Newhart - Season 1 (DVD)

Fifteen years before Seinfeld exposed TV audiences to the unbridled neuroses of George Costanza, there was Mr. Carlin. As the most dysfunctional patient in the practice of Chicago psychologist Bob Hartley, he was someone America could both laugh at and identify with. That was the key to the brilliance of this still-great sitcom. As the characters face the psychopathology of their everyday lives—from Bob’s fear of telling his mother he loves her to his wife Emily facing her fear of flying—we can see our ourselves. And at the center of the show is the steady rudder of Newhart’s deadpan delivery, at once vulnerable, bewildered and wise. While this two-disc set is inexplicably devoid of extras (would it kill someone to lay down a commentary track on just one episode?), it’s still nice to be reminded how good a sitcom can be.