunmen ("The Sniper"), a marauding rodent ("You Dirty Rat"), job insecurity ("The Layoff") and a punishing New York city summer ("Heat Wave"). Hal Linden's smart performance as Barney remains the glue that holds the series together, though there is excellent work from Abe Vigoda as Fish and Max Gail as Wojciehowicz, especially in "The Kid" (Fish becomes enamored of a pickpocket's mother) and "Discovery" (Wojo investigates police harassment of a gay couple). Series followers will also note the presence of future cast members Steve Landesburg and Ron Carey among the guest cast; both would join the show (as Detective Arthur Dietrich and Office Carl Levitt) in the third season. Video quality is a little worse for wear in certain episodes; the set also features two superfluous "mini-episodes" of Charlie's Angels and The Facts of Life as its supplemental features. --Paul Gaita Read more...

Barney Miller: Complete Third Season

List Price: $19.99 Price: $15.99 You Save: $4.00 (20%)

The men of the 12th Precinct are back for another season of big laughs and bad coffee! Fires, blackouts, smog ? elections. The third season gives a wild look at New York City during one of its most dynamic times, the late '70s, an era before the term "politically correct" existed. Join Hal Linden as wise police Captain Barney Miller along with Officers Fish (Abe Vigoda), Wojo (Max Gail), Harris (Ron Glass), Yemana (Jack Soo) and guest stars Dietrich (Steve Landesberg), Officer Levitt (Ron Carey) and Inspector Luger (James Gregory) in this hilarious Emmy®-winning comedy. With a station of wacky misfits and wild New Yorkers, the third season is full of guest stars including Billy Barty (UHF), James Cromwell (TV's 24), Doris Roberts (TV's Everybody Loves Raymond), Brett Somers (TV's Match Game), and Michael Tucci (Grease). So funny it's criminal, Barney Miller: The Complete Third Season is a must-have for any DVD collection! Read more...

The saying "the more things change, the more they stay the same" applies in full to the third season of the Emmy-winning comedy Barney Miller, which underwent considerable shakeups in its cast and creative ranks in its third season while retaining its sharp writing and performances. Gone from the 12th Precinct at the beginning of Season 3 (1976-1977) are Gregory Sierra’s Chano and Linda Lavin’s Wentworth, and in their place Steve Landesburg as the phlegmatic Dietrich and Ron Carey as over-eager Carl Levitt in their first full season as cast members, and briefly, June Gable as Detective Maria Battista (Abe Vigoda’s Fish would join the ranks of the departed in the following season, and his spin-off series, Fish, was introduced here). Producer Chris Hayward had also left the show at the end of the previous season, and co-creator Danny Arnold would take his place for the remainder of Barney’s network run. But in spite of such turnover, the show lost none of its humor and edge during the third season, as witnessed by a pair of exemplary two-part episodes: "Quarantine" forces the detectives to do some soul-searching while under lockdown for a smallpox outbreak, while the season closer, "Strike," tests their loyalties when an unauthorized work shutdown is announced. The blend of laughs and drama present in both episodes are exactly why Barney earned solid ratings and critical respect during its tenure on TV, and while it remains one of the best-loved series to date. Other standout episodes include the memorable "Werewolf" (a prisoner believes himself to be one); "Sex Surrogate" (Doris Roberts guest stars as a woman who shoots her husband for seeking help with dysfunction); the hilarious "Hash" (Wojo’s gift of brownies turn out to contain marijuana) and "Group Home," which revives the show’s running gag of outfitting a precinct member in drag to handle the mugging detail--this season’s candidate is a marvelously mortified Fish. With such a wealth of terrific material, one wishes that some sort of special feature was included to provide some perspective on the season, but that isn’t the case here. --Paul Gaita Read more...

Doomsday

Barney Miller - The First Season

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Barney Miller is the kind of cop we'd all like to meet. He somehow manages to maintain order over a group of inner-city detectives who gamble for a hobby, get hit on by anything in skirts, go to renaissance philosophy conventions for fun, and would really prefer to be writing. Stars Hal Linden, Abe Vigoda and more! Two-disc set includes all 13 episodes from the first season. Read more...

The brainchild of veteran writer-directors Danny Arnold and Theodore J. Flicker, the comedy/drama Barney Miller (1975-1982) offered a very human look at the inner workings of a New York City police precinct; its wry and observant scripts, aided by a stellar cast, helped earn the series three Emmy Awards and a devoted fan base, which should be pleased by this two-disc set that compiles its entire first season. Viewers familiar with the series' later seasons will notice substantial differences in the cast and storyline; episodes divide Barney's (Hal Linden) time evenly between the 12th Precinct and his apartment, which he shares with wife Barbara Barrie and two children (all of whom would be phased out of the series). The first season squad was composed of Abe Vigoda's dyspeptic Fish, the overeager Wojciehowicz (Max Gail), dry-witted Yemana (Jack Soo, who passed away during the fifth season), and street-smart Chano (Gregory Sierra, who departed the series after the second season); Ron Glass's dapper Harris would not be listed in the opening credits until subsequent seasons.

Arnold, along with Chris Hayward (Get Smart) and other scribes, would pen the majority of the first season, which set the tone for the series by pitting the squad against a host of offbeat criminals, other cops, and regular citizens, several of whom would become semi-regulars; James Gregory's crusty Inspector Luger makes his debut in "Vigilante" (episode 9), while unscrupulous lawyer Arnold Ripner (Alex Henteloff) and Detective Wentworth (a pre-Alice Linda Lavin) have their first appearances in "The Experience" (episode 2) and "Ms. Cop" (episode 8), respectively.

Columbia/TriStar's two-disc set offers all 13 episodes of the first season, as well as short credit lists for some of the major players; the little-seen 1974 pilot, "The Life and Times of Captain Barney Miller," might have made an interesting supplemental feature, but fans should be pleased to have this set regardless. --Paul Gaita Read more...