I Love Lucy: The Complete Series

Whenever I get to know somebody, I like to ask them, “What’s your favorite episode of I Love Lucy?” Everyone has a different answer. My wife, who’s the real Lucy expert in this house, says “Equal Rights” is her favorite, the one where poor Lucy and Ethel are forced to wash dishes in a restaurant when Ricky and Fred stick them with the bill. My sister, her favorite episode is “The Quiz Show”, where Lucy must pretend to be married to a homeless man with a charming English accent. My personal favorite is “Building a Bar-B-Q” in which Lucy and Ethel destroy and rebuild a barbecue and blame it on weather systems dull old Connecticut doesn’t have.

By now, most everyone knows the show: Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, husband and wife (Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz who were married in real life), live in New York City where Ricky is a bandleader at a local nightclub. Lucy wants more than anything to be in show business, but Ricky won’t allow it. She’ll occasionally audition, against his wishes, in a disguise. In other episodes, they simply try to best each other for general supremacy: Men VS women type stuff. Sometimes Ricky wins, and sometimes Lucy wins, but Lucy is always the clear star of the show, while Ricky gets to play the straight man.

Their neighbors, Fred and Ethel Mertz (William Frawley and Vivian Vance) get in on the fun. While Lucy and Ricky love each other very much, Fred and Ethel basically hate each other, and are one of the all-time great comedy duos. Some of my favorite episodes feature the Ricardos and the Mertzes battling it out, and they always make up at the end.

While their New York apartment building is the most popular and memorable setting for the show, beginning in Season Four, the show started to shake things up a bit. Season Four finds the Ricardos and Mertzes living in LA while Ricky films a movie, giving the show the excuse to squeeze in a new celebrity guest appearance with each episode, from William Holden to Van Johnson to John Wayne. Season Five has them traveling all over Europe while Ricky and his band are on tour. Season Six ends with the Ricardos and Mertzes moving out to the Connecticut countryside for some peace and quiet.

As a child of the 90s, I grew up with I Love Lucy in the form of constant reruns. When I would get sick and stay home from school, at 9:00 a.m., I’d watch a double dose of Lucy on Fox. Then, at 10:00, I’d bounce over to CBS for The Price is Right. Long before this show ever came to Blu-ray, or even before DVD, I had seen this series from beginning to end countless times, with whole episodes I could practically recite by memory. In a way, I have shows like I Love Lucy to thank for an understanding of popular culture that predates my birth by several decades. I Love Lucy was my introduction to movie stars like William Holden and his filmography of classics.

I Love Lucy is a juggernaut of pop culture and created an entire language for how we consume stories on TV. Long-standing legend has it that Desi Arnaz, associate producer, Al Simon, and cinematographer Karl Freund created the multi-camera setup in filming I Love Lucy, but it had already been around for a number of years at this point. The team behind Lucy simply refined it to better allow quick, efficient filming schedules.

Today, I Love Lucy still stands as one of the greatest television shows ever created, with humor that has aged like fine wine. I still find myself watching this show and laughing wildly. It’s just plain funny, with terrific writing, pitch-perfect comedic timing from all four of its leads and a generous rotation of recurring guest stars. I Love Lucy is a magical creation, one for the ages, that will live on forever.

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray Box Set

I Love Lucy: The Complete Series comes to Blu-ray in a box set that contains a whopping 32 discs. The case that houses all 32 discs is a single, oversized case with an image of Lucy’s face on the front cover. Inside, there are no additional booklets, which is perfectly fine considering how much material there is to make your way through. 

My one issue with this case is the multiple spindles inside is not an efficient design. When I received my box set, there were several loose discs rattling around inside and spilling out when I opened it for the first time. Since this is the first time that many of these episodes have been on Blu-ray, I bounced around a lot in my childlike glee to see them in this restored condition, and the case made that a bit difficult to do. It took a lot of trial and error to find the correct disc because it would often not be included in the spindle I expected. As I went through each disc, I gave it a new home in a CD case I keep in my TV stand, while the case remains on display in my library. 

I Love Lucy was shot on 35mm film. Over the years, for repurposing reruns in syndication, changes had been made to the show’s original negatives. This restoration process combined elements from the show’s original 35mm negatives, 16mm film reels that had been sent to network offices, and one-inch videotape that had been used for archival purposes.

It's hard to overstate just how incredible these episodes look. Seasons 1 and 2 are the exact same discs from their previous releases and their video quality is amazing. I owned these two seasons on Blu-ray and, for a long time, I considered them to be as good as these episodes could possibly look.

The rest of the series, from Season 3 all the way to Seasons 7-9 (The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour) somehow looks even better. I don’t know if it’s because filming techniques beginning with season 3 were more sophisticated or if the restoration process Paramount was using had improved. In either case, the improvement from “wow” to “WOW!” is indeed a welcomed plus.

While I always thought the DVDs looked pretty good, footage of original openings or footage restored from original broadcasts was inserted in a rougher, unrefined format. For the purpose of this release on Blu-ray, that footage has been remastered in HD and looks as good as the episodes themselves do.

There are occasional issues with mild aliasing in master shots when characters are wearing checkered clothing. When the camera angle changes to a closeup, the issue is gone. Closeups, across the board, look breathtaking in their clarity. Fine details are razor sharp. In one scene, I could even clearly make out that Lucille Ball was wearing earrings that were the show’s original heart-pierced-by-an-arrow logo.

As stated previously in my review, the discs for Seasons 1 and 2 are the exact same discs as printed for their previous releases. So, despite what the label on the disc itself says, Seasons 1 and 2 are not encoded in DTS-HD MA, they are lossless LPCM 2.0 mono. Beginning with Season 3, the rest of the series, including the Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour episodes, are encoded in DTS-HD MA.

This isn’t a dig at quality, just a correction to what had been printed. In terms of actual audio quality, I would be hard-pressed to find any key differences between the DTS-HD MA and LPCM mixes, as they sound roughly identical and uniformly excellent. The entire series, regardless of audio encoding technology, is monaural and dialogue is favored with the utmost clarity. I Love Lucy is a very musical show, too, with many scenes set at Ricky’s nightclub, and those scenes soar. The subwoofer booms along to the beat of his conga drum and it takes over the soundstage without overwhelming it.

Spanish audio, for all seasons, is available in Dolby Digital mono.

I Love Lucy doesn’t need to sound this good, but when I’m watching Desi Arnaz sing his heart out in an inspired musical number, I’m glad that it does.

The amount of special features found in this box set is absolutely staggering. The majority of features are contained within the first two seasons, which were found in previous releases and are duplicated here for this set. From season three and beyond, most discs will contain original openings, an episode of the My Favorite Husband radio program, bloopers/flubs, and the original broadcast format. The final disc includes a 7-minute promo for “Eye on CBS”, hosted by Raymond Burr

Please note that only seasons 1 and 2 give the option to view the original broadcast format vs the original rerun format. From season three and beyond, viewers will only have the option to view the longer original broadcast format on select episodes.

The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, like the rest of the series, has been lovingly restored and has never looked better. The inclusion of these episodes is far beyond what any fan could have reasonably expected, especially in the condition that they’re in. CBS could have cheaped out and unceremoniously dropped them onto a disc from a VHS rip, but they didn’t. Everything in this set is lovingly crafted and curated, with a wealth of information at every turn.

Seasons 1 and 2 – Unless otherwise specified, all discs will include Flubs, Lucy on the Radio (Audio Only), Production Notes and Photo Galleries. I will only list the disc if anything other than those features appears.

Seasons 3 and Beyond – Unless otherwise specified, all discs will include Flubs, Original Openings, Lucy on the Radio (Audio Only), Sponsor Material, and Production Notes. I will only list the disc if anything other than those features appears.

S1 Disc 1

• I Love Lucy Costume & Makeup Tests
• “I Love Lucy: The Very First Show” (1990)
• 1951 Promo
• Audio Commentary – Archival interview snippets originally compiled by Criterion for its LaserDisc release for “Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying to Murder Her”
• Before and After – Clips of the show before and after restoration
• Behind the Scenes (Audio Book Featurette)

S1 Disc 2

• On-Set Color Home Movies – An Audience member secretly filmed the production of an episode with a 16mm film camera and that footage has been presented here
• The Sunday Lucy Show
• Meet Marc Daniels

S1 Disc 6

• Audio Commentary - Archival interview snippets originally compiled by Criterion for its LaserDisc release for “Lucy Does a TV Commercial”
• Fancy Editing – Before/after footage of removing an in-episode cigarette commercial

S2 Disc 1

• 1952 Promo
• Flashbacks – Newly-restored framing sequences that had been removed from syndicated reruns
• Audio Commentary - Archival interview snippets originally compiled by Criterion for its LaserDisc release for “Job Switching”
• Job Switching: Colorized Version – The colorized version of the classic “Job Switching” episode has also been presented in HD.
• Job Switching: French-Canadian Version – “Job Switching” dubbed into French-Canadian with alternate opening and closing sequences
• Meet William Asher
• Behind the Scenes (Audio Book Featurette)

S2 Disc 2

• Stars in the Eye – A star-filled event with famous actors of the day, including the I Love Lucy cast
• CBS Eyes – Alternate CBS logo spots featuring the I Love Lucy cast
• Syndicated Version (Open & Close)
• Behind the Scenes (Audio Book Featurette)

S2 Disc 3

• Welcome Little Ricky – Instead of ending on a commercial for Philip Morris, there is a heartfelt welcome to the birth of Desi Arnaz, Jr.
• Heart Fund PSA
• Flashbacks
• Meet Karl Freund
• Behind the Scenes (Audio Book Featurette)

S2 Disc 4

• The Red Skelton Show (Clip)
• Spanish Main Title
• Meet Richard & Ronald Lee Simmons

S2 Disc 5

• I Love Lucy: The Movie – A re-editing of three first-season episodes with newly-filmed filler material added to create one coherent storyline
• Flashbacks

S3 Disc 1

• Season 3 and Network Promos

S3 Disc 3

• March of Dimes PSA

S3 Disc 4

• Promos for the Lucile Ball and Desi Arnaz film The Long, Long Trailer

S4 Disc 1

• Community Chest PSA

S4 Disc 4

• Olympic Fund PSA

S5 Disc 2

• Christmas With The Greatest Show on Earth – A special Christmas-themed promo with Lucy and Ricky for the film The Greatest Show on Earth 

S5 Disc 3

• Heart Fund PSA
• Promo for the Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz film Forever, Darling

S6 Disc 1

• Original opening/closing segments for reruns – I Love Lucy popularly created the “rerun” as we know it and these are the intros/outros for those original reruns

S6 Disc 2

• Colorized version of “Lucy and the Loving Cup” restored in HD

S6 Disc 4

• Newly-discovered and restored flashback sequence for “The Black Wig”

S7 Disc 1

• The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour Promo
• Desilu Playhouse Promo
• The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour Summer Rerun Sponsor Material

S7 Disc 2

• Desilu/Westinghouse Sponsor Presentation

S9 Disc 1

• Eye on CBS Segment – Program hosted by Perry Mason’s Raymond Burr on CBS programming for the season, featuring Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance

I had some minor quibbles with the case and packaging for the discs, and the seasons 1 and 2 discs erroneously state that DTS-HD MA audio is available. These are, however, the biggest complaints I have with what is ultimately an exhaustive, comprehensive, and altogether incredible release. The video restorations and lossless audio presentation bring a never-before-seen clarity to each episode. The special features are practically endless. The love that Paramount has for I Love Lucy shows, and they have gone far above and beyond what any fan could possibly ask for. I Love Lucy: The Complete Series on Blu-ray is an absolute Must Own.