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STUDIO: Touchstone
MSRP: $39.99
RATED: NR
RUNNING TIME: 624 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES: Top 10 Guest Stars of Season 4
The Pitch
"It’s Friends minus the guys, an additional 40 years and more sexual references."
The Humans
Bea “the snappy one” Arthur, Betty “the dumb one” White, Rue “the slut” McClanahan and Estelle “the old, snappy one” Getty
The Nutshell
Four sassy gals live together in
Ask Bea Arthur about the Star Wars Holiday Special and this is the reaction you’ll get.
The Lowdown
You know you’ve seen an episode or two of this show. Everyone has. As such there isn’t too much for me to go into here. Especially not when you take into account the wonderful job Jason has done reviewing Seasons 1 – 3 (here, here and here).
So what does this review hold that the others don’t? Sex. And a lot of it.
I remember watching this show growing up. Every time my Grandmother visited we had to watch it. She considered it one of her “stories” along with General Hospital, Young and the Restless and Murder She Wrote. So, like most other people in this world, I didn’t watch the Golden Girls full time, but I have seen more than my fair share of geriatric jesting.
I thought the hook of the show was that you had dumb Rose, sarcastic Dorothy, old lady Sophia and slutty Blanche. Each character had their role and they didn’t step into the other’s space.
Or so I thought.
I’ve never noticed how much Bea Arthur looks like a bad transvestite until I looked at this image.
When I watched Season 4 I realized that every show was about sex. Not just in the Blanche sub-plots either. These old bats were more fixated at getting laid than your average High School boy. And, it wasn’t just Blanche anymore. All the girls were getting into the act.
I have no problem with this as a theory. You want women sitting around chatting about doing the nasty? I’ll listen all day (or for at least 5 minutes). But when you take one character’s trait and assign it to everyone… it loses some of its bite.
Blanche’s sex comments become very blasé after an entire episode is devoted to Rose trying to bump uglies with her new man. Blanche discussing a new conquest isn’t all that interesting after watching Blanche, Rose and Dorothy buying condoms preparing for a cruise. Hell,
In that regard the Season as a whole is somewhat disappointing. Each character loses some of their originality as they all being to slowly morph into Blanche. That makes any individual episode funny, but as a whole… it seems like every episode is a re-tread of the one before it. As a result, the season suffers.
Would Golden Girls be classified as “horror” if the sheet were to drop?
The Package
People who buy the Golden Girls on DVD don’t buy it for the extras (at least I doubt it). Apparently Touchstone feels the same way. We have a decent “Top Ten Guest Stars” featurette and that’s it. You do get to hear the gang in Dolby Digital thought. Although, I’m not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse.
4 out of 10