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The Series

[Rating:4/5]

In the third season of Modern Family, this hip and hilarious peek into the lives of a truly modern family continues without skipping a beat. The adventures of the Pritchards and Dunphys lead them to Wyoming, on an impossible mission to have an “express Christmas” on December 16, and also finds Claire (Julie Bowen) running for the City Council. Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) decide its time to adopt a boy, all while they begin having the usual issues with raising Lily (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons). The writers for Modern Family tap the changing social mores of our times without ever becoming preachy or obvious. Their reflections of the changing tapestry that is the American family, and the fact that they can so easily laugh at them with ease, is what makes this series so pleasurable. It doesn’t hurt to have a cutie-pie like Aubrey Anderson-Emmons on the cast to drop some sugary sweet one-liners from time to time either.

Video Quality

[Rating:4.5/5]

The high definition production of Modern Family, which comes to Blu-ray in an AVC/MPEG-4 1080p/24 encodement from Fox, maintains is strong image and natural, true-to-life look. There are spots meant to look like a video camera capturing the “confessions” or “documentary-style” footage of the family going about their day-to-day business, but these rarely take away from the overall detail, strong colors, and contrast of the image. It also should be said that, as one should expect, Modern Family on Blu-ray blows away any and all broadcast versions, doing away with all the heavy compression errors, macroblocking, posterization, and video noise.

Audio Quality

[Rating:4/5]

The audio mix for Modern Family is simple, only become lively during the theme song, in all honesty. Still, there are some good instances of directional panning across the front. The surrounds only carry very mild ambience. Dialogue is clear and the dynamics are good in this DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz/24-bit) track.

Supplemental Materials

[Rating:3/5]

A slew of deleted scenes and behind-the-scenes featurettes not only add to the fun, but help to beef up this already enjoyable three-disc set.

The supplements:

• Deleted and Alternate Scenes (1.78:1; 1080p/24)
• Destination: Wyoming (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:09:43) – Take a peek behind the scenes as the cast of Modern Family shoot on location in Wyoming for the season opener.
• A Day on the Set with Ty (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:05:38) – Ty Burrell gives you a glimpse into a day on the set.
• Adventures of the Modern Family Kids (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:03:33) – The Modern Family kids have a rollicking time on location at an amusement park.
• A Modern Family Christmas (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:05:59) – The “Express Christmas” episode s glimpsed behind the scenes.
• Driving Lessons (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:02:55)
• Ed O’Neil Get’s A Star (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:16:46) – Watch Ed O’Neill be given the great honor of being awarded a star on the Walk of Fame.
• Modern Family goes to Disneyland Resort (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:03:11)
• Gag Reel (00:08:56)

The Definitive Word

Overall:

[Rating:4/5]

Season Three of Modern Family doesn’t lose any of the humor from previous seasons, and, in fact, may even increase the number of laugh out loud moments. Over the course of its first three seasons, these characters that we have gotten to know so well have continued to delight and will hopefully continue to do so for at least a few seasons more.

Additional Screen Captures

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