Audio Commentaries

Today when television shows and movies are put on DVD, they are chalked full of special features ranging from sit down interviews, behind the scenes stuff, gag reels, and even some interactive games. However, there is one special feature I am a fan and a critic of and that is audio commentaries on DVD. Now it might be just the shows I have been watching but Hollywood needs to step up their audio commentary game.

To start off with, I prefer watching 23-minute television show commentaries compared to a 2 hour movie. I did that one time for Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay and that was brutal.

Audio commentaries on some shows such as Reba are above par when the actors and writers give In-depth details of what was it takes to put an episode together. They might comment and why something was left out, add that someone was real sick shooting this episode or they were very pregnant and they had to find a way to cover the actresses belly. When commentaries adds insight I feel I get my money’s worth.

On the other side, if you have three or more people doing commentary and their not speaking for three plus minutes, what is the point of watching. Now I’m not saying the actors have to speak during the entire duration of the 22 minute show, but say something more than I’m not very good at doing audio commentaries would be helpful. Alyson Hannigan, who is a great actress was guilty of this a couple of times during a How I Met Your Mother commentary session. It doesn’t have to be completely scripted, I don’t mind some spontaneity but maybe the actors and writers should watch the episode prior to heading in the booth and have some stats and facts ready just in case there significant amount of silence going on.

True it is not easy doing audio commentaries everybody wants something different and it has to be difficult to do it on shows that ended ten plus years ago such as Seinfeld. Even though the show was very popular it has to be hard for Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfus to remember what happened in one specific episode when they did over 180 of them. So I let them and cast members from Family Matters and Quantum Leap slide when it comes to commentary quality. But my expectations will be much higher when Scrubs season 8 DVD is released. Zach Braff, Donald Faison, and Sarah Chalke you’ll better bring it.