The Corner Penthouse

Mill Creek Entertainment recently re-released the The King of Queens: The Complete Series (1998-2007) Blu-ray set. Let's take a look at it...

[ SYNOPSIS ]

Set in the working-class suburb of Queens, New York, The King of Queens follows Doug Heffernan (Kevin James), an amiable deliveryman with an adoring wife, Carrie (Leah Remini), and a frustrating father-in-law (Jerry Stiller) living under his roof. Packed with a crazy cast of characters, hilarious situations and plenty of great guest stars, this is one show that brings the goods!

[ SPECIFICATIONS ]

All episodes of the series are presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. The series is not rated. Audio languages include English. There are no subtitles.

[ SPECIAL FEATURES ]

All of the content below can be found on the noted Blu-ray discs.

• S1 DISC 1: Audio Commentary on "Pilot" - with co-writer/co-creator Michael Weithorn and actor Kevin James.
• S1 DISC 3: Behind the Scenes (27:45) - The feature, which was put together after the show's fifth season, explores various aspects of getting the show made, from the early pitch ideas to the casting, episode and character highlights, and working to keep the show fresh.
• S1 DISC 3: Laughs Montage (4:14) - Various humorous moments accompanied by audience laughter.
• S2 DISC 2: Audio Commentary on "Net Prophets" - with co-writer/co-creator Michael Weithorn and actor Kevin James.
• S9 DISC 1: Series Retrospective (16:13) - Created just after the show ended, this feature explores the series' longevity, emotions at the finale, and more.
• S9 DISC 1: Thanks to the Fans (4:48) - Cast and crew talk about how much the fans have meant to them.
• S9 DISC 1: 200th Episode Celebration (1:48) - A look at the 200th episode celebration, intercut with quick interview clips.
• S9 DISC 1: The Writers of King of Queens (12:33) - A discussion of the quality of the writing throughout the series.

[ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ]

The twenty discs are inside two thick blue plastic cases, which are stored in a side-loading slip box. I wish some of the major studios would take note of what Mill Creek is doing with their Blu-ray packaging because this is the RIGHT way to do it. Those crappy thick clear "lets cram all discs in one case" cases need to go away.

[ NOTES ]

While I'm not a big Kevin James fan, King of Queens - available on Blu-ray and DVD - is one of his better efforts. That might be because he is joined by a wonderful cast of supporting character actors, including Leah Remini, Jerry Stiller, Nicole Sullivan, Patton Oswalt, and many more. Unlike like the DVD I reviewed back in 2019, the entire run of the show is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio (16:9) and not the original 1.33:1 (4:3) broadcast aspect ratio. Cereal At Midnight's review shows that the 16:9 formatting is (for the most part) open matte, revealing more picture on the sides (including set edges not meant to be seen), instead of cropping off the top and bottom. This is the much more preferable way to do the reformatting. I did my own quick image comparisons from some Season 1 episodes, and I found that a few shots are cropped at the top and bottom (mostly external locations), but for the most part, it's open matte on the sides. After watching an episode in 16:9, watching the 4:3 version afterward felt cramped.

Mill Creek originally released this Blu-ray set in 2019. It went out of print for a while, but now it's back. Unfortunately, this is just a re-release of the 2019 set with no corrections made to the edits, and no English subtitles added. Yes, there are many episodes that are edited. Based on what I have observed, and a little research, ALL Season 3 episodes, and the five additional episodes listed below are edited. I don't have time to compare every one of the 207 episodes to their DVD counterparts to see what is edited - though a table of runtimes from Mill Creek's Blu-ray and DVD releases is below - but I did some research, and these are some of the missing scenes:

-- SEASON 1: "Pilot" - The scene of Doug in the basement with his friends is supposed to be longer, but here it ends after Spence says his mother doesn't drive. There's also a scene missing of Carrie and Sarah in the kitchen of Arthur's house. Which is a pretty important scene of the episode because that's when Carrie decides that Arthur and Sarah should live with her and Doug. It's ironic that scene is missing considering it's one of the screenshots in the back of the first Blu-ray case. Also, the Pilot on the Blu-ray uses a snippet of the theme song and show opening that premiered in season 2, while on Mill Creek's DVD it has the Season 1 train opening. (source)

-- SEASON 3: All 25 episodes are edited by 60-90 seconds. It is unnecessary to list every edit, but a few are listed below. (source)

• "Do Rico" - The opening scene where Doug is trying to open a shrink-wrapped Bon Jovi CD is gone.
• "Roast Chicken" - The opening scene looking for the keys in the rain is missing.
• "Fatty McButterpants" - The opening scene with Doug taking a vitamin is missing.
• "Strike Out" - Missing the end of the scene after Doug enters Deacon's room. "Just set it and forget it!" Then just before Kelly tells Deacon he's all set, there's a brief cut where Doug and Arthur tell each other to shut up and Carrie finishes it.
• "Inner Tube" - The animated segment is missing. It originally appeared after the Wheel of Fortune segment (at 12:28 on the Blu-ray, at 12:45 on the unedited DVD). Also missing is the section of the dream where Deacon has words to say about Doug after the hospital visit. (source)

-- SEASON 5: "Holy Mackerel" - I'm not sure what is edited here, but the Blu-ray runs 25 seconds shorter than the DVD, so it seems like something was cut out.

-- SEASON 5: "Dog Shelter" - The closing scene with Doug at a hockey game as the Canadian national anthem plays is missing, and there are a few early fades at commercial breaks that seems like another syndication cut. (source)

-- SEASON 9: "China Syndrome" (Parts 1&2) - The Blu-ray features the two-part syndicated version instead of the original single-part version. Some scenes were cut to make the two-part version, including the "Thanks for the Ride" montage of series highlights at the end.

It is also interesting to note that the Season 7 episode "Name Dropper" abruptly ends during the last scene where Danny and Spence are dancing with each others' mothers. (source) I do not know if it was like this in the original broadcast, but it is like this on both DVD and Blu-ray. Also in that episode, you can see that the opening scene originally ran longer as Carrie can be glimpsed coming down the stairs just as the scene ends and the series opening begins. Again, these sloppy edits could have been done for the original broadcast, so I am not counting this as an edit.

Since Mill Creek didn't fix the edited episodes on this re-release, the cheapest solution is to buy this U.S. Mill Creek Blu-ray set and the German Koch Media Season 3 Blu-ray set (it has English audio and is region-free). (Notes on the German Season 3 Blu-ray below) I ripped the other edited episodes from the DVD and authored an Unedited Episodes Supplement DVD-R (ISO, 3.8 GB) that will suffice for the other five episodes. Apparently, the Season 1 episodes on Mill Creek's set are standard definition upscales, while the German Koch Media Season 1 Blu-ray uses true high definition transfers. I can't say for sure, but I would advise against buying it unless you have a REGION-FREE PLAYER, as it is locked to Region B (the U.S. uses Region A). The German Seasons 2 to 9 sets are region-free. (source 1, source 2) I would also advise against buying the German "Complete Series" set, as it has it's own set of issues, such as occasional ghosting, all the episodes from Seasons 4 to 9 having an incorrect pitch, and an edit in "Holy Mackerel"; likely the same edit the U.S. set has. (source)

* NOTES ON THE GERMAN SEASON 3 BLU-RAY: All 24 episodes are unedited, split across two factory-pressed Blu-ray discs (they are not recorded BD-R discs as stated in the Amazon listing title). The back of the case states Region B, but the discs are region-free, as they played fine in my Region A-locked PlayStation 3. Menus are in German, of course, but with only three options, it's not hard to figure out that they are (from top to bottom) Episode Selection, Languages, and Play All. German (Deustch) is the default audio language, with English on audio track #2. Optional subtitles are only available in German. Disc 2 contains a Bonus: an 18-minute featurette about the German dub actors that is, of course, only available in German. The only issue I noticed is that there is a pause where each of the commercial break spots are. Not a major issue, especially since the episodes are in 16:9 high-definition and unedited - what the Mill Creek Blu-ray set should have been.

There doesn't seem to be a complete list of edits online, so I'm just going to list the runtimes of all 207 episodes from Mill Creek's Blu-ray & DVD sets. The Blu-ray is 16:9 for all seasons and has Sony's original DVD extras. The DVD is 4:3 for the first 6 seasons and has no extras. Presumably, Mill Creek's DVD uses the same masters as Sony's DVDs, which have the same extras as the Blu-ray. Episodes with significant differences in length have a light red background. Differences of 10 seconds or less are not considered, as that could be due to differences in frame rate or blackness before, after, or in the commercial break spots. Yes, there are three DVD episodes that run shorter than Blu-ray. The Season 8 episodes "Sandwiched Out" and "Four Play" both run for about 19 minutes and 20 seconds, so I'm sure that they're edited, but both Blu-ray and DVD have the same length, so I can't count them as edited without having an original broadcast recording to compare them to. For the sake of this review, I have no interest in comparing anything more than just Mill Creek's two sets.


This item has been provided by Mill Creek Entertainment for review on this site.