The Simpsons - Season 14 [DVD]

The 482 minutes of Season 14 starts with Treehouse of Horrors and works through to Moe Baby Blues, and they appear to have listened to the complaints about the cardboard slip pockets and have coated the sleeves with a fine plastic.

The theme for this season is Halloween and it is carried through across the discs and the packaging.

DISC 1

- Treehouse of Horrors 13
* Send in the Clones
* The Fright to Creep and Scare Harms
* The Island of Dr Hibbert
- How I Spent My Strummer Vacation
- Bart vs Lisa vs the Third Grade
- Large Marge
- Helter Shelter

- Extras
- "In the Beginning" - all of the "warnings" and introductions to the Treehouse of Horrors episodes from number 1 to number 13
- "It's only Rock `n' Roll - a look at the Strummer Vacation episode
- "Sketch Gallery 1"

DISC 2

- Great Louse Detective
- Special Edna
- The Dad Who Knew Too Much
- The Strong Arms of the Ma
- Pray Anything
- Barting Over - 300th episode

- Extras
- 300th Episode (1 min 54 secs)
- Sketch Gallery II

DISC 3

- I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can
- A Star is Born, Again
- Mr Spritz goes to Washington
- CED'Oh
- `Scuse Me While I Miss the Sky
- Three Gays of the Condo

- Extras
- The Halloween Classics - clips from the THOH episodes from over the 14 seasons
- Special Language Feature - a list of the available subtitles is hardly an extra

DISC 4
- Dude, Where's My Ranch - the Christmas special
- Old Yeller-Belly
- Break My Wife, Please
- The Bart of War
- Moe Baby Blues

- Extras
- Foolish Earthlings - clips of Kang and Kodos
- Animation Showcase

There are also commentaries on all of the 22 episodes.

The soundtrack is in English only but the subtitles come in: Danish, English, Finish, Norwegian and Swedish

Sideshow Bob (Kelsey Grammer) appears in "Great Louse Detective" where he attempts to discover who is trying to kill Homer, and the list is long.

The animated menus are, as always, interesting and I spend several minutes watching each variation, which continues the theme of Halloween, which runs through box decoration.

Considering that Season 14 was originally broadcast in 2002/2003 it's still fun and a great way to pass the time.

This is a mixed bag of episodes, the show was struggling by this season though I do continue to collect and enjoy these boxsets and the commentaries are fantastic.
I found this boxset in a well known supermarket (Starts with a T) on 4th October, no other shop or website has it for sale until 10th of October, so I bought it instantly.
As I said the episodes are hit and miss but the special features are excellent as always.
But...the packaging is done in the same style as seasons 11 to 13. Lovely artwork inside (Treehouse Of Horror themed!) and a nice booklet(as always), but the discs are tucked into the horrible cardboard sleeve again, why hasn't somebody at Fox listened to the fans?
The sleeves are a slight bit looser than previous three seasons, none of my four discs were scratched this time but as before I'm almost afraid to touch them as the packaging and DVDs could be so easily damaged. What I do is leave the four discs in empty CD cases, and when I finished watching all four then return them to the packaging and back onto my DVD shelf.
Although there has been a dip in the quality of the episodes, and the packaging on the past 4 seasons are pretty horrible, The Simpsons complete season boxsets have turned into a great collection and Im glad to add another season at last.
Oh and Kang's (or is it Kudos'?) eye on the front of the packaging is reflective gold and looks pretty cool!

The season itself is better than I remembered it. Had plenty of laughs so far, although it could be that each season is worse than the one that proceeded it, so this one looks pretty good so far compared to season nineteen. However, the packaging, agh, I experienced a skipping of the episode "Pray Anything" on disc 2, most likely due to the absurd cardboard packaging. Also, the glue that is supposed to keep the packaging together keeps coming undone on the inner section that's supposed to hold the booklet in place. So, I have to keep pressing it back down and hoping the glue will stay in place, but it's already come unstuck twice now, so...oh, and there were glue on the fourth disc that I had to peel off. Hopefully the disc will play okay, but doubtful. Terrible packaging, but a season that is still quite up there with Simpsons' quality.