DVD/TV Series Review: Alf: Season 3

 

The 26-episode third season of Alf aired during the 1988/1989 TV season. The main cast members, including Paul Fusco, Max Wright, Andrea Elson, Benjy Gregory, and Anne Schedeen, returned this season. Schedeen's role was reduced during the season to accommodate her real-life pregnancy, which was written into the show. All the cast members playing the Tanner's neighbors, the Ochmoneks, also returned, including John LaMotta, Liz Sheridan, and Josh Blake.

The DVD set is a four-disc set.  The episodes have English captions, but there are no bonus features such as episode commentary tracks, behind-the-scenes material, or the like. The show continues to be a fun, family-friendly procedural sitcom. Aside from two two-part episodes, the storylines do not stretch throughout the season. A particular episode's storyline is resolved by the end of that episode. This season included two two-part episodes, which would see the series' biggest guest stars appear. There was a two-part episode in which Alf filled in for Johnny Carson as host of The Tonight Show (which were mainly clip-shows, showing highlights from throughout the series). Johnny did not appear, but Ed McMahon appeared in both episodes. In the second, David Ogden Stiers, who played Major Winchester on M*A*S*H, guest starred as a homeless person hanging out in the neighborhood and who, of course, discovers ALF. Overall, the show continued to be a fun sitcom. It was a very wholesome, feel-good show. All of the jokes were family-friendly, although the show did have the occasional more adult-oriented joke that would be a double-entendre that would go over most kid's heads. Whether you watched the show when it originally aired or not, it is a good comedy that holds up pretty well nearly 40 years after it first aired (as of this writing) and is still worth watching.