Writing DVD reviews of such shows is difficult because there's not much one can add to earlier season set reviews except to note character milestones, behind-the-scene staff changes, subtle shifts in tone, etc. All the above shows hit the ground running. Each got better after a first season of character tweaking and once each show found its voice it didn't change all that much. In the case of The Bob Newhart Show (1972-78) the general trend was to embrace the absurd with greater frequency, taking every opportunity to introduce more eccentrics for Newhart, whose comedy is mostly rooted in reaction, to make as many low-key, often sardonic and subtly cutting understatements as possible.

In Season Four, The Bob Newhart Show introduces Cliff Murdoch, alias "The Peeper" (Tom Poston), a college friend of psychologist Bob Hartley's (Newhart) who never really grew up - and whose stories about Bob's past come as a revelation to Bob's school teacher wife Emily (Suzanne Pleshette, who married Poston in 2001). Poston would make several return visits before landing a regular series role on Newhart's subsequent show, ah, Newhart (1982-90), more or less in the Bill Dailey role, who on The Bob Newhart Show plays Bob and Emily's childlike commercial jet navigator Howard Borden.

And, speaking of Howard, another memorable eccentric this season arrives in the form of Howard's older brother Gordon (William Redfield), in "Warden Gordon Borden," with Gordon a veritable (if more competitive) clone of his sibling. Redfield (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) might have become a semi-regular like Poston had he not died of leukemia not long after the episode aired. (Redfield does look rather sickly in the episode).

Bob's secretary, the fiercely independent, pithy Carol Kester (Marcia Wallace), gets married this season. Nowadays such milestones would fall, oh, say around November or February (rating "sweeps" months), but back in the fall of 1975 such things weren't really a consideration. Other memorable shows include "Death of a Fruitman" (written by Tom Patchett and Jay Tarses), a hilarious episode in which a semi-regular is killed off, anticipating Mary Tyler Moore's famous "Chuckles the Clown" episode by a year or two; "Over the River and Through the Woods" (by Bruce Kane), in which Bob and the gang get blasted while Emily is away on Thanksgiving; and "Who is Mr. X" (also Kane) in which Bob reluctantly crosses swords with a talk show host (Jennifer Warren) who sandbags Bob and tries to discredit the entire field of psychology.

Besides Warren, Poston, and Redfield, other guest stars include Cliff Osmond, Rene Auberjonois, Keenan Wynn, William Daniels, Martha Scott, Malcolm Atterbury, Gail Strickland, and Veronica Hamel, as well as semi-regulars Pat Finley (as Bob's sister), John Fiedler, Renee Lippin, Florida Friebus, and Jack Riley.

Married writers Gordon and Lynne Farr contributed many of the best Bob & Emily scripts, while Sy Rosen, an aspiring writing working at a Goodwill shop in Palo Alto, joined the gang and was even appointed story editor the following season.**

Video & Audio

The Bob Newhart Show is presented in its original full-frame format and the image is again disappointing, especially when one compares it with the Gag Reel of bloopers included as an Extra Feature. Though the gag reel has slightly faded color and is a little bit scratchy, it looks a lot better than the shows, which appear drawn from old masters dating back perhaps 15 years or more. Episodes are spread across three double-sided discs, with four episodes per side. There's no Spanish audio track this time, though optional Spanish and English subtitles are available.

Extra Features

Included are welcome audio commentary tracks for the episodes "The Longest Goodbye" (with Newhart, Pleshette, Tom Poston, and director James Burrows), "Who is Mr. X?" (Newhart and Wallace), "Over the River and Through the Woods" (Newhart, Burrows, and Jack Riley), "My Boy Guillermo" (Newhart, Wallace, and writer Sy Rosen), and "Guaranteed Not to Shrink" (Newhart, Pleshette, Wallace, and Burrows). The additional participation of Pleshette and Poston is especially welcome, as is the continued acknowledgment of the writers and directors on all of MTM's DVDs.

A Second Family again finds Newhart warmly discussing the season's highlights. It runs 11 minutes. The aforementioned gag reel is a lot of fun.

Parting Thoughts

Fans of The Bob Newhart Show will want to rush out and get this, possibly the series finest year, one that Newhart himself acknowledges offers what are probably the two or three best-remembered episodes. Highly Recommended.

**Vince Waldron's Classic Sitcoms: A Celebration of the Best in Prime-Time Comedy, was a very useful resource in preparing this review.

Stuart Galbraith IV is a Kyoto-based film historian whose work includes The Emperor and the Wolf - The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune and Taschen's forthcoming Cinema Nippon. Visit Stuart's Cine Blogarama here.