Even in its eighth season Modern Family continues to provide witty dialogue, hilarious stories, and interesting character growth. Each episode is expertly crafted in the way that all of the disparate storylines creatively come together by the end of each episode. This collection of 22 episodes is highly-rewatchable, providing new laughs with every viewing.

One of the over-arching themes of the eighth season is that the children are growing up and becoming adults, and are getting close to no longer needing their parents. It is Manny (Rico Rodriguez) and Luke’s (Nolan Gould) senior year of high school, and they will soon be going off to college (maybe). Alex (Ariel Winter) is temporarily home from college while dealing with a bout of mono, and Haley (Sarah Hyland) is struggling with a career, and an unexpected relationship with an older meteorologist (Nathan Fillian). Phil Dunphy (Ty Burrell) launches a new real-estate business venture, while wife Claire (Julie Bowen) deals with the pressures of running the closet business on her own.

On the Pritchett side of the family, Jay (Ed O’Neill) worries that son Joe (Jeremy Maguire) may be taking on some of his bad traits, while Gloria (Sofía Vergara) worries about sending her youngest off to college. Meanwhile, Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Cam (Eric Stonestreet) take in one of Cam’s football players, which doesn’t sit well with a jealous Lily (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons).

Every year the show does an episode that serves as an excuse to take the entire cast on a “family” vacation. And early on in the season, it was revealed that they would be going to Italy for the family trip. However, I was so disappointed that we never get to see that fun family vacation this season! However, there is an episode where Gloria heads to Juarez for a wedding, and Mitchel and Cam spend some time with Cam’s relatives in Missouri—close enough to Italy, right? There’s also a unique episode that tells four short stories that play out in real time.

Some of the season’s other fun storylines include the Dunphy kids and Dunphy parents trying to keep their secret trips from one another, Phil getting locked in a room during an open house, Luke running for student body president against Manny, Luke trying to beat a sick Haley at Scrabble, Luke becoming a gigolo, an e-butler service run by Cam’s former circus boyfriend, college tours, an awkward Pritchett family dinner, an unexpected secret relationship for Alex, a gangster wedding, and more. Plus there’s the usual fun holiday celebrations of Halloween, Thanksgiving, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day and Graduation.

The eighth season also sees some top comedic talent join our favorite extended family. This season’s guest stars include Stephanie Beatriz, Martin Short, Vanessa Bayer, Andrew Daly, Kelsey Grammer, Shelley Long, Peyton Manning, Victor Garber, Dot-Marie Jones, Oliver Platt, Will Sasso, Jane Krakowski, Charles Barkley, DeAndre Jordan, Lindsey Kraft, Niecy Nash, Fred Willard, and Benjamin Bratt!

While the series airs in HD on ABC, the eighth season has unfortunately only been released on disc in standard definition/DVD. That said, the video quality is quite nice—the picture is sharp and detailed, and looks pretty close in quality to the show’s original HD airings. The audio track provides clear dialogue and though not incredibly noticeable, it does occasionally make use of the surround and stereo channels to add some depth to the viewing experience.

Unfortunately, the amount of bonus features included on these DVD releases seems to shrink with each season. What is provided is really entertaining, but this time around the DVD only contains about 13 minutes of bonus material, which is comprised of some deleted/alternate scenes and a gag reel. I would have loved some behind-the-scenes featurettes and/or some audio commentaries. This is a really fun show and it would have been nice to hear more behind-the-scenes anecdotes from the writers and actors. I also miss the extended episode cuts we used to get on these DVDs.

What’s Included:

Episodes: (7:53:58)

• All 22 episodes of the eighth season:
  Disc 1: “A Tale of Three Cities”, “A Stereotypical Day”, “Blindsided”, “Weathering Heights”, “Halloween IV: Revenge of Rod Skyhook”, “Grab It”, “Thanksgiving Jamboree”
  Disc 2: “The Alliance”, “Snow Ball”, “Ringmaster Keifth”, “Sarge & Pea”, “Do You Believe in Magic?”, “Do It Yourself”, “Heavy Is the Head”, “Finding Fizbo”
  Disc 3: “Basketball”, “Pig Moon Rising”, “Five Minutes”, “Frank’s Wedding”, “All Things Being Equal”, “Alone Time”, “The Graduates”
• 480p / Widescreen 1.78:1
• Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
• Closed Captioned

Extras:

• Deleted and Alternate Scenes (6:01)
  Collection of 13 alternate and deleted scenes that play back to back with no chapter stops.
• Gag Reel (6:53)
  The first 90 seconds is a music montage of the cast having fun on set. This is followed by the cast flubbing lines, dealing with unexpected sounds, malfunctioning props, and more. The gag reel closes out with a musical dance montage and one final flub.

Final Thoughts:

Modern Family remains one of the comedies I look forward to watching every week as it is consistently funny and always delivers some great laughs. When I first sat down to watch this DVD for review, I had only planned to watch a few episodes, but ended up binging the entire season! This show has a high rewatchability factor, which is why I love these DVD releases—I can re-watch my favorite episodes and scenes over and over again and find new reasons to laugh every time. This release also contains a small but fun collection of bonus materials that every fan of the series is sure enjoy.