Northern Exposure: The Complete Second Season (1991)
Review by Thespia
Film:
DVD:

Created by Joshua Brand & John Falsey
Starring Rob Morrow, Barry Corbin, Janine Turner, John Cullum, Darin E. Borrows

Features:

• All seven second season episodes
  
• Deleted scenes from every episode
  
• Blooper reel from every episode
  
• DVD set comes with its own parka
  

Released by: Universal.
Rating: NR
Region: 1
Anamorphic: N/A; episodes appear in their original 1.33:1 format.

My Advice: Fans should own.

Long, long ago (i.e., the 90s) in a land far, far away (Alaska), there lived the very friendly, very eccentric, and very loveable inhabitants of Cicely. In the first season, a young doctor from New York City, Dr. Joel Fleischman (Morrow), found himself transplanted to this place as the town's physician as a way to pay for his medical school. Thus he finds himself in a place where it's no big deal to have a town-wide wake and funeral for an anonymous dead body or do have broadcast a "good luck on your circumcision" message over the radio. And that's all in a single episode.

The cast returns for this mini-season and it's because of the excellent writing that you've able to get such an odd blend of drama and comedy...leaning towards the comedy. However, the cast has to be up to task of fleshing out these characters, to make you care despite the whackiness. It's because of this that the third season, when it hits DVD, will be a lot bigger. Some standout bits from this season include "the running of the bulls," and a summoning of ancient spirits to uncover a character's parents.

The DVD set is pretty basic. The bonus features are nothing to brag about…the deleted scenes (if you can call them scenes….some are less than ten seconds long) are okay, but like most deleted scenes, it's pretty clear why they were cut. The "unexposed footage" is a blooper reel of actors flubbing lines that only manages to be mildly amusing.

While this stuff is nice to have just for posterity, I would have loved some sort of behind-the-scenes feature, or even just some commentary from one of the writers or actors (but maybe Janine Turner is too busy doing commercials for Restasis). The packaging, on the other hand, is absolutely fabulous. The box comes wrapped in its own little rectangular parka, complete with working zipper! I love it!

On the whole, this is a nice set for fans to own--but only the hardcore. It's a pretty hefty price point for just seven episodes. If nothing else, it's at least a good rental if you’re a little curious and a little twisted, which, if you’re reading this site, you probably are.