Over the course of his 50 years as a television writer and producer, Norman Lear has been responsible for some of the most groundbreaking series ever to make it air, including All In The Family, Good Times, and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. On June 9th, the first seasons of all three of those shows (along with the first seasons of Sanford And Son, Maude, One Day At A Time and The Jeffersons, plus featurettes and assorted Lear arcana) will be available in one massive box set, titled The Norman Lear Collection. Is this great news, or mildly disappointing?
Point: It's great to see a TV producer get the auteur treatment, and to have his best-known work collected in one place, so that people can see why he's so revered.
Counterpoint: It's a fine idea to pay tribute to Lear, but with no disrespect intended, is this really the best way to go about it, repackaging seven existing box sets with a handful of new features? How about, say, a set containing the 10 best episodes each from all seven of those shows, plus some examples of Lear's less-heralded TV work, like The Martha Raye Show, The Deputy, Hot L Baltimore and Palmerstown, USA? At maybe half of this set's $160 list price?