Product Description
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The King of Queens consistently delivered laughs for nine
seasons, making it one of the most popular and longest-running
comedies in television history! Kevin James stars as Doug
Heffernan, a lovable regular guy with an adoring wife, Carrie
(Leah Remini), and a frustrating her-in-law (Jerry Stiler)
under his roof. Packed with a crazy cast of characters, hilarious
situations and plenty of great guest stars, this is one show that
brings the goods!
.com
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The King of Queens - The Complete First Season
In the sitcom The King of Queens, comedian Kevin James has
created a new archetype: the sensitive lug. This deceptively
simple comedy bounces along because delivery man Doug Heffernen
(James), though completely a guy's guy, constantly struggles to
keep the world around him in a delicate emotional balance.
Meanwhile, his wife Carrie (Leah Remini), though utterly feminine
(and one of the sexiest women on television), uses the kind of
no-nonsense rational approach that's usually a man's province.
Add to this mix Carrie's her Arthur (Jerry Stiller), whose
life as a fussy, self-absorbed retiree makes him more like their
child than an adult, and you've got the building blocks for an
excellent and durable show.
The first season of The King of Queens quickly found its voice
with stories firmly rooted in the everyday world, rarely spinning
off into absurdity--and why should it, when there's such a wealth
of humor to be found in petty neuroses (when Doug gets assigned
an attractive young woman as a trainee at work, he gets hurt when
Carrie isn't remotely jealous), ill-advised scheming (to weasel
out of a traffic ticket, Carrie agrees to go out on a date with
the cop who pulled her over), and juggling obligations to friends
and family (just about every episode). Brilliant comic bits
abound; one classic moment features Doug and Carrie having a
furious argument in absolute silence at a cello concert--a scene
that fuses deft physicality, well-developed characters, and sheer
silliness. The King of Queens is a delight. --Bret Fetzer
The King of Queens - The Complete Second Season
Like its characters, The King of Queens is a unpretentious but
utterly dependable sitcom. Kevin James and Leah Remini, as
blue-collar couple Doug and Carrie Heffernan, have the kind of
chemistry that every sitcom craves (but far too few have).
Layered on top of this solid foundation are the bizarre flights
of Jerry Stiller as Arthur, Carrie's loud, paranoid, and
combustible her. The second season has no overarching
plotlines or recurring themes; it's just a compilation of
excellent material, including Doug's ego inflating when a
waitress flirts with him; Doug and Carrie squirming when their
best friends ask them to be godparents; Doug discovering that
Carrie compulsively cheats at games; and a flashback to when they
first met. It's the attention to emotional detail that makes the
show fly; James and Remini take the most mundane material--say,
an argument over where to go for a vacation or how their marriage
lacks romance--and turn the many ways in which couples cope into
a pugnacious duet. Their sparring not only is funny, but
consistently rings true as irrational but oh-so-common human
behavior. The show pulls you in all the more because the
Heffernans make up just as often as they fight, demonstrating one
of the most functional marriages on television. It's
meat-and-potatoes comedy, but sometimes nothing else will hit the
spot. --Bret Fetzer
The King of Queens: The Complete Third Season
The third season of The King of Queens upholds the quality of
the first two: Smart but unpretentious comedy based firmly in the
daily lives of blue-collar couple Doug and Carrie Heffernan
(Kevin James and Leah Remini) as they cope with their jobs, their
friends, and sharing their home with Carrie's eccentric,
obsessive her Arthur (Jerry Stiller). While dozens of mediocre
sitcoms are built around guys implausibly married to sexy
women, James and Remini have such chemistry and their characters
are so well-crafted and complex that their marriage seems not
only convenient for sitcom purposes but downright meant to be.
The show only goes astray when it goes for a gimmick. In one
episode, Doug dreams of himself as Ralph Kramden in The
Honeymooners; while it's understandable for James to tip his hat
to one of his idols, this belabored concept sucked all the humor
out of the show. But when The King of Queens sticks to small,
mundane troubles, the results are unfailingly delightful. For
example, Doug becomes self-conscious about his weight when he
discovers that Carrie buys his clothes at the Big & Tall Shop;
Carrie is excited to go to lunch with some of the women lawyers
at her firm, then humiliated when it turns out they didn't know
she's a secretary; or Carrie admits she finds Doug's best friend
Deacon (Victor Williams) hot. These events launch some wonderful
farce, all the funnier because anyone can identify with the
characters' insecurity and jealousy. This firm psychological
grounding lets the series keep its footing as it dips into some
deeper emotions, like the break-up of Deacon's marriage or an
unexpected pregnancy. Because James and Remini keep their
characters truthful in their most ridiculous moments, they keep
us engaged and even moved as they enter what could be maudlin
territory--plus, the writers never lose the rtunity for a
sharp but telling joke along the way. The King of Queens makes
sitcoms look easy, but the show's skillful balance of an ordinary
world and fine-tuned humor is anything but. --Bret Fetzer
The King of Queens - The Complete Fourth Season
The fourth season of The King of Queens opens with a perfect
example of how the show spins real life into farce: Delivery guy
Doug and his sardonic wife Carrie (Kevin James and Leah Remini)
want to get pregnant, but can't get Carrie's cantankerous her
Arthur (Jerry Stiller) out of the house; the only solution their
budget will allow is hiring a dog-walker named Holly (Nicole
Sullivan) to take Arthur to the park. A more banal sitcom would
conclude with Arthur's rage when he discovers the truth, but The
King of Queens finds a grace note with Arthur and Holly beginning
a genuine friendship. Which is not to say that The King of Queens
goes for easy sentiment; some of the fourth season's best moments
walk a distinctly unsentimental line. When Arthur goes into the
hospital for a heart problem, Carrie discovers that he hid a
college acceptance letter from her in order to keep her at home.
While Arthur lies unconscious, Carrie wrestles with anger and
grief--and, thanks to smart writing and Remini's deft
performance, it's almost uncomfortably funny.
James, Remini, and Stiller form the sitcom equivalent of a
rock'n'roll power trio--it's astonishing that so much comedy can
come out of just three people. The King of Queens has solid
supporting players (and, towards the end of this season, succumbs
to the questionable trend of casting celebrity guest stars), but
the skillful interplay between Doug, Carrie, and Arthur drives
the vast majority of the show's stories. The fourth season has a
handful of episodes that wallow in typical sitcom schtick, but
it's impressive how many more episodes remain fresh, lively, and
true to these vivid characters. Even an episode that flashes back
to Doug and Carrie's wedding--a premise that usually guarantees a
saccharine kiss of death--finds a balance of tartness and genuine
warmth. Satisfying and well-crafted. --Bret Fetzer
The King of Queens: The Complete Ninth Season
The final season of The King of Queens sends this
under-appreciated sitcom out with a bang. The season begins with
several strong stand-alone episodes, including ones in which Doug
(Kevin James) uses a tax refund to buy an ice cream truck; Carrie
(Leah Remini) suspects that their best friends have managed to
buy a vacation home by sponging off of her and Doug; Doug, after
rescuing a chicken from being killed, becomes a vegetarian;
Arthur (Jerry Stiller), eternally resplendent in argyle sweaters,
asks Doug and Carrie for the money to get braces; and Adam
Sandler (Punch Drunk Love) plays a high school friend of Doug's
with a lot of repressed anger. But the season crescendos in a
three-episode story that begins with Arthur preparing to get
married again while Doug and Carrie's marriage crumbles when
Carrie wants to move to an apartment in Manhattan. From there,
the Heffernans' worst impulses run comically amok, demonstrating
this show's long-standing strengths: The cheerful exploitation of
all the character's bad behavior, be it Doug's selfishness,
Carrie's envy, or Arthur's raging egomania; snowballing
storylines that routinely end in entertaining disaster and
humiliation; and the skillfully-honed interplay of the three
leads. The supporting cast--including Doug's best friend Deacon
(Victor Williams), the emotionally enmeshed roommates Spence
(Patton Oswalt) and Danny (Gary Valentine), and needy dog-walker
Holly (Nicole Sullivan)--all have their moments, but James,
Remini, and Stiller are the show's engine, and it runs like a
Maserati. --Bret Fetzer