I really liked the format from seasons 2 and 3 the best. I can understand the change from season 1 to 2 with Doris getting a job and the change from season 2 to 3 with Doris and sons moving to an apartment in the city to be closer to work. This all seems logical and sensible. Buck, a farmer, stayed on the farm to do what he does. He is featured once in a while during season 3.

Season 4 and 5 could have continued the format from season 3 and if the producers wanted to show less of the kids and Buck that would have been fine. Feature them only once in a while and still let Doris date several men. Doris could also still have been promoted to a writer during season 4. This certainly would have kept the continuity flowing much better and by keeping the kids and Buck, it would have also given opportunity for additional story lines however infrequently the producers featured them.

As far as the office co-workers are concerned, having McLean Stevenson leave the show was fine as John Dehrer did a good job in his role. It did seem odd that they wrote out Rose-Marie and brought in Jackie Joseph. Nothing against Ms. Joseph as she also did a good job in her role. Changes to Doris' work such as the promotion and boss change can be expected but family changes like those made are unrealistic.

Someone at CBS must have been out of their heads when they totally and abruptly changed the format during season 4.

This show hasn't aged very well, although I will agree seasons 2 and 3 are probably the best of the series. Season 1 comes off as pretty dated looking at it in todays viewpoint. Seasons 2 and 3 are a little more contemporary with Doris getting a job and McLean Stevenson/Rose Marie joining the cast. The series should have been cancelled after the 3rd season, considering all the ridiculous changes made in season 4. At that point, they were trying to turn it into another Mary Tyler Moore Show when they should have just let Doris continue as a single mom with two kids. I haven't got around to buying any DVD's yet, I might get seasons 2 and 3 but not the other seasons.

Reading the complete series review here on SO, the consensus seems to be that the DVD episodes are uncut but time compressed. This may in fact be true, but I take the information with a grain of salt as somehow I suspect that some scenes were trimmed from these episodes and they are not the full complete versions. I have nothing to confirm that the shows are indeed edited, it's just a suspicion I have based on the running times of the episodes. I have also watched a few episodes on you tube (I assume the shows were taken from the DVD's) and occasionally a scene ends abruptly and doesn't blend in properly with the next scene. So it's possible that the shows are the trimmed for syndication versions, back from the time when 25 minute shows were reduced to between 23 and 24 minutes for syndication purposes. For a rare show like this, these may be the only versions currently available. Whatever it is, the episodes used to create the DVD's were altered somewhere along the way and are not the original telecast versions, that much is certain.

But in any form, it's good this show is available on DVD because it's one of those shows that isn't seen on TV anymore. If I recall, during the early 70's CBS aired repeats of Doris Day along with repeats of Family Affair in their weekday morning lineup.