7th Heaven - The Complete Third Season (1996)

7th Heaven 3rd season

I enjoyed watching this series. It is wholesome and shows that no one is perfect, not even the parents. Some of the shows are aimed at problems facing our nation today. For example, one show portrayed a very angry teenager who threatened to shoot Simon Camden. His father refused to believe he would shoot any one, saying the pranks he played were part of growing up. But he sang a different song at the end of the show when his son was sentenced to a State correctional facility until he was 25 years old. It shows also that "preacher's kids" are no different than any others. They have the same problems/hang-ups as anyone else. August 18, 2008

wonderful program

This is a wonderful family program. I only wish there were more programs like this one! June 18, 2008

Good show, but....

Thanks to a recent discount offer, I decided to check out this boxed set, sight-unseen, and I was not disappointed. This show has a very good cast and shows a bit of flexibility in not forcing every show to fit artificially and mechanically into an A-plot, B-plot formula. The strong cast has to be given a great deal of the credit for numerous entertaining and effective episodes, both in terms of drama and comedy. However, it must be admitted that there are some weaknesses that detract from the series (at least as represented by the third season):
1. Some of the writing can only be described as heavy-handed, with some bits of dialogue even sounding as if they had been lifted from instructional pamphlets distributed by governmental, charitable, and non-profit organizations. Fortunately, Stephen Collins is a strong enough actor to be able to handle such lines - most of the time.
2. A couple of characters are deliberately designed to be annoying. Although it could be argued that the virtues of most of the characters is demonstrated by the challenges and contrasts brought about in this way, it really made me wonder how much stronger this season might have played by tempering the characters of the youngest daughter and the mother just a bit. Perhaps these characters, when viewed in light of surrounding seasons, appear a bit more rounded, rather than mostly pampered, cranky and annoying. All the other main characters in the show are consistently cool, though, with the the older actors delivering rock-solid work but with surprisingly good performances from the younger cast - Jessica Biel often totally "stealing" her scenes, and David Gallagher running a close second, but the entire cast being solidly cast-professionals with only occasional weaknesses visible in the younger girls' sometimes awkwardly-written characters (the youngest of whom is burdened with making the most out of a character that was designed to be annoying). To my surprise, some of Catherine Hicks' scenes might actually be described as "over-acted," but not many, and the fault is to be better ascribed to the writing and direction of the scene rather than to any fault of Hicks as an actress. Nevertheless, everyone but the youngest girl proves repeatedly their capability of handling a wide array of emotions with powerful potential for both drama and comedy, which emerges with decent frequency when the writers and directors have also done their work properly. (The youngest girl is not tapped at all for more serious dramatic purposes during this season, although one assumes she'd be able to do something along those lines if given the chance. Her comedic abilities vary with the writing but is sometimes good, although some of her dialogue ends up sounding forced.)
3. This show is heavily promoted as being family-friendly. While I enjoy watching the show as an adult, and only found one episode (more on this below) to be beyond my own preferences for restraint and good taste, parents should note that this season would earn a PG-13 rating if it were submitted to the Motion Picture Association of America. While individual episodes vary between G and PG-13, with a large chunk solidly in the middle category of PG, there are many more PG-13 rated episodes than G rated ones. The season as a whole could be described as PG-13 for thematic material including some related to self-injury, and for drug content and a scene of gun violence involving a youth. The last aspect was the episode that I actually found to be disturbing, although effective in serving its theme, unfortunately including a clearly visible sequence in which a youngster with a gun deliberately shoots one of the protagonists after a lot of suspensful build-up.
4. Another curious thing about the show is that despite its stated efforts to be family-friendly and Christian-oriented, everyone in the show is far too obsessed with dating. For the sake of variety alone, I hope that a greater number of additional interests will be dealt with in other seasons, to provide more roundedness to the characters.
5. In its efforts to portray strong female characters, the show occasionally seems to cross the line into an anti-male tone. It doesn't help that everyone's libidos are overactive - the show must walk a fine line between covering many points of view versus simply falling into the stereotypes of people as hormone-driven; the portrayals of strong female characters should be careful not to cross the line into "needlessly manipulative" women (another potential stereotype) nor into questionable hypotheses about male inferiority (which in this season especially takes the form of: "women can do everything that men can do, but men can't give birth" which clearly suggests than men are simply inferior to women). It's fine to occasionally pull out the age-old claims about women's greater tolerance of pain, or to present an occasional weakness to play off of stereotypes of "male strength," such as the portrayal of Matt's aversion to needles. But problems will arise if such things start to be seen as an overall pattern rather than simply attributes of an indivudual character here or there. Thus, men should be prepared for this series showing women as the dominant characters in the greater number of situations. The risk is that this pattern threatens to lean too far in favoring women - that some aspects of unrealism will occur in the series is to be taken for granted (an arm-twist suggesting that a guy with anger problems will now be reformed and not strike out at his sister and others) nevertheless even with the benefit of the doubt given for the sake of episode time and writing constraints, the men/boys in the show are a bit too compliant with and too patient and tolerant of the manipulations of various women for many male viewers to be totally comfortable with the proceedings.
Nevertheless, many episodes tend to be an entertaining roller-coaster ride of overlapping characters (sometimes all merging in the service of a single theme, sometimes going in different directions for contrast and long-term character development) well-portrayed by a fine cast, and after seeing the first half-dozen episodes of this season, I decided to take advantage of the promotional special to buy three other season boxed sets before the sale ended. It seems to be a good show whose actors and good-intentions generally overcome its heavy-handed writing weaknesses and its obsessions with "dating." This show also appears to be unusually good in its long-term continuing, keeping track of previous events and having a whole set of supporting characters that reappear with regularity. In this season, every cast member has substantial scenes in every episode - there's no discernable pattern of ditching or downplaying anyone for particular episodes - something that innumerable other shows could learn from, thanks to the particular style of the show in which all main characters are successfully "juggled" in surprisingly effective yet rapid developments through alternating scenes. It is that juggling act which appears to distinguish this show, and suggests fine production work behind the scenes as well as the more obvious abilities of the regular and supporting cast members. January 31, 2008

Seventh Heaven TV Show

Great family entertainment--a theme for every hour and they solve everyone's problem in just an hour!!! (Wish we could....) December 2, 2007

Absolutely Fabulous!!!

I ordered my DVD on Friday and it came in the mail on Monday!!!!! I Repeat! Absolutely Fabulous!!! August 16, 2007

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