I recently got seasons 2 + 3 of TGG for Christmas - brand new on Region 2. I watches Season 2 and I thought it was pretty good with no glitches in colour or filmic quality. However I;m watching season 3 and the colour seems more faded and the typeface and credits in particular are incredibly jumpy. At first I thought I had a fake DVD but maybe it's just the transition from NTSC to PAL had problems (but why does it look worse than the older Season 2?). Does anyone else have this problem with the Season 3 Region 2 DVD?

Every copy of season three is the same unfortunately (well mine certainly is and I know people on here have had similar problems.) We came to the conclusion *I think* that season 3 wasn't remastered whereas seasons 1 and 2 are. Season 3 region 1 was the same as well apparently.

Thanks for the clarification - hopefully it won't bother me so much!?!

Yep, I have had both Region 1 and Region 2 copies of Season 3 at some point (I've settled on Region 1 now for consistency) and they are both identical. Season 3's picture quality is rather poor, on the whole. Many of the episodes are quite soft and blurry with faded colours. On Region 1, Season 4 is quite grainy, Season 5 is blurry and Season 6 is very good - sharp with good colour levels.

The Golden Girls was shot on videotape which degrades a lot faster than film. Sitcoms like Cheers, Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond and The King of Queens were all shot on film. I have all of those shows on DVD and their picture quality is excellent at all times. The other sitcom I have which was shot on tape is All In The Family. That, too, is not in good condition on DVD. This factor may go a long way to explaining the poor quality of the transfer of The Golden Girls on DVD.