There are a variety of reasons why a television series ends, especially if it can survive past four seasons. Some of the most common reasons are a decline in ratings and the creative team running out of ideas, which often go hand-in-hand. However, more times than not the core cast of actors on a series decides a series’ longevity. Actors who carry the show and make it interesting for years and years often have the final say in when that show ends. It happened to both Friends and Seinfeld. There is no doubt that Martin Lawrence carried his TV series in the first four seasons, and it appeared that the show could have continued for as long as Lawrence wanted it to. However, Martin Lawrence’s own personal problems pretty much put a nail in Martin‘s coffin and season five would be the final season of the show.
The fifth season of Martin is pretty much more of the same as previous seasons. Martin Payne (Martin Lawrence) and Gina (Tisha Campbell) are still married, and their family might begin to grow even bigger this year. Gina’s best friend, Pam (Tichina Arnold) still annoys Martin and she is still dating one of Martin’s best friends, Tommy (Thomas Mikal Ford). Meanwhile, Cole (Carl Anthony Payne II) is still “playing the field”.
The final season of any television series is usually not the time to try something different. Usually all shows in their final season are just trying to tie up loose ends and sticking with what had worked in the past. The same can be said for this last season of Martin.
Martin Lawrence is still playing crazy characters like Sheneneh, Jerome, Roscoe, Otis, and Momma Payne. He even busts out some new characters, but for the most part the luster has worn off of these characters. Throughout season five, these characters became more repetitive and even bordering on boring. There are still some funny episodes to be found in this season, but overall all of the off screen drama hurt the writing and overall product on screen.
Real-life squabbling forced a change in the interactions between characters Martin and Gina. Halfway through the season, Tisha Campbell accused Martin Lawrence of sexual harassment off of the set. She didn’t really leave the show, but during the second half of the season you will never see Martin and Gina together on screen. All of their scenes were filmed at different times, to prevent them from being around each other. To say that this strained relationship didn’t hurt the overall atmosphere and quality of the show during this season would be ludicrous. What made this show great was the great supporting cast around Martin Lawrence and all of the strife off-screen between Lawrence and Campbell really affected the entire cast.
The fourth of season of Martin was the point where the series starting to decline, and everyone could tell that it was only a matter of time before the series would end. But few could have predicted that the fifth season would be the last seeing as how the fourth season was only a slight decline from the previous three. Martin was still going strong going into season five, but it was a different story by the end of it. Martin Lawrence really carried the series on his shoulders. He had a great supporting cast around here, but without Lawrence the show would have never gotten on the air. In the end, Lawrence’s own personal demons put an end to a series that made him a superstar comedian. Lawrence has since appeared in a couple of hit comedies on the big screen, but mostly his film career has been a series of busts that still made quite a bit of money. There is no doubt about it, though, Martin Lawrence was at his very best on Martin.
Episodes:
Disc One:
Episode 1 – Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t
Gina thinks she might be pregnant and warns Martin to keep quiet. Within an hour, the whole city knows.
Episode 2 – Back In Trouble Again
Gina is nominated for an advertising award, and she tells Martin not to play basketball with the boys because his back has been bothering him. He decides to play anyway and ends up disabled. With the help of Tommy and Cole, Martin goes to a chiropractor who helps him make it to the event in time. But once he’s there, the pain really begins to set in.
Episode 3 – Sophomore Jinx
After some misadventures with marriage counselors, bad advice from friends fouls things up even more for the constantly quarreling Martin and Gina.
Episode 4 – Working Girls
Under pressure during her pitch for an underwear ad presentation, Gina is incoherent, forcing Pam to step in and save the day. The clients are so impressed that they put Pam in charge, causing Gina to feel betrayed. Pam struggles to pull it off, but in the end she has to rely on Gina to win the account.
Episode 5 – Boo’s In The House
The prospect of owning a home gets scarier when Martin and Gina buy their “dream house” on Halloween, but soon find that the place is a haunted, calamity-filled horror.
Episode 6 – Banging Hard In The School Yard
When Martin announces on his talk show that any man can beat any woman at any thing, especially in sports, Gina and Pam challenge him to a girls-against-guys basketball game. Martin and the guys think it will be easy to beat the girls, until they discover the girl’s secret weapon: the women’s Olympic gold medal-winning basketball team.
Disc Two:
Episode 7 – The Life You Save…Might Make You Rich While attending a dinner party, Martin saves the life of an African Prince. The Prince rewards Martin with lavish gifts and offers him a large sum of money for Gina’s services. Martin agrees until he realizes the Prince wants Gina to be his Princess.
Episode 8 – Snow White
When Tommy invites the gang for a ski vacation, they are all in for the ride of their lives when they realize Tommy’s date Aquannetta is a white woman. After Martin discovers Tommy has a special announcement to make, he believes that Tommy is going to pop the question.
Episode 9 – Come On Over To My Place
Cole attempts to entertain a girl at his Mom’s house. But Mom shows up and ruins everything. Martin convinces Cole to get his own apartment. But it turns out to be a real dive.
Episode 10 – Scrooge
Three ghosts bring Martin the holiday spirits.
Episode 11 – Waiting, Debating And Ovulating
Martin and Gina are planning to have a baby. They plan to have a lunch-time rendezvous to get things going. But a trip to the courthouse with Cole, leads to them finding out that Martin has been ignoring jury duty since 1983. Now, forced to perform his civic duty as a juror, Martin presses for a quick verdict, so he can get home to his ovulating wife.
Episode 12 – You Play Too Much
Martin helps a burglar rob his apartment, because he thinks its part of a scheme Pam put together, to get back at him for all his pranks. It’s only after he’s been robbed, that he realizes the awful truth.
Disc Three:
Episode 13 – Ain’t That About A Ditch
Even with Gina’s out of town on business, her mom comes to town for a weekend visit, and wants to spend all her time with Martin. But Martin has plans to hang out with Tommy and Cole at a new club that just opened up. Somehow he has to figure a way to get away from Gina’s mom, so he can go out and have a good time.
Episode 14 – Goin’ Overboard (Part 1)
Martin and the gang shove off on a cruise, without Gina who misses the boat. Martin meets a beautiful woman named Ellen (Lynn Whitfield) who he believes is contemplating suicide. Martin convinces her not to kill herself, and she begins to develop a romantic interest in him. Cole hangs out with Pam at the bar, where they begin to drink heavily. The next day Pam & Cole wakes up in bed next to each other and believe that they’ve had sex. Ellen arrives at Martin’s door half dressed, to put the moves on him. Whitfield and Lawrence had just previously starred in the film It’s a Thin Line Between Love and Hate.
Episode 15 – Goin’ Overboard (Part 2)
Still on the cruise ship with his friends, Martin is stalked by a crazy woman who has a romantic interest in him. Tommy thinks that Pam is suddenly interested in Cole, after finding them in bed together. And to make it all worse, Cole attempts to marry Pam.
Episode 16 – Power To The People’s Court
Tommy decides to act as his own legal representative after Sheneneh sues him for hitting her car.
Episode 17 – I, Martin, Take Thee Pam?
Martin takes Pam back to Jamaica where he married Gina when he learns that his marriage to Gina is invalid and that he’s actually married to Pam.
Episode 18 – Auction
Martin gives his cuckoo clock to Pam, who finds that it makes too much noise, and donates it to a charity auction. Later, Martin & Tommy realize that the clock he gave away might be a very valuable antique, and worth a lot of money. They then begin to come up with ways to get the clock back.
Disc Four:
Episode 19 – Daddy Dearest
Tommy’s ex-marine father, Sgt. Strawn, shows up and tries to make his son a man by showing him up in front of his friends.
Episode 20 – Stake-Out
The police want to use Pam’s apartment for a stake-out, to keep surveillance on a suspect named Dynamite Willie. Martin comes up with an idea to capture the suspect himself, and cash in on the $100,000 reward.
Episode 21 – Goin’ For Mine
Pam gets fired from her job, and she gets the inside track to a newly open A&R position at Keep It Real Records. She finds a new talent Dante (Tyrese Gibson), and gets the job. This was a proposed spin-off for Tichina Arnold, but eventually, it never came to fruition.
Episode 22 – One Flew Over The Hoochie’s Nest
Pam’s twin cousin Tammy (Tichina Arnold in a dual role) escapes from a mental ward and comes to stay at Pam’s house, but eventually Pam is locked up in the mental ward after being mistaken for Tammy. Meanwhile everyone thinks Tammy is Pam.
Episode 23 – California, Here We Come (Part 1)
Martin’s talk show is picked up by another network, and is slated to air to a nationwide audience. The only problem is that he must move to L.A. where the show will be taped. Gina also has been offered a new job, that is also in L.A., but she doesn’t know how to tell Martin.
Episode 24 – California, Here We Come (Part 2)
Martin and Gina must say good-bye to Detroit and all their friends. New job offers in Los Angeles for both Martin and Gina, prompt them to move. As they prepare, they gather the gang and recall past good times.
The video is given in fullscreen color with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. Transfer is good with minimal distortion. The quality is the same as it was for the first four DVD sets, which isn’t a bad thing since that was fairly good for an 1990’s TV show. The same thing goes here once again.
The audio included is available in English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound. There are subtitles available in English, Spanish, and French. Pretty standard quality for a TV show and the same as it was for seasons one, two, three, and four. The dialogue comes out crisp and clear with no major problems.
Just like the last three DVD sets, there are no extras on this set at all.
If you are a fan of this show and own all the other seasons, you have to buy this season to complete the set. This is the final season, but the series didn’t really go out on a high note. So if you are only a casual fan and want to check out the best of this series, stick with the first couple of seasons.
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HBO Home Video presents Martin: The Complete Fifth Season. Created by John Bowman, Topper Carew, and Martin Lawrence. Starring Martin Lawrence, Tisha Campbell, Tichina Arnold, Carl Anthony Payne II, and Thomas Mikal Ford. Running time: 535 minutes. NOT RATED. Released on DVD: October 7, 2008. Available at Amazon
