The Simpsons – The Thirteenth Season, Blu-ray (2001-2002)
Studio: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment (3 discs)
Video: 1.33:1 full screen 1080p HD color
Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio; Spanish and French Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH and Spanish
Extras: Audio commentary on all episodes; A Token from Matt Groening; Six featurettes (“Ralphisms”; “The People Ball”; “The 13th Crewman”; “Blame It on the Monkeys”; “The Games”; “The Sweet Life of Ralph”); Multi-angle animation showcases; Sketch gallery; Deleted scenes; Special language feature; Commercials. more…
Box Set Total Length: 491 minutes
Movie Rating: **** Video Rating: **** Audio Rating: ***1/2
“The Simpsons” is the prime-time, Emmy award-winning television show currently in its twenty-first season on the Fox network. In addition to being a cultural phenomenon since the early 1990s, the animated family has also starred in their own feature film at the box office. The series with adult-oriented humor follows the comic misadventures of Springfield’s favorite family: Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie. “The Simpsons: The Thirteenth Season” features the Simpson family and their fellow Springfield residents continuing in their patented style of comic misadventure, plus this season includes the celebrity guest voices of notables such as Pierce Brosnan, Matthew Perry, Richard Gere, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ben Stiller, Reese Witherspoon and Paul Newman. Highlights from the thirteenth season include Homer becoming the head of a private security company in the episode “Poppa’s Got a Brand New Badge”; an inspired re-telling of three literary classics: The Odyssey, Joan of Arc and Hamlet in “Tales from the Public Domain”; and the infamous skewering of Brazil episode entitled “Blame It On Lisa”. The entire twenty-two episodes from the 2001-2002 season are included on three discs.
(Disc One: Treehouse of Horror XII; The Parent Rap; Homer the Moe; A Hunka Hunka Burns in Love; The Blunder Years; She of Little Faith; Brawl in the Family; plus special features. Disc Two: Sweets and Sour Marge; Jaws Wired Shut; Half-Decent Proposal, The Bart Wants What it Wants; The Lastest Gun in the West; The Old Man and the Key; Tales from the Public Domain; Blame It On Lisa; plus special features. Disc Three: Weekend at Burnsie’s; Gump Roast; I am Furious (Yellow); The Sweetest Apu; Little Girl in the Big Ten; The Frying Game; Poppa’s Got a Brand New Badge; plus special features).
The majority of the episodes included in “The Simpsons: The Thirteenth Season” are good ones. (Yes, there are still a couple of clunkers – though with some great bits in them nevertheless, but there are also a handful of truly inspired episodes as well). It is especially nice to see the inclusion of a robust special features package on this Blu-ray set. The previous Blu-ray release of Season Twenty was noticeably lacking in special features. Overall, Season Thirteen is a welcome addition to The Simpsons home video collection. Highly recommended!
The overall high definition video quality for this set is very good. Images are clean with fine detail, and colors are bright and vibrant. Black levels remain consistent throughout the episodes. While there is occasional image instability, picture defect mastering is otherwise well done with no major flaws or compression artifacts. The overall audio quality is also very good. The soundtrack mix favors the forward soundstage. Dialogue is crisp and always intelligible. The surround channels are minimally utilized for sound effects and the music soundtrack. The LFE channel is tight but is not frequently utilized.
— Calvin Harding Jr.
