While I would have liked more supplements of course, I think the first season set is fantastic!
The commentaries are wonderful, but I'd love to hear some of the actors voice their opinions and anecdotes too. Missed a real opprtunity to have Albert Brooks in the recording room with everyone for the "Call of the Simpsons" and especially the "Life on the Fast Lane" episodes. My favorite extra for the first set may be the audio outtakes of Brooks riffing as Jacques - great stuff! But then, I'm an enormous Albert Brooks fan.
For upcoming seasons I'd love to hear Castellaneta, Kavner, Nancy, Yeardly, Shearer, Azaria, etc. on some of the tracks. And to get some of the guest stars, for example like Dustin Hoffman to talk about the experience of becoming Mr. Bergstrom, would make a great thing even better.
How about a tribute to Phil Hartman at some point, with on-camera interviews of the cast and crew? Maybe discuss the genesis and continual rebirt of Sideshow Bob with Kelsey Grammer. Actaully all the main characters and actors should get this kind of treatment. That kind of retrospective material would sure be welcome in future sets.
For this first set, it's a damn shame the rights couldn't be cleared for all (or even a decent number) of the shorts from
"The Tracy Ullman Show". Oh, well.
Overall I love the set and am quite happy to have it - and like most, I'm not even that big a fan of the first season, except in seeing how
"The Simpsons" grew (which the excellent commentaries help illuminate even further). But I'm
extremely excited about future seasons.
I hope the other studios take notes and begin releasing other great shows with the same deluxe care. If HBO would finally get around to
"The Larry Sanders Show" or Universal
"The Rockford Files", well...it would give me another good reason to live, dig?
[Edited by Holden Pike on 09-29-2001]