The sitcom that brought incessantly perky singer-movie-star Doris Day to the little screen in 1968 went through so many transformations during its five-year run that it hardly seems like one show at all. In the initial 28 episodes included in this four-disc compilation, The Doris Day Show was sort of a distaff counterpart to Mayberry RFD, Ken Berry's successor to The Andy Griffith Show, which premiered the same month on CBS. Widow Doris Martin (Day) lives with her two young sons on the California ranch of her father (Denver Pyle, later Uncle Jesse on The Dukes of Hazzard), and the vibe is easygoing small-town domestic comedy that often tugs at the heartstrings. Though hardly the equal of The Andy Griffith Show, its obvious model, Day's ebullience, along with a good supporting cast (that included James Hampton as the ranch's hired hand) made the show a modest hit, and its old-fashioned sweetness and charm still come through reasonably well. In the second season, Martin took a job at a San Francisco magazine, by the third she and the boys had moved permanently to the city, and for the final two seasons, the sons were dropped entirely and Doris became a single career woman like Mary Richards (The Mary Tyler Moore Show). DVD extras include Day's two 1950s appearances on What's My Line?, and interviews with Hampton and Philip Brown, who played the older of Doris' sons. Recommended. (F. Swietek)
The Doris Day Show: Season 1
MPI, 4 discs, 780 min., not rated, DVD: $39.98 Volume 20, Issue 6
The Doris Day Show: Season 1
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