All In The Family: The Complete 3rd Season (DVD)

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—Archie and the Editorial (Mike goads Archie into going on the air to state his views on gun control, with ironic consequences that happen when Archie is held up at gunpoint)
—Archie´s Fraud (Archie is busted for not reporting income received from driving a friend´s cab on Sundays)
—Gloria and the Riddle (A women´s lib theme, where she asks the old one about why a doctor cannot operate on an accident victim who turns out to be the doctor´s son, but the doctor is not the father)
—The Threat (Archie goes bonkers for a buddy´s wife who visits)
—Lionel Steps Out (Lionel Jefferson dates Archie´s niece)
—The Bunkers and the Swingers (one of the all-time great episodes where Edith responds to a personal ad to bring new friends into their lives, unaware that they´re spouse-swappers)
—Mike´s Appendix (Gloria goes off on Mike when he refuses to have a woman operate on him)
—Edith Flips Her Wig (Edith thinks she´s a klepto because she took a wig from a department store)
—The Locket (Archie tries to bilk his insurance company out of a tidy sum when a locket is misplaced)
—Mike Comes Into Money (Mike starts more fireworks when he gives money to the McGovern campaign instead of paying rent to Archie)
—Flashback: Mike & Gloria´s Wedding (a two-parter)
—Edith´s Winning Ticket (Edith buys a winning ticket for Louise Jefferson, but Archie plots to keep the money for himself)
—Archie is Branded (Archie is on the receiving end of misplaced discrimination as the family finds a swastika painted on their door and is threatened)
—Archie and the Bowling Team (Prejudice hits the lanes as Archie´s rival for the team is black)
—Archie in the Hospital (In this classic episode, Archie makes friends with his hospital roommate, not knowing the man is black)
—Oh, Say Can You See (Archie confronts his mortality, and an old friend)
—Archie Goes Too Far (This time the family feud results in Gloria and Edith leaving the house)
—Class Reunion (Jealousy rears up when Edith is set to attend her 30th high school reunion and an old flame will also be there)
—The Hot Watch (Archie dabbles in stolen goods and pays the price)
—Everybody Tells the Truth (the Bunker variation of an old game)
—Archie Learns His Lesson (Archie gets more ammunition for his volleys with Mike when he goes to night school)
—Gloria, the Victim (Gloria is the victim of an attempted sexual assault)
—The Battle of the Month (Gloria berates her mother for giving in to Archie all the time, another classic episode)

Video:
For a show with such cultural significance, "All in the Family" has been released with surprisingly little attention paid to the digital transfer. There´s been no apparent restoration, and there´s plenty of graininess and the colors seemed more washed-out than I remember. In other words, the show is showing its age.

Audio:
As expected, the audio is Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, which is fine because the show is mostly dialogue . . . and diatribe.

Extras:
Unless you count previews for other TV-DVDs, there are no extras, which is both good news and bad. Good news, obviously, for keeping the price down on these TV-DVD sets, but bad news for anyone wanting insight into a show significant enough to have artifacts on display in the Smithsonian.

Bottom Line:
Archie Bunker was like the baseball player who went on too long instead of retiring while he was on top. For the first five years, the show felt fresh and tackled every big issue facing Americans. But then as their black neighbors, the Jeffersons, went "movin´ on up to the East side" and Edith´s liberal cousin Maude also got her own spin-off series, and after Gloria and Mike had a baby, the show lost a bit of its edge. Then Archie and Edith got new neighbors and a Puerto Rican boarder, Gloria and Mike moved away, Archie took over the neighborhood bar, Archie and Edith adopted their niece, Edith dies, and Archie is left alone with his niece at "Archie Bunker´s Place."

Season Three catches the cast while they were still riding high and still committed to the weekly arguments and issues that made the show not just successful, but socially relevant as well. Never mind Peoria. Does it play anywhere, today? Well, yes and no. America is still divided between conservatives and liberals over issues similar to those tackled on the show. And yet, "All in the Family" is no where near as shocking and compelling as it was when it first aired. After all, we live at a time when Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern tirades pass for well-reasoned arguments. Viewers today will be surprised at the level of debate. Yet, with the structure of each episode based on characters shouting at each other as they debate social issues, the show now seems a bit shrill and more than a little artificial. The arguing and the nearly constant high pitch can get old. That said, it´s still milestone television, with some of the episodes remaining very funny, even 30 years later. What´s sad, though, is that many of the issues the Bunkers faced are still with us today.

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