Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Video: 4:3 Full frame
Audio: English 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround, Spanish and French Dolby 2.0
Subtitles: English, Spanish
Extras: Audio commentaries on all episodes; Deleted scenes; Three featurettes (“A Line From Matt Groening”, “A Glimpse Inside: A Bit From The Animators”, and “The Crank Calls”); Multi-angle animation showcases; Original sketches; Commercials; Special language feature; preview of The Simpsons Movie DVD
Length: 504 minutes total
Rating: *****
The Simpsons is the long-running, Emmy-winning television show currently appearing on Fox television. In addition to being a cultural phenomenon since the early 1990s, the animated family is also now starring in their first feature film at the box office. The adult-oriented animation series follows the comic misadventures of Springfield’s favorite family: Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie. The Simpsons: The Complete Tenth Season finds the family and other residents of Springfield in top form and also includes numerous celebrity guests.
Memorable moments from The Complete Tenth Season include: Homer trying to get rich quick by selling grease in the episode “Lard of the Dance”; Ned Flanders and Homer Simpson running off to Vegas and waking up married to cocktail waitresses the following morning in “Viva Ned Flanders”; and Homer trying to renege on a promise to donate his kidney to an ailing Grandpa Simpson in “Kidney Trouble”. The entire twenty-three episodes from the 1998 season are contained on four discs.
(Disc One: Lard of the Dance, The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace, Bart the Mother, Treehouse of Horror IX, When You Dish Upon a Star, D’oh-In’ in the Wind, plus special features. Disc Two: Lisa Gets an “A”, Homer Simpson In: “Kidney Trouble”, Mayored to the Mob, Viva Ned Flanders, Wild Barts Can’t Be Broken, Sunday Cruddy Sunday, plus special features. Disc Three: Homer to the Max, I’m With Cupid, Marge Simpson In: “Screaming Yellow Honkers”, Make Room for Lisa, Maximum Homerdrive, Simpsons Bible Stories, plus special features. Disc Four: Mom and Pop Art, The Old Man and the “C” Student, Monty Can’t Buy Me Love, They Saved Lisa’s Brain, Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo, plus special features).
The overall video quality for this DVD set is very good given the source material is nearly ten years old. [Animation always seems to come off the best in transfer to DVDs…Ed.] Images are clean with sharp detail. Colors are vibrant and bright with well-saturated hues. Black levels are consistently dark throughout. Picture defect mastering is solid with no major flaws or compression artifacts. The overall audio quality is good with the Dolby Digital 5.1 track serving as the basis for this review. The soundtrack mix predominantly favors the forward soundstage. Dialogue is intelligible and properly anchored in the center channel. The surround channels see limited action.
– Calvin Harding Jr.
