News Radio: The Complete Series

Enough time has passed that Kids in the Hall fans can forgive Dave Foley for taking a straight job on this very mainstream sitcom following the demise of one of comedy’s greatest, and most absurd, ensembles. It helps that the considerably more conventional News Radio boasted a fine ensemble itself, where Foley was matched by the late, great Phil Hartman, who, playing a pompous anchor, steals every single scene he's in, as well as a pre-ER Maura Tierney. The sexual tension between the impossibly cute couple of Foley and Tierney never gets old — the writers hook them up on the second episode and mine their ups and downs over the rest of the five seasons, presented here in one 12-disc set. Sadly overlooked ever since the show’s run are the underrated Stephen Root, who plays the micromanaging billionaire boss of the New York radio station, and Vicki Lewis, who takes the cliché of the wacky secretary and runs wild with it. The writing in the first three seasons is quick, sharp and consistently funny, as any good show about media should be, and News Radio lives up to the high standards set by Mary Tyler Moore and WKRP in Cincinnati. As with any sitcom, ideas start running dry after that, which would explain the ill-advised fantasy episodes that situate the cast in outer space and on the Titanic. The death of Phil Hartman proved to be a fatal blow to the show; his replacement, Jon Lovitz, is excruciatingly humourless. What’s eerie in retrospect is how many references there are to the death of Hartman’s character throughout the series, including one where a stalker threatens to kill him. The opening episode of the fifth season, where the staff reacts to the death of the character, is handled surprisingly well. The entire series should have called it a day after that. Plus: selected commentaries, featurette, gag reel.