NBC’s single-camera comedy Up All Night ran for one and a half seasons, from 2011-2012. Reagan (Christina Applegate, Samantha Who?) and Chris Brinkley (Will Arnett, Arrested Development) have been happily married for 7 years, enjoying a more care-free life without kids. But that quickly changes with the unexpected arrival of baby Amy. Chris leaves his job as a lawyer to take on the role of stay-at-home dad, while Reagan returns to her job as producer on her best friend Ava’s (Maya Rudolph) self-titled TV talk show. While Chris quickly learns that he can’t just play video games all day while the baby sleeps, Reagan struggles to find a balance between her work and home life. In between dealing with all the craziness on the talk show, Reagan is regularly worried that she might be missing out on some big moment with her daughter.

Up All Night finds a nice blend of storylines involving all three settings—Chris and Regean’s separate daytime lives, as well as their time together as a couple. First there’s the fish-out-of-water comedy with these new parents, and especially Chris being a stay-at-home-dad. The series has a lot of fun swapping the typical sitcom roles and exploring Chris trying to learn how to take care of the household—he nearly has a panic attack the first time he goes grocery shopping on his own. There’s also many humorous storylines involving Reagan and Chris refusing to accept that they’re no longer the hip, childless couple who can party all night long. This often gets them into awkward situations, such as when they try to impress the cool, young new neighbors, only to get caught calling the cops on them when their loud music keeps baby Amy from falling asleep. The Brinkleys also constantly try to dodge their less-cool neighbors Gene (Matt Braunger) & Terry Martin (Jean Villepique). There are some fun guest stars who appear in these situations, such as Blythe Danner & Richard Schiff playing Reagan’s parents, Will Forte as a fellow dad/gamer friend of Chris’, and Ben Falcone as one of the Brinkley’s neighbors.

The other big setting for the series is the Ava talk show, which becomes a showcase for star Maya Rudolph, who seems to be channeling a version of her Oprah impression from SNL. Ava is a bit over-the-top, and has kind of lost touch with regular folks, which quickly becomes evident when it comes time for her to select a baby gift for Amy. Ava is constantly running her nervous assistant Missy (Jennifer Hall) ragged as she tries to prepare for segments for her show, assist guests, or deal with Ava’s ridiculous demands. Keeping Ava a bit grounded is best friend Reagan, who’s used to Ava’s quirkiness. The Ava show is also a built-in source for some great guest stars like Nick Cannon as Ava’s co-host Calvin, Megan Mullally as a rival host, Sean Hayes as a disgruntled old friend, Steven Pasquale as the new boss of the show, as well as Alanis Morissette, Stevie Nicks, Sharon Osbourne, Molly Shannon, Henry Winkler, and more. There are also some fun appearances by Rob Huebel, Chris Diamantopoulos and Jason Lee, all of whom play Ava’s love interests.

I had originally watched this series when it first aired a decade ago, but I found myself laughing and enjoying it all over again as I binged through Mill Creek’s new Blu-ray release. I had forgotten how much I had originally enjoyed this show. Christina Applegate and Will Arnett have such great chemistry with one another, and make a very believable couple. They have great comedic timing and play off one another really well. It was also fun and interesting to see how the world has changed in the past 10 years, with some jokes and comments that don’t quite play the same now, such as Matt Lauer talking to Reagan through her TV screen, making the comment, “not sure you can rock that skirt anymore”; the Brinkleys talking about keeping their Facebook profiles updated to look young and cool—today that would involve Tik Tok; Ava making the comments that “The Pinkett-Smiths are so elusive. My take, they’re trying to make too many people happy”; or a storyline with Chris “cheating” on his wife by watching Friday Night Lights DVDs without her—today that would be a Netflix binging storyline.

Up All Night was originally inspired by series creator Emily Spivey’s experiences of going back to work on Saturday Night Live after giving birth to her child, but the series went through some changes during its run. The first season is pretty much your standard single-camera sitcom, following the Brinkleys as they try to balance their new roles, as well as some workplace comedy on the set of the Ava show. However, when the series came back for its second season, things changed. In the season opener, the Ava show is canceled, and now the Brinkleys switch back to more traditional sitcom family roles. While Reagan struggles with being a stay-at-home mom, Chris goes back to work, but instead of returning as a lawyer, he starts a contracting business with Regan’s brother Scott (Luka Jones), where he runs the business side of things. Meanwhile, without her talk show, Ava tries to discover her new purpose and role. While I still enjoyed the second season, it didn’t quite hold up to the first. And during the second midseason hiatus there was talk of trying to re-tool the show again, this time turning it into a multi-camera sitcom in front of a live audience. I’m not sure how well that would have worked, and it’s not what the cast originally signed up for, and ultimately the series never returned, and was canceled after 35 episodes, leaving the series finale as a flashback episode showing how the couple got married, and the launch of the Ava show.

Up All Night arrives on Blu-ray for the first time thanks to Mill Creek Entertainment, with all 35 episodes spread across three discs. The picture quality looks quite good, with a nice, clean picture that doesn’t look overly-compressed, despite having 11-12 episodes per disc. Colors are bright and the picture has a generally-solid level of detail. The audio track primarily uses the front channel for dialogue, though there is some noticeable use of the surround channel to provide ambiance, such as in a scene where Chris is playing hockey. UPHE had previously released the first season of the series on DVD. That release included a short music video and 12 deleted/extended scenes (totaling just over 9 minutes), but unfortunately none of this bonus material has been ported to the new Blu-ray. The series’ 35 episodes are spread across 3 discs, with 2 for the first season and 1 for the second season. The discs reside in a standard-sized HD keepcase, with the Season One discs stacked on the peg on the left side and the Season Two disc on the right. Discs are labeled with the titles of the episodes they contain. Each disc offers episode and subtitle selection as well as a Play All option.

What’s Included:

Episodes: (770 min)

• All 35 episodes of the TV series spread across 3 discs:
  • Season 1 (2011-2012), 24 episodes
    Disc 1: “Pilot”, “Cool Neighbors”, “Working Late and Working It”, “New Car”, “Mr. Bob’s Toddler Kaleidoscope”, “Birth”, “Parents”, “First Night Away”, “Hiring and Firing”, “Week Off”, “First Christmas”, “New Year’s Eve”
    Disc 2: “Rivals”, “Preschool Auction”, “Day After Valentine’s Day”, “Travel Day”, “First Birthday”, “New Boss”, “Couple Friends”, “Baby Fever”, “Daddy Daughter Time”, “Letting Go”, “Hey Jealousy”, “The Proposals”
  • Season 2 (2012), 11 episodes
    Disc 3: “Friendships & Partnerships”, “Home/Office”, “Swingers”, “Jerry Duty”, “Another Saturday Night”, “Ma’am’d”, “Thanksgiving”, “The Game of Life”, “I Can’t Quit You”, “First Snow”, “The Wedding”
• 1080p / 1.78:1
• Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
• Subtitles: English

Extras:

No bonus material included. (Material from the previous UPHE DVD release has not been ported over.)

Final Thoughts:

Up All Night is a fun single-camera sitcom that is just as enjoyable to binge 10 years later. It has a great cast with excellent chemistry—if not for the different direction the show took in its second season, I think it could have lasted for many years. Mill Creek’s Blu-ray release looks and sounds great, but unfortunately doesn’t port over the deleted scenes that had been included on Universal’s original DVD release. That said, the series had me laughing throughout, and I would definitely recommend that fans of the show or cast pick this up. I hope to see Mill Creek give more short-lived sitcoms a home on Blu-ray.