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  EW review: 'The Facts of Life'Also: Terrific Tennessee Williams, nice 'Stone'By Jennifer Armstrong  YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS
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Or, visit Popular Alerts for suggestions. (Entertainment Weekly) -- Some '80s sitcoms are fun to watch today in a how-dumb-could-TV-get, I-used-to-watch-this-with-my- Others turned the norms of the day -- laugh tracks, corny lines, Important Life Lessons -- into a solidly entertaining (if not life-changing) 22 minutes. "The Facts of Life: The Complete First and Second Seasons" starts out as the former and graduates to the latter -- a transformation fascinatingly apparent in this four-DVD set. In fact, watching the 29 episodes play out tells you as much about how TV was made back then as it does about Mrs. Garrett and her Eastland girls. (Watch what happened to the cast -- 5:55) It begins as an awkward "Diff'rent Strokes" spin-off (we used to tolerate awkwardness so much more, didn't we?), with Mrs. Garrett (a strong Charlotte Rae) having left her job with Arnold, Willis, and Mr. Drummond to play housemother to too many blondes and a gratingly precocious Molly Ringwald at a boarding school. It then returns for season 2 with some blatant retooling: Mrs. Garrett is (wisely) promoted to school dietitian and (fittingly) 25 pounds thinner. And through some serious plot contortions, she gains charge of only the standouts from season 1 -- charmingly vain Blair (Lisa Whelchel), funny girl Natalie (Mindy Cohn), and sassy gossip Tootie (Kim Fields) -- plus the brilliant addition of tough gal Jo (Nancy McKeon). Of course, there's no comparison between this stuff and the best of today's TV -- our "Facts"-addled brains would have spontaneously combusted if a time traveler had brought us (on VHS, natch) "Lost," "24," or, heck, even a more direct descendant like "The O.C." But that's the point: For better or for worse, they don't make 'em like they used to. It's almost like a different medium, the way "Facts" confronts its characters with major issues (from racial identity to slut reputations) every week -- which, of course, always taught them grand truths (racial divisions = bad; slutting = bad) -- that never, thank goodness, changed our girls too much. The second season is where "Facts" found its formula, so it's packed with some of the series' most memorable episodes: Jo goes to a cotillion, Blair's cousin Geri makes her first appearance, Tootie spreads rumors about Mrs. Garrett drinking. The extras don't quite measure up, lingering too much on the stunted first season's sprawling cast (for those of you dying to know where Julie Anne Haddock and Felice Schachter are now). We hope they're saving some additional, more revealing time with Whelchel, Cohn, and Fields for future seasons' DVDs. And while we knew not to hold our breath for a McKeon appearance (she dissed the 2001 reunion show, which, come to think of it, would make a nice extra too), we would've settled for a good three-way commentary track. But, hey, if there's one thing we learned from "Facts," it's how to take the good and take the bad. EW Grade: B+ 'Tennessee Williams Film Collection'Reviewed by Steve Daly As anybody who channel-flips cable TV can see, censorship in American entertainment is on the wane. It's a shock, then, to revisit the profound impact of censorship on several of the adapted Tennessee Williams plays rounded up in the excellent "Tennessee Williams Film Collection." The masterpiece here is the director's cut of 1951's "A Streetcar Named Desire," in which sweaty brute Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando) immortally bellows, ''Hey, Stella!'' As a passel of superb supplements explains, Hollywood's production code demanded that Stanley be punished after he rapes poor, delusional butterfly Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh), so his tolerant wife (Kim Hunter) is shown abruptly walking out on him, one of many ludicrous changes from the Pulitzer-winning play. (Unrelated must-see extra: a 23-year-old Brando's first Hollywood screen test, shot in 1947. Supernaturally sexy.) Director Elia Kazan avoided any major revision battles shooting 1956's "Baby Doll," a delightful comedy of cuckoldry written directly for the screen, but denunciations from Catholic leaders crippled its release. The worst bowdlerizations were foisted on 1958's "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," making it very tough to suss out why surly Brick (Paul Newman) wouldn't want to ravish his wife, Maggie (a stunning Elizabeth Taylor). But by the early '60s, restrictions were easing. Despite other forced omissions, "Sweet Bird of Youth" gets away with Newman rolling joints for Geraldine Page, "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone" makes Warren Beatty's gigolo life semiexplicit, and "The Night of the Iguana" even shows defrocked reverend Richard Burton's manhood blatantly outlined inside a wet pair of briefs. Like this DVD set, it's a noteworthy package. EW Grade: A- 'The Family Stone'Reviewed by Edward Karam A Christmas visit from their son's fiance (Sarah Jessica Parker) brings out the grinch in a family of judgmental liberals in "The Family Stone." Director-writer Thomas Bezucha's sophomore effort features lots of comic fizz and a rich ensemble led by Diane Keaton that meshes convincingly as a family. EXTRAS A making-of doc, cast interviews, and a filmmakers' commentary that's particularly informative on design elements (blue was avoided and clutter encouraged in the palette), but a second commentary with a giggling Parker and costar Dermot Mulroney is, as Parker predicts, ''helpful to no one.'' EW Grade: B+ Click Here 
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