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"It's sad that the series didn't simply go with new writers as opposed to a new "format," but if the series was to have a "final season," this one was very good."

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Three's Company: 

The [Final] Eighth Season

Click picture to order this DVD set.

A Review by Techtite

As always, a review of The Season and the DVD extras.

The Season: It's a review of the series in itself, when I tell you that as of now, all eight seasons of Three's Company are on DVD. Not even every season of Seinfeld is available yet on DVD. If this isn't the perfect testament to how timelessly funny the late John Ritter was in this series, I don't know what is.

How impressive is Ritter's performance? Given that it's season eight, I'd say his work here is the most impressive of all. Any typical eighth season of a sitcom has the writers going on cruise control. More often you're left with the same plots seen long before, "rewritten" to look slightly different...yet not really. Yet even when handed a lemon of a script, Ritter made it into lemonade.

Take "Grandma Jack," where Jack (Ritter) enters a mail-in recipe contest intended for women, only to learn that in order to win the grand prize, he must cook his recipe in person. While the "man in drag" gag is as old as Milton Berle, this was quite frankly one of the funniest episodes in all eight seasons of Three's Company. You might've guessed that one of the older judges flirts with "Grandma" Jack, but how about when Jack forgets the candy for his cookies, and Terri gives him a roll of "whatever she could quickly grab from her purse"...? Jack would learn too late, that the "candies" Terri gave him were actually cough drops. During judging, one judge is amazed at how his cough went away the same time he ate Grandma's delicious Cookies. Now that's comedy.

If only such wit reflected the plans of the producers. Someone behind the scenes apparently felt that the best idea was to keep John Ritter and ditch everyone else. Long story short; this would be the final "real" season of Three's Company, with the end of the season paving the road for a spin-off, called "Three's a Crowd." The idea was to have Jack live in an apartment with his girlfriend, while her doting dad lived right downstairs. The idea, sadly enough, was as boring as it sounds.

The good news? Due to the need to make a smooth transition to "Three's a Crowd," the final three episodes this season wrap up all loose ends for the sitcom. In short; inadvertently, this season's finale was in fact the perfect series finale, to Three's Company. In the episode titled The Heiress, Janet is named in a millionaire's will, with a resolution I will not spoil, except that it leads to Janet meeting her true love. The following episode has her true love propose to Janet, and at the same time, Jack meets the love of his life; a flight attendant named Vicky (Mary Cadorette). The two-part season/series finale, "Friends and Lovers," has Janet trotting off to get married, poor series newcomer Terri leaving to places barely ever explained, the whole apartment complex bought out by Vicky's doting dad, and suddenly ...Three's a Crowd. That's an amusing series finale. Too bad it didn't lead to an amusing spin-off.

It's anyone's guess, in hindsight, whether Three's Company could've survived for at least one more season, had they not foolishly chosen to retool the "Company" into a "Crowd."  I'd have to say that the series had as much as two more seasons left to it, had it been allowed to go its natural course. There were any number of scripts they could've used for Registered Nurse Terri, that would've been hilarious: modern sitcoms like Scrubs are proof of that. As for Janet; she needed a character overhaul for years, so why didn't they give her one? At the very least the series ended on a high note ---poor spin-off notwithstanding--- and that is what really matters here.

---Techtite

The DVD: The eighth series on DVD is always a tough call when it comes to bonus features; that's the bad news. I mean; the season alone is worth the whole set, especially when in essence, the four-part series finale might as well be the perfect 

That said: here's the bonuses. We have another nice homage to the late comedian, with "John Ritter: Working with a Master." The featurette "Usted Habla Three's Company?" is another look at how the series affected pop culture at the time, and not just when spoken in English! Separate video montages salute the best of the series' eighth season regulars: Jack, Janet, Terry, Larry, and Mr. Furley. Rounding out the extras is a blooper reel from the final three (6-8) seasons of the series. All told, this is a nice list of extras, and a fine "finale" to the series.

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