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It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Season Five
R1 - America - Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Ethan Stevenson (16th October 2010). |
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The Show
 In the five years that Rob McElhenney’s “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” has been on the air – putting its characters through some 70 twisted, insane, and often downright perverse adventures – I don’t think that there has been a single bad episode. And, while the fifth season herein reviewed may not contain The Gang’s – Mac (Rob McElhenney), Charlie (Charlie Day), Dennis (Glenn Howerton), Dee (Kaitlin Olson) and Frank (Danny DeVito) – absolute best tale, it’s probably, in my eyes, the strongest, most consistently funny set of episodes yet. For those that don’t know – those unfortunate souls who have yet to experience the deliciously politically-incorrect dialogue and grotesquely humorous plots – “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” is a show about a group of friends, lovingly referred to as “The Gang”, who own and operate a skuzzy bar called Paddy’s Pub in Philadelphia. Dennis and Dee Reynolds, twin brother and sister, couldn’t be more different. Dennis, the always-conniving self-proclaimed ladies man of the group is about as much of an egotistic narcissist as you’d expect from someone who has a whole acronymic system for getting women to sleep with him based around his own name (see: “The D.E.N.N.I.S System” from this season). Dee… well Dee is probably the most tragic member of the group, constantly the butt of everyone’s jokes, always getting hurt (see an earlier episode from a past season called “Frank Sets Sweet Dee on Fire”) and never really gets ahead. She’s also sort of a manipulative bitch, so whatever sympathy you might have had is cancelled out (that’s basically the case with the whole cast of characters really). Then there’s the “gruesome two-some”, Charlie and Frank. Charlie, Paddy’s illiterate janitor, has an infatuation with a woman only referred to as the Waitress (Day’s real-life wife Mary Elizabeth Ellis), who works in a coffee shop down the street. He is a total and complete idiot, but a likeable and charming idiot all the same. Frank is Dennis and Dee’s well-to-do stepfather (and, paternity test results pending, Charlie’s probable real father too). He entered the picture in season two (at the behest of FX Executives who wanted a well known actor, something Danny DeVito certainly is) as the Gangs levelheaded patriarch – sort of the sanity to their insanity. However, corrupted by his children and their friends, the elder Reynolds has become the most slovenly tramp of them all, living in squalor in a one-room apartment with Charlie, dining on cat food and ingesting more alcohol and drugs on a daily basis than the other four combined. DeVito, of course, takes the role in stride, living every moment as if it were his last. Finally, we come to Mac. He’s a childhood friend of Dennis, Dee and Charlie (more so the latter). Mac sees himself as “The Sheriff of Paddy’s”. As the Gangs tough wannabe go-getter who’s constantly obsessed with his physique and fighting a crippling case of repressed homosexuality, McElhenney’s character is without a doubt hilarious (his recent turn in the currently airing season six episode “Mac Fights Gay Marriage” has him jealously attacking a man’s marriage to newly post-op Carmen the Tranny, whom he had a curious relationship with while she was still, mostly, male) but is definitely weaker when not interacting with the other characters (in my opinion, Mac thrives when working in tandem with Dennis or Charlie). Somewhat unusual for a sitcom – and yes “Sunny” is a sitcom (and more shockingly, I like it despite being one); a laugh-track free, non-formulaic sitcom for the slightly bent post-9/11 audience, but a sitcom nonetheless – McElhenney’s show has surprisingly dense characterization and a strong continuity of plot throughout the series. Refreshingly, “Sunny’s” characters are totally selfish, ugly people and their only mission in life is to screw over their fellow man (particularly each other). While most episodes aren’t directly linked, Day, Howerton, McElhenney and the shows host of other writers recall jokes and events from older seasons and other episodes with such rapidity and frequency that longtime fans are more-than-often rewarded (as such, even though season five can be enjoyed by newcomers, if you haven’t seen older seasons, I suggest you go back to the beginning. Trust me – it’s worth it). The shows dialog, much of which is improv-based, is also sharp as a tack. If I wanted to (lucky for you, I won’t) I could just repeat quote, after quote, after quote from this – or really any – season, leaving but a mishmash of absurd conversations, dark one-liners and overly ridiculous, horribly macabre phrases, and keep myself entertained for hours. The comedy is wide-ranging, interweaving everything from dick jokes to Marx Brothers-esque puns to circular “who’s on first”-like dialogue exchanges, but it all comes from the same “if its loud, crude and obnoxious, it’s funny” school as “Curb Your Enthusiasm” (2000-present). I’ve always loved “It’s Always Sunny”, if only because it is so “wrong”, and season five is no different. Okay, I know I said I wouldn’t quote from the show (much), but I will leave you with this exchange between Frank and Charlie from the season finale “The Gang Reignites the Rivalry”. It got the biggest laugh out of me; although I’m not sure, exactly, why (there are other scenes that are just as over the top side-splitting). Mac: He doesn't have any poison. Charlie: I don't have any on me, but I do keep some in my fridge at home in the relish jar. Frank: There's poison in that jar? I thought I was allergic to pickles. What's in the jar with the skull and crossbones? Charlie: Well that's mayonnaise. It's a decoy. Frank: And the mayo? Charlie: That's shampoo. Frank: You're telling I've been putting shampoo on my sandwiches? Charlie: If you've been using the mayonnaise, then yeah, probably. All 12 episodes from the fifth season of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” are presented in their original broadcast order across three discs. “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: A Very Sunny Christmas”, the standalone holiday special available separately on DVD and Blu-ray, is not included, although it can be viewed as the somewhat unofficial 13th episode of the fifth season as it’s from the same production cycle. The episodes include: - "The Gang Exploits the Mortgage Crisis" - Frank buys a foreclosed house, which he wants to flip for profit, but he has one small problem: the previous tenants – a middle class family of four – haven’t moved out yet. Dee, also looking to make a quick buck, rents out her womb to a charming couple too nice not to get abused and taken advantage of by The Gang. Favorite part of the episode: it’s a tie between Mac and Dennis pretending to be gay real estate brokers (sorry, one more quote: “I'm Hugh Honey and this is my partner, Vic Vinegar. We're partners in real estate and we're partners in life”) and Charlie’s argument about “bird law” – whatever the hell that is – with Mac & Dennis, and later, his nemesis, The Attorney (Brian Unger). - "The Gang Hits the Road" - When Charlie reveals that he’s never been outside of the city, Frank, Mac and Dennis decide that the boys should take a road trip to the Grand Canyon in the Range Rover. Dee surprises everyone with the news that she’s bought a “new” (used) car – a tiny Ford Fiesta – to which they declare that they don’t give a shit, and then drive off. Dee eventually weasels her way onto the road trip, but only because they need her Fiesta to get to the Grand Canyon after Mac’s assault on a bicyclist leaves the Range Rover’s underbelly destroyed by a bike carcass. This is a hilarious episode containing unsavory comments about gypsies and hitchhikers, jokes about Dee’s poor choice of automobile, a series of illogical drinking games, and a whole subplot involving the U-Haul that the Gang is towing behind them. Funniest moment? Again, a tough one, but I’d have to go with Charlie’s quest to successfully barbeque hotdogs inside the moving trailer – particularly the ultimate pay off of the whole sequence. - "The Great Recession" - Frank’s broke and that means the Gang is too. Frank is forced to sell his stake in Paddy’s to Mac and Dennis, who then in turn clean house by firing Frank, Dee and Charlie while giving themselves large bonuses. Frank sublets the apartment, forcing Charlie to find a new place to live, and coerces Sweet Dee into taking out a high interest loan to fund his new business venture – selling knives and vacuums door-to-door. The best gags of the episode are probably Frank’s repeated attempts at hanging himself, which he fails each time because his neck is too thick. - "The Gang Gives Frank an Intervention" - After receiving a Government-sponsored bailout, Frank returns to a life of outright debauchery. His seemingly constant state of drunkenness – frequently seen shot-gunning beers and drinking “canned wine” (box wine poured into an inconspicuous Coke can) – comes to a head when Frank embarrasses his kids at their Uncle’s funeral, by hitting on their recently-widowed aunt (Nora Dunn). Realizing that their patriarch has a drinking problem, The Gang decided to give Frank an intervention, something that, apparently, they think is like a Roast where they can continually debase him, but only after they shout the word “intervention!” at the top of their lungs. There’s just too much awesome in this episode to really pinpoint what, exactly, is it’s strongest moment, but Dennis and Dee’s sniveling, slimy cousin, Gail “The Snail” (Mary Lynn Rajskub), and DeVito’s disgusting Penguin-esque beer-gargling are certainly up there. - "The Waitress is Getting Married" - When Dee learns that the Waitress (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) is getting married to one of her ex’s from high school, she hatches a plan to destroy their relationship for personal gain. Meanwhile, Mac and Dennis try to get Charlie a girlfriend before he learns the news of his obsessions engagement; for fear that he will kill them all if he finds out the truth (and be left alone with no chance of winning the Waitress’ love). Any episode with Charlie and the Waitress is top-shelf, simply because the interactions between Day and Ellis are usually so bitter, twisted and creepy, and “The Waitress is Getting Married” is no exception. A C-plot involving Charlie’s battle with a colony of wasps that have taken up residence inside Paddy’s, and his extremely uncomfortable dinner with a girl that Mac and Dennis met for him online, where he falsely admits to being a “full-on-rapist” (a mispronunciation of philanthropist), are just the tip of the iceberg here. - "The World Series Defense" - In order to get out of a series of parking tickets, Dennis, along with his corroborating witnesses (Dee, Mac and Frank) and functionally illiterate fake-lawyer (Charlie), recount a story about the Gang on the day that the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series. The story starts out like any other – the Gang at Paddy’s getting wasted – but soon spirals out of control thanks to their consumption of “riot punch”, a hysterical search for a couple of lost tickets, Charlie’s fight with the Phillie Phanatic (in his Green Man costume no less), a bug-bombed apartment, and a letter written by Mac expressing his repressed, but undying love for Chase Utley. - "The Gang Wrestles for the Troops" - Mac, Dennis and Charlie are on a wrestling kick; Dee’s online boyfriend is returning from Iraq. As usual Dee’s storyline gets twisted and merged with the boy’s storyline and before you know it, the Gang is planning a wrestling match for the troops. While Mac, Dennis and Charlie square away the location and talent (culminating in a cameo by Rowdy Roddy Piper as Da’Maniac, a washed up wrestler who lives out of his Ford station wagon) Dee is meeting her solider boyfriend Ben (Travis Shuldt) who isn’t exactly what she expected – namely he’s in a wheelchair. Two fan favorite guest-starring characters, Dee’s best friend Artemis (Artemis Pebdani) and the truly pathetic “Rickety Cricket” (David Hornsby) make their triumphant returns, thus making up for the lack of other recurring characters this season. Mac and Dennis coerce Cricket, now living on the streets and missing one of his teeth, into fighting Maniac, while Dee asks Artemis to date her disabled boyfriend. It all goes terribly wrong and the episode ends with the troops watching a wrestling match between three birdmen and a member of the Taliban. Oh, and DeVito steals the show with his wrestling persona “The Trash Man” – a 65-year-old man who throws waste baskets at his opponents, wears a unitard, and eats garbage. - "Paddy’s Pub: Home of the Original Kitten Mittens" - With a merchandising convention in town, the Gang looks to take advantage. Charlie wants to find investors for his “kitton mittons” (in other words, slippers… for your cat. There’s also a delightfully awful little video about these mittens that opens the episode; all I can say is poor kitties.) Mac, Dennis and Frank decide to branch out and promote Paddy’s with a couple of ingenious products – namely, Frank’s patented Paddy’s-branded gun that shoots liquor into its users mouth (or, into whatever direction the user wishes to point it, really). Mac and Dennis have their own ideas – a shotgun… which shoots liquor into its users mouth. Regardless, this excites Dee who, thanks to a drunkenly signed contract, apparently gets 100% of the profits from any bar-related merchandise… that is, until Mac eats said contract out of spite. All of this leads to a visit to my favorite recurring character of the season, The Lawyer. Charlie seeks a patent for his “mittons”, Frank battles Mac and Dennis for the rights to the Paddy’s shotgun/gun-shot, and Dee wants to know if that contract in Mac’s stomach is still legally binding. - "Mac and Dennis Break Up" - After Dee remarks that Mac and Dennis seem like an old married couple, the self-proclaimed ladies men decide it might be best if they no longer lived together for fear that their closeness is actually making them less appealing to female-kind. More correctly, Dennis throws Mac out of the apartment because he thinks that they look like a gay couple, thus crippling their friendship and forcing Mac to move in with Charlie and Frank. Meanwhile, Dee – poor, lonely soon-to-be-a-spinster Sweet D – moves one step closer to becoming a horribly anti-social cat-lady when she buys a cat. A subplot involving Dee’s new cat getting stuck in one of her walls, and Charlie’s hopeless assistance in getting said cat out of said wall, is but icing on the cake. - "The D.E.N.N.I.S. System" - “Demonstrate value, Engage physically, Nurture dependence, Neglect emotionally, Inspire hope, Separate entirely” - Dennis reveals his full-proof system for making women – any woman – fall in love with him, even when he treats them like shit. The Gang exploits this new knowledge to the fullest extent, but only after completely misinterpreting it. Charlie tries to demonstrate his value to the Waitress by stalking her, while Mac and Frank go about getting women their own way. At the same time, Dee fears that Ben, her soldier-boyfriend, is running a D.E.N.N.I.S.-like scheme on her. My biggest laugh – probably the sly way we learn that Frank and Mac have their own methods for bedding Dennis’ leftovers. - "Mac and Charlie Write a Movie" - When the Gang learns that the production crew for a new M. Night Shyamalan film is in town, they make it their mission in life to meet the director or be cast in his movie somehow. Dee petitions for a part as a featured actress in the film, and gets cast… as a feature extra. Mac and Charlie begin working on a script for a film starring Dolph Lundgren as a muscular, mesh-shirt wearing scientist who can smell crime before it happens. Frank positions himself as everyone’s agent, because, well, that’s where the real money is. And, Dennis, like usual, just doesn’t give a shit about anything, yet still ends up serving as an Executive Producer on Mac and Charlie’s movie. The funniest moment is probably the entire absurd plot of the proposed Dolph Lundgren project; particularly, Dennis’ suggested rewrite where he tells Mac and Charlie to rework the script to feature multiple scenes of full-on penetrative sex between Lundgren and his sexy lab assistants. - "The Gang Reignites the Rivalry" - The Gang is once again allowed to participate in “Flipadelphia”, an annual city wide flip-cup tournament between the local bars and restaurants, after their 10-year ban for poisoning the competition is lifted. When they learn of their readmittance, Mac, Dennis, Charlie and Dee try to reignite a long dormant conflict between their biggest rival – a man whose since turned his once Paddy’s-like bar into an upscale eatery. Dennis returns to his Fraternity in order to enlist its members help in the flip-cup tourney, only to find that he’s not welcome there. Frank gets high on Adderall (and a host of other substances). Dee tries to hone her atrocious flip-cup skills. Charlie and Mac try to experience college life. This is a strong episode, made stronger by it’s constant, frighteningly-causal talk of poisons.
Video
Much like the "Christmas Special" released last year, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Season Five” is presented in screen filling 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen. Even though the show is being produced in 16x9 these days, “It’s Always Sunny…” is still shot on the cheap, with “pro-sumer” standard definition DV cameras. Fans should know what to expect going in, as for 5 years they have dealt with the rough looking production, but newcomers might be shocked to find such a new show looking this bad. Because season five is from the same production cycle as the "Christmas Special" many of my comments from my review of that disc still hold true. The visuals may be a little sharper, and less stylized than the "Christmas Special" (there aren’t any hallucinated sequences made up to look like a Rudolph holiday special) but establishing shots are still rife with aliasing artifacts and overall the show has a SD video-like look that lacks general definition. On the plus side, colors are brighter and look bolder and less awful than the too-cold Christmas disc, and many of the scenes in this season aren’t too bad within the context of the show’s gritty, cinema-verité style. “It’s Always Sunny…” won’t ever win any beauty contests but in the grand scheme of things, how this show looks is one of its least important aspects. And, considering that the source is an interlaced standard def medium, this DVD set actually does a pretty good job at accurately reflecting the desired look. Season Five is the last season of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” to be produced in 480i standard definition. With the debut of the currently airing sixth season, the antics of the Gang from Paddy’s pub are now being shot in crystal clear high definition. The good news is that means next year’s blu-ray release of season six will actually be worth considering!
Audio
The "Christmas Special" marked another first for the series – it was the first “Sunny” product to be natively produced with 6-channel sound. For whatever reason though, while the show is being produced in 5.1 these days, and is even airing on FX-HD as such, Fox has decided to limit both the DVD's of the "Christmas Special" and Season 5 to a rather wimpy English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround mix. Broadcast isn’t the only way you can get the show with it’s original 5.1 soundtrack – both the special and the season-proper are outfit with full-on 6-channel mixes via Blu-ray – but I think that it’s just plainly idiotic to stagger the DVD's and Blu-ray’s like that. Blu-ray already offers an upgrade thanks to it's lossless delivery, it doesn’t need the additional channels to be further attractive to consumers. The DVD and the Blu-ray should have equivalently numbered-channel soundtracks in my mind. “Sunny” isn’t, nor has it ever been, exactly a sonic powerhouse – in fact, it’s crummy sound is much like it’s crummy video; intentionally awful in keeping with the shows low budget, verité first season – but it doesn’t sound truly terrible anymore, thanks in large part to an ever increasing, but still small, budget. Whereas the first couple of seasons – the debut especially – had terrible, tinny exteriors with garbled dialogue, season five is just about pitch-perfect and clear. Overall dynamics are still poor, and everything is still dialogue and front-focused, but that’s only on these DVD's – the broadcast is tighter, and fuller. Hence, again, why I think that Fox really should be providing the new 6-channel mixes on both formats. Optional subtitles are available in English for the hearing impaired, Spanish, French and Portuguese.
Extras
For it’s fifth season “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” packs a decent-sized array of supplements onto three discs, with about half of the episodes receiving optional audio commentaries with the cast, crew and Dr. Drew Pinsky, an "Endless Kitten Mittens Loop" featurette, a blooper reel, as well as a photo gallery montage, a featurette, and some deleted/extended scenes. The Pilot episode of FX’s “Archer” is also included. DISC ONE: There are also two audio commentaries on disc one. “The Gang Hits the Road” features Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day and Danny DeVito, is a good track. They talk about shooting the show in Philly and LA, how a lot of show’s dialogue, like the “Sheriff of Paddy’s” exchange, is improv which they come up with on the set, how DeVito’s star power is constantly ruining shots (especially when they are in Philadelphia; apparently people just walk into scenes and ask for autographs, or shout at Danny from across the street all the time when the series is in production). Day and McElhenney also talk about some of the deleted scenes from this episode, including a bit about cell reception being terrible inside the trailer. A second audio commentary is included on “The Gang Gives Frank an Intervention” with Danny DeVito and Dr. Drew Pinsky of “Celebrity Rehab” (2008) Drew, an expert on psychology, addiction, and definitely intervention, dissects the Gang, focusing primarily on how Frank, the shows sex, cannabis and alcohol addicted patriarch has no help from the self-involved, self-destructive people that surround him. Pinsky remarks that “It’s Always Sunny…” is one of his favorite shows simply because the characters are such degenerates. Fox has also included a bonus pilot episode of “Archer” (anamorphic 1.78:1 widescreen, 21 minutes 32 seconds), Adam Reed’s animated FX Original Series about a politically incorrect playboy spy for ISIS, a government agency that spends it’s time fighting communists in an alternate reality retro-future where the world never progressed passed the 60's in fashion and politics. The series stars H. Jon Benjamin, Judy Greer, Chris Parnell, Aisha Tyler and Jessica Walter. The Pilot is presented in anamorphic widescreen with 5.1 Dolby Digital sound; it looks and sounds terrific (I’m kind of surprised that the show didn’t get a Blu-ray release). Unfortunately, the pilot is probably the weakest of the ten-episode first season, and its inclusion here won’t do much to boost ratings. The disc also starts off with four pre-menu bonus trailers for: - "FX promo" (1 minute 1 second). - “The League: Season One” on DVD and Blu-ray (32 seconds) - “Archer: Season One” DVD spot (30 seconds) - and a finally a dated piece for the “Sunny” Christmas Special DVD and Blu-ray (20 seconds). DISC TWO: This disc includes three audio commentaries. First is a commentary on “The Waitress is Getting Married” with Charlie Day, Kaitlin Olson and Glenn Howerton. It’s mostly a miss for me. I was expecting a rousing commentary full of funny, focusing on Day’s interactions with his real life wife who plays a character that hates his guts, but this is actually a pretty tame track for which the participants seem very unprepared. God love Olson though because she does her best to keep the unusually reserved Day and Howerton from just describing stuff that’s happening on screen. Poor Dee gets the brunt of their faultfinding comments; Olson in particular focuses on her freakishly tall appearance. “The Gang Wrestles for the Troops” features a much better audio commentary track, featuring Danny DeVito, Glenn Howerton and Kaitlin Olson. Howerton discusses his love for wrestling and working with Rowdy Roddy Piper and Olson talks about her “Rose” outfit and how Rob McElhenney (Olson’s real life husband) decided that the dress by itself was too sexy for Dee, thus he came up with the hideous green tights and misplaced rose in her hair to ugly the character up a bit. Danny DeVito, well DeVito is just Frank Reynolds in real life these days, so that’s always fun (he says that his “Trash Man” outfit and persona has, so far, been his favorite costume and character on the show). Also, Olson again proves that she’s probably the most wicked of the entire Gang remarking that she wanted Dee to be choked by Piper but was disappointed by his chivalry when he declined her request. Charlie Day, Rob McElhenney and Dr. Drew Pinsky cap off the disc with their audio commentary on “Mac and Dennis Break Up”. It’s all about the psychology of The Gang on this track. Dee’s male-like behavior, Mac’s childlike need for instant gratification and constant attention, and so on; Dr. Drew chimes in with a tidbit that Frank, the mostly outwardly depraved member of the group, is actually the least complex and least dangerous because he’s simply an alcoholic drug addict with violent tendencies, while Charlie, Mac, Dennis and Dee are clearly sociopaths on the brink. He likens them to pirates (?). Also, is Mac gay? Clearly yes, according to Drew. DISC THREE: One last audio commentary is included on the season finale, “The Gang Reignites the Rivalry” with Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day and Glenn Howerton. This is another miss for me. For whatever reason the boy’s just aren’t on point this season in these tracks without an outsider (i.e. Dr. Drew, DeVito or Olson). There are a couple of gaps and what they have to say isn’t that interesting or funny. A shame really. The bulk of the video-based supplements are also included on disc three. These include: A blooper reel (1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, 7 minutes 47 seconds) that’s actually worth your time… who knew those existed? Because of the unique way “Sunny” is shot – largely spontaneously, in a verité style – much of the dialog is actually ad-libbed, so this is less a collection of flubs and odd gags and more a series of botched alternate takes. Some of the jokes are really funny, and could have worked better in the show than what was used for the final cut if not for the slip up that made said scene a blooper. The blooper reel is taken from a raw tape source complete with time codes and without proper color timing. Next, fans get a series of deleted and extended scenes (1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, 19 minutes 37 seconds). They play out in montage format, and are thus not individually viewable, but nearly all of these excised bits are worth your time. A lot of the scenes were either trimmed or removed entirely not because they were bad jokes, dumb plots or useless material, but simply due to time constraints and a pacing structure forced upon them by their 22 minute time slot. Because of this, I recommend you spend some time with these extremely crass, but great scenes including: a longer version of the gangs conversation with the therapist, a new scene involving Frank’s dinner with Gail (Frank’s toupee!) where he tells her that he thinks they should “bang”, a longer version of the boys harassing Rickety Cricket, more of Da’Maniac, Mac and Dennis explaining their break up to Charlie (they treat him like a child and act like they’re two divorcing parents), a longer version of Charlie "demonstrating his value" to the Waitress, more Mac and Charlie brainstorming for their movie, and Charlie’s idea for a sex scene for the same. The one thing that’s interesting is that the DVD doesn’t include any deletions from “The Gang Hits the Road” even though the commentary on that episode mentions numerous deletions. Like the blooper reel, these deletions are taken from a raw tape source complete with time codes and without proper color timing. A “Kitten Mittens Endless Loop” featurette is pretty self-explanatory. It is, quite literally, an endless loop of cats wearing Charlie’s patented "mittons" while doing various things – mostly just walking (with total determination) on wood floors. The video is done up in the same sort of cheesy style as Charlie’s commercial seen in the show; each star-wipe expressing his amateurish naivety the way only a star-wipe could. The loop runs 5 minutes 44 seconds, and then automatically repeats. It’s frankly mesmerizing. I wonder if the cats featured here belong to some of the production crew? “Phindin’ Love in Philly” (4x3, 4 minutes 32 seconds) is a featurette which has the actors in character doing dating-site profile videos. Dee, Waitress, Mac and Dennis (together on the same couch) and Artemis all provide their own profile. It’s a pretty funny joke featurette, but not exactly side-splittingly hilarious. This is the only supplement on any of the discs to be presented in 1.33:1 full-frame. “Schwep Dream Sequence” (non-anamorphic 16x9, 4 minutes 54 seconds) is a photo gallery montage that begins with this text: 23,793 photos were taken to make this video. The gallery contains still photos from behind-the-scenes of the series’ fifth season, set to a remix of the shows main theme and other elements of the score. Would I have preferred a longer featurette with actual input from the cast and crew? Sure, but this is a pretty creative little montage of photos that genuinely gives off the impression of life on the “Sunny” set.
Packaging
The fifth season of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” comes packaged in a standard clear keep case; it is a 3-disc set. The interior of the artwork details disc contents and episode titles. There’s also an insert advertising the sixth season on FX. Discs one and two are mounted on a flip spindle; three sits in the actual case. I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but the title of this DVD is “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The Complete Season 5”. Not “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: the Complete Fifth Season” or “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Season Five”, but rather a grammatically incorrect bastardization of the two.
Overall
Instantly quotable, utterly memorable, and morbidly politically incorrect “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Season Five” is just amazing. It’s one of, if not the strongest seasons in the series’ already impressive catalog. As usual, the low-budget A/V leaves a lot to be desired, but, on the plus side, the video is finally anamorphically enhanced widescreen. Extras include a couple of great commentaries, among other things that are less impressive. Highly Recommended to just about any one, and a true Must-Own for any “Phan” of the Gang from Paddy’s Pub.
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