The Seventh Season

Married with Children is a risque television series takes a slapstick approach to comedy about a man whose life couldn't be any worse. Al Bundy (Ed O'Neill) is a former high school football star turned women's shoe salesman. After his glorious high school days, nothing has really gone in the right way for Bundy. He's such a loser that you can't help but laugh. Al's wife Peggy (Katey Sagal) was his high school sweetheart and the major cause of his headaches. They also have two kids: Kelly (Christina Applegate) and Bud (David Faustino). Next door are their neurotic neighbors Marcy (Amanda Bearse) and Jefferson (Ted McGinley). Together, the Bundys and D'Arcys get into outrageous and comical situations. For additional information about the series, please refer to DVD Talk's reviews of season one, season two, season three, season four, season five, and season six.

In the season seven premiere episode "Magnificent Seven", Shane Sweet joined the cast as Seven. Seven is the son of Peggy's cousins, who abandoned him with the Bundy's. Immediately, Peggy took a liking to the boy, treating him better than anyone else in the family. After some hesitation, Al agreed to care for the boy. With the addition of Seven, the show's dynamic quickly changed for the worse. Fans regarded Seven as a bad move, as he was an annoying character who added nothing positive and took the spotlight from the rest of the cast. The storylines also took a different tone with too much focused on the annoying kid. His role was eventually downgraded and taken out (much to viewer satisfaction). Regardless, Seven was a bad move on the show's part.

The good news is that Seven's role was minimized fairly early in the season and eventually removed. At this point, Married with Children started to regain its fun cast dynamic and hilarious content. "Al On The Rocks" is an example of one of the stronger early season episodes. The reason behind its success is Al. Having Seven around the house, Peggy looks for more money and without thought takes the house mortgage payment. Al, needing to make quick cash, takes a job as a topless bartender, thinking he'd be working in a strip club. He soon learns it is his top that is supposed to come off. It is a fun and neurotic episode with Al's ego getting a big boost, only to be dropped when Jefferson steals the spotlight.

"Frat Chance" is another pretty strong episode. Bud's testosterone (or rather lack of) gets a major kick. After the constant rejection from babes and teasing from his family and the Darcys, he decides the best way to get girls is to be a frat boy. He forms a frat in the family garage with three dorky candidates who have zero potential. Bud's odd, pant-less initiation and girl-less frat party are rich moments highlighting the Bundy failure.

The season features other enjoyable episodes that include "Kelly Doesn't Live Here Anymore", Kelly gets a job as a waitress, "Christmas", a classic holiday episode where Al gets a job at the mall as Santa to buy gifts for the family; he remises about past Christmases, "The Wedding Show", Bud gets lucky with his cousin's bride and later in "Wedding Repercussions" Bud's cousin Jimmy employs his help to find the adulterer; little does he know it is Bud, "You Can't Miss", Bud goes on a dating game show, "Go For The Old", Al participates in an athletic competition for old dudes and gets really serious about it, and "The Proposition", Vanna White guest stars as former Polk High classmate turned millionaire who wants to spend a steamy night with Al; in return Peggy will get half a million dollars.

Overall, Married with Children's seventh season has some fun episodes, but at the same time has its fair share of duds. The season's biggest development, the addition of character Seven, moved the show in the wrong direction. Fortunately, this poor change was rectified by minimizing Seven's role and eventually removing him. This post-change development allowed for the show to return to its fun dynamic, delivering solid Married with Children episodes. In the end, the seventh season is not the show's strongest, but it still has enough enjoyable content to make it worth your time.

Episode Guide

1. Magnificent Seven: When Peg's 5-year-old nephew Seven is abandoned at the Bundy doorstep by his loser parents, Peg and Al decide to keep him, much to their kids' dismay.
2. T R A Something, Something Spells Tramp: When Kelly's date gives her an ultimatum, she finds herself stranded but not alone on a deserted road 15 miles outside Chicago. Meanwhile, Peg tries to put some spice back into her marriage by pending Saturday night "communicating" with Al.
3. Every Bundy Has A Birthday: When Seven can't remember his birthday, Peggy assigns him one, selecting the next day, which also happens to be Al's birthday. The family decides to go to the town park to celebrate, only to find it's been rented by a rich, snobby family.
4. Al On The Rocks: When Peggy panics over Seven's sneezes, she begins piling up medical bills, forcing Al to take on a second job as a topless bartender.
5. What I Did For Love: Peg tries everything in the book to renew Al's romantic interest in her -- up to and including promises of five-course meals.
6. Frat Chance: Desperate for a date, Bud creates his own community college fraternity in his garage.
7. The Chicago Wine Party: With the elections coming up, Al convinces his family to register to vote for the first time in an effort to stop a proposed tax on beer. When the tax increase passes, Al leads an angry protest to overturn the bill.
8. Kelly Doesn't Live Here Anymore: When Al can't afford to pay the bills, he convinces Kelly to get a job. Finding employment as a waitress at a burger joint, Kelly realizes why Peg has never worked a day in her life.
9. Rock Of Ages: When Al wins a trip to Hawaii, he poses as an aging rock star to get into the first class lounge. Inside the airport lounge, he meets rock heroes Spencer Davis, Richie Havens, Robby Krieger, Mark Lindsay, Peter Noone and John Sebastian. Mistaking him for a fellow rocker, the musicians convince Al to perform with them at a benefit.
10. The Death Of A Shoe Salesman: While shopping for a burial plot for the family, Al and Peg discover they don't have enough money, so they have to be buried in the same casket.
11. The Old College Try: Bud's big plans to move into his college dorm are destroyed when Al and Peg manage to get their hands on his scholarship money and go on a shopping spree. Broke and dormless, Bud is forced back into the Bundy household.
12. Christmas: Al does his yearly pre-Christmas inspection of the family and can find they've done nothing wrong, which means he has to buy them presents, but he has to take a job as a department store Santa to pay for the gifts.
13. Wedding Show: As the Bundys prepare to attend their cousin Jimmy's wedding, everything goes wrong. Al can't find his suit, Peg can't get her makeup right, Kelly and the bridesmaids think they have on the wrong dresses, and Bud gets caught with the bride.
14. It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This: Al takes a fishing trip alone, only to have Peg and Marcy show up and spoil his vacation.
15. Heels On Wheels: Kelly buys a motorcycle to put some fun back into her life, but disaster strikes when Al decides to take the bike out for a spin.
16. Mr. Empty Pants: Peggy's unflattering cartoon makes Al a reluctant celebrity.
17. You Can't Miss: Bud goes on a dating game for "nerds."
18. Peggy And The Pirates: While reading a romance novel, Peg fantasizes that she is a lady in distress and Al is the pirate who saves her.
19. Go For The Old: Al becomes obsessed with his age after a theater cashier gives him a senior citizen's discount.
20. Unalful Entry: Al becomes a local hero when he stands up to a burglar.
21. Movie Show: Kelly gets an unpleasant surprise when the family takes her to a movie on her birthday.
22. 'Til Death Do Us Part: When Peg complains about Al's lovemaking to the girls at the beauty parlor, he becomes the laughingstock of the town.
23. 'Tis Time To Smell The Roses: Peg spends all of Al's early retirement money and forces him to go back to work.
24. The Old Insurance Dodge: When Al's Dodge is stolen, he learns it is only worth $100, and he decides to add a few priceless items to the list of thing missing from his trunk.
25. The Wedding Repercussions: When Jimmy learns that his new bride slept with someone the day of their wedding, his temper explodes and a guilty Bud runs for cover.
26. The Proposition: Coco, a cosmetic millionairess and former girlfriend of Al's, makes a truly indecent proposal by offering Peggy $500,000 for one night of passion with Al.

The DVD

Video:
The video format is given in its original aspect ratio 1.33:1 full frame color. The overall quality is acceptable. There are some noticeable of compression artifacts and ghosting during heavy movement. Overall, while not outstanding, the visual representation is still good enough.

Audio:
The audio track in this release is given in English Dolby digital stereo sound. The audio sounds pretty clean and is very flat. It is as basic as TV on DVD releases get. This release also supports closed captioning.

Extras:
There are no "real" extras included with this DVD release. Disc 3 has trailers for Seinfeld Season 9, The King of Queens, "Great TV Families", and Meatballs.

Final Thoughts:
Married with Children is a situational comedy about the dysfunctional and somewhat disgruntle, yet loveable Bundy family. This season featured a change in its cast by adding the young character Seven. Seven was an annoying character that changed the cast's and the show's dynamic for the worse. As such, the season started off pretty weak, but got better as the character was dropped. Eventually, Married with Children felt like its earlier seasons, which is a good thing. In the end, fans will want to check out this season to relive some big Bundy's moments, like Bud sleeping with his future-cousin-in-law, Al getting propositioned for a night of romance by guest star Vanna White, Kelly getting her first job, and so on.