Growing Pains
Sitcoms from the 70’s and 80’s are another favourite of mine. I like watching episodes on DVD if I want to watch something… but not have to sit through a much longer movie. I do tend to buy favourites from my childhood/teen years.
I pre-ordered season one of Growing Pains from amazon.com and I have to say… I enjoyed it far more than I expected to. It was a series that I remember being on as a kid… but not any episodes from it. Kirk Cameron wasn’t all that cool by the time I remembered seeing it either…. but that it was long after the series had started.
It’s inevitable because of the family connection to compare it to Full House. But I found the first season of Growing Pains a lot wittier than the first two seasons of Full House. Possibly because the children in GP are older and the storylines are a bit easier to relate to. Like where Carol has a crush on a much older cousin and gets a bit carried away, or when Mike intends to cheat… but doesn’t need to but gets caught anyway with the answers written on the soles of his shoes. And when he ends up in Jail in the first episode for driving a car under-age.
My two favourite characters were Mike & Ben Seaver (Kirk Cameron & Jeremy Miller) - probably because one was always getting into trouble… and the other was taking full advantage of it.
The special features are pretty minimal… this is consistent with other TV show releases. There are scenes from the pilot episode with another actress in the role played by Tracey Gold which was interesting but it would have been nice to see the whole pilot. When I watched the episode that was screened, there had been several major script changes and I wonder if there other parts that still remain unseen. There was an interview with the 5 main stars which had obviously been done for the DVD release and was quite interesting. And the gag reel was funny. 
I am definitely looking forward to seeing future seasons too. I do want to see what happens later on when Kirk starts clashing with the producers over his new-found beliefs in Christianity and it affects storylines and characters on the show. And why not throw in his real-life wife and Leonardo DeCaprio too!
