I Love Lucy: Season 1, Vol. 2 (Full Screen)

Volume Two continues the release of one of the best sit-coms of all time on DVD. Included here are four episodes from season 1.

"Lucy Thinks Ricky is Trying to Murder Her." Filmed first, it actually aired fourth. Caught up in a murder mystery, Lucy lets her imagination run away with her when she sees and hears a few "clues" that Ricky may have tired of her.

"The Quiz Show." Desperate to make her budget balance, Lucy agrees to some crazy stunts for the radio show "Females are Fabulous."

"The Audition." Seven episodes in, and Lucy is already trying to break into show biz again. In a reworking of the unaired pilot (found on volume 1), Lucy films in for an injured clown when Ricky is auditioning for a TV show. Includes their cello vaudeville act.

"The Seance." Lucy's sudden interest in numerology and the occult interferes with Ricky's career and leads to a wild plan to save it.

While there are some wonderful episodes here, the series gets much better. Part of this is because the writers already knew Lucy and were still deciding how to develop Ricky, Ethel, and Fred. Heck, Fred is missing completely from "The Quiz Show" and Ethel meets a similar fate in "The Audition."

This DVD is a collector's dream. The episodes are presented in their entirety, and they look and sound sharp. There are occasional flaws in the picture, but considering the source material is 50 years old, it really isn't bad at all. The extras feature the original opening plugging the show's sponsor (the episodes themselves use the heart we're used to from reruns), info on the guest cast, photos of rehearsal, mistakes in one episode (I caught two of them myself), and two episodes of Lucy's radio show "My Favorite Husband" that got reworked for the show. (These episodes help prove my point earlier about the writers, also from the show, not knowing what to do with the other characters yet.)

True, the way season 1 was released isn't nearly as nice in terms of sets as other shows have gotten. But this is still a classic comedy with decent bonus material to make any fan happy.

"Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying To Murder Her" is the first "I Love Lucy" episode filmed on September 8, 1951. It is also the first with the Mertzes played by Vivian Vance and William Frawley. However it did not air first. It was broadcast as the forth episode on November 5, 1951. (The pilot episode shown in "I Love Lucy" Volume One, Season One, is actually the very first Mr & Mrs. Richardo episode but was never aired. It was lost until found. It was shown for the first time on CBS on April 30, 1990. It was never shown in re-runs or syndication) "The Quiz Show", episode 5, was filmed October 5, 1951. It aired November 12, 1951. The man who plays "Arnold", Phil Ober, was Vivian Vance's first husband. Hazel Pierce appeared in 13 "I Love Lucy" episodes. "The Audition", episode 6, was filmed October 12, 1951 and broadcasted November 19, 1951. This episode is simular to the pilot episode of March 1951. Vivian Vance is not in this episode. "The Seance", episode 7, was filmed October 19, 1951 and broadcast November 26, 1951. Jay Novello was also in episode "The Sublease", episode 97, in 1954 and "Visitor From italy", episode 158, in 1956. In the Bonus Materials, the flubs are fun to see. If you've seen any episode many times, bringing out an unnoticed flub makes the show fun to watch again. In the Special Footage, you will see footage that has not been seen since 1952. Much more surprise bonuses.

During the first season of "I Love Lucy" (1951-52), the most recurring theme was the screwball attempts of Lucy Ricardo to break into show business and that is the focus of three of the four episodes collected on Volume 2 of the "I Love Lucy" DVD collection. Howeve, the first of these episodes (all of which were written by Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh, and Bob Carroll, Jr.) has the distinction of being the first episode of the show to be filmed, even though it was the fourth one aired:

Episode 4, "Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying to Murder Her" (November 5, 1951) after reading a mystery novel and letting her fertile imagination get the better of her. It is easy to tell that there is something different about this episode and it has to do not only with the fact it was the first time the Ricardos were ever filmed, but because this was the one and only episode that was filmed straight through in the manner of live television at that time. After this one the show adopted the three-camera, stop-and-start method that became the standard for how to film a sit com.

Episode 5, "The Quiz Show" (November 12, 1951) is a parody of the popular game show "Truth or Consequences," where Lucy has an opportunity to win $1,000 prize if she can just convince Ricky she was once married to another man. How hard can that be?

Episode 6, "The Audition" (November 19, 1951) is a rehash of the show's "lost" pilot (which is on Volume 1), as Lucy replaces the ailing clown in Ricky's big nightclub number in order to impress visiting television talent scouts.

Episode 7, "The Séance" (November 26, 1951) finds Lucy and Ethel arranging a fake séance to impress an eccentric producer (Jay Novello).

The last of this quartet is clearly the weakest in the bunch, and once again there is nothing here you would call a classic "I Love Lucy" episode. "The Quiz Show" is the best of the bunch and once of the better early examples of Lucy trying her best to lie to Ricky's face, albeit with no success whatsoever. Still, Volume 2 is of interest because you can compare "The Audition" to the original pilot (I still prefer the latter) and see the technical problems the show faced the first time out in the first filmed episode.