The Drew Carey Show: The Complete First Season

Few television workplace comedies so keenly or hilariously captured the mind-numbing drudgery and soul-crushing despair of cubicle culture as The Drew Carey Show, a kindred spirit to the Dilbert comic strip. The pilot episode introduces the bespectacled, buzz-coiffed titular Everyman, a “go-getter” in his seventh year as the assistant director of personnel in a Cleveland department store—a position, he notes, "of indirect respect and oblique power." The giddy delights of The Drew Carey Show are many, from the smile-inducing theme song, “Moon Over Parma” (“We're going bowlin'/So don't lose her in Solin”) to one of TV's most likeable ensembles: Ryan Stiles as goofy Lewis (or, as Jason Alexander joked on Comedy Central's Drew Carey roast, "Kramer-lite"); Diedrich Bader as Oswald (less of a doofus here than in later seasons); Christa Miller as tomboyish Kate, Drew's lifelong platonic friend and unrequited crush; and Kathy Kinney as Mimi, Drew's office nemesis, who is Bluto to his Popeye. The appealing Katy Selverstone is also featured as Lisa, with whom Drew has a secret inter-office romance that will last just this opening season. Compared to the enormously telegenic Friends cast, Drew and company are, to quote Drew, “a cold little splash of reality,” portraying regular folks. In this 22-episode 1995-96 first season, the series is still finding its feet (enjoy while you can Drew's hillbilly neighbors, and the voice of Kevin Pollack as Drew's abusive boss, Mr. Bell). But by season's end, when guest star Jamie Lee Curtis (as Drew's hard-partying barber) polkas with Mimi in the hilarious episode, “Playing the Unified Field,” the series has established its spontaneous, off-center niche. While there are no episode commentaries, this set puts in some valuable overtime with a “Life Inside a Cubicle” retrospective featurette with cast and series creators reflecting on the show's rocky beginnings. Recommended. (D. Liebenson)