Available at Amazon.com
Created by
Michael G. Moye & Ron Leavitt
Cast
Ed Oneill ……… Al Bundy
Katey Sagal ……… Peggy Bundy
Christina Applegate ……… Kelly Bundy
David Faustino ……… Bud Bundy
Amanda Bearse ……… Marcy Darcy
Ted McGinley ……… Jefferson Darcy
The Show
After six years on the air, Married with Children felt like it needed to freshen things up. The show was halfway there in the sixth season, with the joint pregnancy of Peggy and Marcy, but then tragedy struck Katey Sagal and she had a miscarriage, which led to the scrapping of that storyline. But the new kid idea wasn’t abandoned and as the seventh season came along, it finally materialized. And quickly tossed aside.
Introducing Seven, the latest addition to the Bundy family. Seven is the son of Peggy’s relative, Zemus and Ida May (played by Bobcat Goldthwait and Linda Blair). After visiting for a while, they disappear and dump little Seven, who’s their sixth kid, on Al and Peggy. Peggy is of course excited about the new kid, but she’s the only one, as Al, Kelly and Bud immediately hate him.
And they weren’t alone. The audience hated Seven, and hated him bad. The backlash was very hard as Seven just wasn’t a real Bundy and it showed. The six actors playing the Bundies and the Darcies had a good vibe and Seven didn’t fit in. It also didn’t help that the kid actor who played him was really cute and wasn’t your typical Bundy. They were going for laughs with a cute kid acting like a Bundy, but it just didn’t click.
The creators had no choice but to listen to the people at home. Seven was quietly fazed out of the show through the season. He didn’t appear in some episodes and had small parts in others, until his character was just written off the show completely, to the joy of everyone.
But the seventh season wasn’t all about Seven and wasn’t all bad. There were some classic episodes scattered throughout among the 26 that made the season. In “The Chicago Wine Party” Al shows some sense of public awareness, as he actually goes out and votes against a two cent beer tax. Another great one is “It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This,” where Al is trapped for a week in a fishing cabin with Peggy and Marcy. A young David Boreanaz makes an appearance in “The Movie Show” as Kelly’s boyfriend, who ends up getting his ass kicked, like most of them. There was also a good Christmas episode.
All in all, this wasn’t one of the best seasons of Married with Children. The sixth was better and starting with the eighth and the formation of “No Ma’am” things were getting funnier. But even a mediocre season of Married with Children was funnier than most of the shows on TV back then, and it still hold up very well even fifteen years later.
The DVD
This three disc set comes in a sturdy folder which is housed inside an outside sleeve. The discs sit firmly in the pack, so there’s no worry of them getting loose during shipping.
Audio/Video
A disappointment. The episodes look today exactly like they did in their original airing which isn’t bad, but pales in comparison to recent TV shows and other DVD sets that were treated to a better AV transfer. It should be noted that just like in previous seasons, the classic theme song was replaced by generic music.
Special Features
None. Absolutely nothing, unless you consider commercials for other Sony DVD releases a special feature, which I don’t.
Married With Children The Complete Seventh Season |
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