The sitcom ’til Death ran for four years (from 2006-2010) on FOX, where it had a very odd schedule, constantly changing up timeslots, popping up whenever the network needed a show to fill its schedule. Episodes were often aired out of order, and the show even disappeared for over a year mid season 3, and then interleaved episodes from both the third and fourth season in its final year. Over these four seasons, the show constantly reinvented itself, changing up the opening title sequence as well as the cast and dynamics each season. The one thing that remained constant over the four seasons was that the core of the series revolved around the relationship between longtime married couple Eddie (Brad Garrett, Everybody Loves Raymond) and Joy Stark (Joely Fisher, Ellen, Last Man Standing).

Eddie is a high school history teacher, while Joy works at a travel agency. The Starks have one daughter, Allison (Krysten Ritter, Jessica Jones) who is away at college. As the series opens, the Starks meet their new neighbors, upbeat and happily in love newlyweds Steph (Kat Foster, Weeds, Royal Pains) and Jeff Woodcock (Eddie Kaye Thomas, American Pie). Jeff is the new vice principal at the high school where Eddie works, and his wife Steph is working on her Masters thesis. After nearly 24 years of marriage, Eddie and Joy have grown cynical and can just be themselves around one another. They’ve become a bit too comfortable in their relationship and have lost most of the spontaneity and romance. There are no surprises and no big romantic gestures anymore. They had forgotten what it was like to be young and in love, but seeing the Woodcocks being all lovey-dovey reminds them of what things used to be like. However, they also see the Woodcocks falling into the same pitfalls and mistakes every new couple experiences. So Eddie, who now considers himself an expert on marriage, often shares his wisdom with Jeff. At the same time, Jeff and Steph have some fresh things they can teach their well-worn neighbors about maintaining a happy relationship. However, whenever Jeff and Eddie follow each other’s advice, their situations usually end up worse. During the pilot and the final half dozen episodes of the season, episodes open with these fun interstitial interviews with children about what they think of love and marriage—I had thought these were real, unscripted interviews until I noticed that one of these children was a young Rico Rodriguez (Modern Family).

This old couple/new couple dynamic is the focus of the first two seasons of the series, but by the end of the second season, the Woodcocks disappear (though they do appear in two episodes of the third season since those were leftover episodes originally produced for the second season). In the middle of the second season, Eddie follows Jeff’s lead and signs up for the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. However, his “Little Brother” ends up being a nearly 40-year-old divorced man named Kenneth Westchester (JB Smoove, Curb Your Enthusiasm), whose name got lost in the system for 25 years. The two become friends, and as the third season opens, Kenneth has moved in with the Starks. (Though it’s a bit odd as the actual season three premiere where Kenny is shown moving in doesn’t actually air until 11 episodes into the season). The third season focuses on this new living arrangement with Kenny, and frequent visits from his ex wife Tina (Kym Whitley, The Parkers, Young & Hungry).

In the fourth season, there’s another big change in the show’s dynamic. Kenny is gone, but the Starks have some new houseguests when their free-spirited daughter Ally (now played by Lindsey Broad, The Office, In the Dark) moves back home, living in an R.V. in the backyard with her newlywed hippie husband Doug Von Stuessen (Timm Sharp, Enlightened, Blunt Talk). Ally and Doug had popped up in several episodes during the first three seasons (in the third season Ally was played by Laura Clery) as they were dating and visiting with the Starks during college breaks, etc. but in the fourth season, they become a major part of the show. There is this really fun ongoing storyline where Doug is suffering from “sitcom-osis”, believing he’s on a sitcom. Mayim Bialik appears as herself, Dr. Bialik, as the therapist helping Doug with this issue—and some of her Blossom co-stars even make an appearance. This storyline strives to explain the show’s timeslot jumping, disappearing characters, and constant recasting of Allison, who is even replaced one final time as Kate Micucci (Garfunkel and Oates) takes over the role for the final 12 episodes. It is much more of a wacky sitcom in this final season, often breaking the fourth wall. The fourth season also includes outtakes/bloopers in the closing credits of each episode.

I had a lot of fun revisiting this series on this DVD set. Each disc contains a Play All option, so it was easy to start binging and just lose track of time, only to discover that you’ve just watched 11 episodes in a row. The show is well-written with many laugh-out-loud moments. The show explores all kinds of wacky relationship scenarios, many of which feel like they could have been grounded in reality. Brad Garrett is great as his typical loud, angry character, but Eddie also has a charming softer side that often comes out. Some of the humor may be a bit dated—things that would never fly in today’s more woke society, such as remarks like “that’s gay” or Brad Garrett’s impressions of Bill Cosby, Louis Armstrong, Ricky Ricardo and Sammy Davis Jr. However, I still found the show a lot of fun, and Garrett is great with the physical humor, pulling faces, and so on. Joely Fisher is also a delight—Joy and Eddie have such great chemistry that they feel like a real couple who have been together for a quarter-century.

It’s a shame that Kat Foster and Eddie Kaye Thomas only lasted for the first two seasons as I really enjoyed the whole old couple/new couple dynamic of those seasons. It was fun to see the two different perfectives on relationships and how each was able to help the other. Foster and Thomas also made a great couple, playing well off one another. While I still enjoyed the third season, the third wheel dynamic didn’t work as well for me. (It may also be that it reminded me of JB Smoove’s similar role of a houseguest who overstays his welcome on Curb Your Enthusiasm). That brings us to the final season, which I thoroughly enjoyed, with all its wackiness and self-referential humor. In addition to that, the final season also continues with storylines about Joy and Eddie, bringing in not only another newlywed couple to help their perspective, but also the idea of them potentially becoming grandparents.

The series also has some great guests over the course of the four seasons, which includes folks like Kevin Nealon, Anthony Anderson, Martin Mull, Margaret Cho, Lainie Kazan, Barry Bostwick, Richard Lewis, Vicki Lewis, Joe Manganiello, Ken Jeong, Will Sasso, Natasha Leggero, Gilbert Gottfried, John Cho, and more.

Mill Creek’s Complete Series DVD release is the first time all four seasons of ’til Death have been available on disc in the United States. Sony had previously released the first two seasons on DVD, and the third season received an expensive MOD DVD-R release several years later, but the fourth season had never been released on disc until now. Mill Creek’s Complete Series DVD release is packed very similarly to the Tropical Heat release we previously reviewed. Inside of the sturdy carboard outer box are four tall cardboard cards, with slots on either side to hold one DVD disc. Each card contains a single season split across two discs. While Sony’s original DVD releases for seasons 1 & 2 included some behind-the-scenes featurettes and blooper reels, unfortunately none of this has been ported over to Mill Creek’s Complete Series release. There is no bonus material included on this release at all. Sony’s original first season release was also split the season across 3 discs where here each season is squeezed onto just two discs. When the series first aired on FOX, the episodes were aired all out of order. While most episodes are stand-alone, there are a few storylines that feel out of order. I wish Mill Creek had put the episodes on the discs based on production order rather than by original air date.

The overall picture quality of the show looks quite good, despite the fact that there are 11 episodes of the show per disc. There are some episodes that showed some compression artifacts in the picture or on-screen text, but never to a degree that it affected my enjoyment of the series. While the audio track is Dolby Digital 5.1, I never really noticed any use of the surround channel. All of the dialogue seemed to come from the center channel. While the audio on the pilot sounded a bit rough, I didn’t notice this on the other episodes. However, the music was quite aggressive bass-wise, and so during scene transitions it could be quite jarring at times.

What’s Included:

Episodes: (29:06:19)

• All 81 episodes of the series:
  • Season 1 (2006-07, 22 eps) (7:55:30):
    Disc 1: “Pilot”, “Sex for Furniture”, “The Ring”, “The Wood Pile”, “The Garage Band”, “Your Mother or Your Wife”, “Dream Getaway”, “Death Sex”, “The Toaster”, “Daddy’s Girl”, “The Anniversary Party”
    Disc 2: “The Hockey Lie”, “Fight Friend”, “The Colleague”, “The Bachelor Party”, “The Italian Affair”, “Clay Date”, “I (Heart) Woodcocks”, “The Coffee Maker”, “That’s Ridiculous”, “Webby’s Not Happy”, “Summer of Love”
  • Season 2 (2007-08, 15 eps) (5:21:17):
    Disc 1: “Performance Anxiety”, “Four Neighbors and a Funeral”, “Come Out and Play”, “Tale of the Tape”, “Mixed Doubles”, “Vintage Eddie”, “Bedtime Stories”
    Disc 2: “No More Mr. Vice Guy”, “Everybody Digs Doug”, “Really Big Brother”, “A Raisinette in the Sun”, “Snip/Duck”, “Sob Story”, “Second Marriage Guy”, “Swimming with Starks”
  • Season 3 (2008-10, 22 eps) (7:55:13):
    Disc 1: “Speed Bumps”, “Joy Ride”, “Dreamguys”, “Sugar Dougie”, “Philadelphia Freedom”, “Circumdecision”, “Secret Meatball”, “No Complaints”, “The Courtship of Eddie’s Parents”, “The Ex-Factor”, “The Buffer”
    Disc 2: “The Not-So-Perfect Couple”, “Snore Loser”, “Perfect Couple”, “Can’t Elope”, “Ally Abroad”, “Dog Fight”, “Family Vacation”, “Brother’s Keeper”, “The Joy of Learning”, “Coupon Bob”, “Cold Case”
  • Season 4 (2009-10, 22 eps) (7:54:19):
    Disc 1: “Doug and Ally Return”, “Separate Beds”, “Eddie’s Book”, “Joy’s Out of Work”, “Hi Def TV”, “Independent Action”, “The Break-Up”, “The Check Up”, “Check-Mate”, “The Concert”, “Merit Pay”
    Disc 2: “The New Neighbors”, “The Wedding”, “Joy’s Mom”, “Sell the House”, “Ally’s Pregnant”, “Smart Phone”, “Big Man, Little Man”, “Work Wife”, “Baby Steps”, “Let’s Go”, “The Baby”
• 480i / Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78:1
• Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1
• Subtitles: English SDH

Extras:

There is no bonus material included on this release.

Final Thoughts:

I really enjoyed revisiting ’til Death on Mill Creek’s new Complete Series DVD release, especially the fourth season which hadn’t previously been available on disc. The show had me laughing out loud quite a bit—the performances and writing are a lot of fun. The series changes things up almost every season, constantly keeping it fresh and different. The DVD picture quality is quite good, though it does have some compression artifacts, and the music on the soundtrack is a bit aggressive and loud at times. Unfortunately, none of the bonus material from Sony’s previous DVD releases has been ported over to this release. However, fans of the series and/or stars can finally own all four seasons of the show on DVD at a budget-friendly price, making this set an easy recommendation.