Weeds: Season One DVD Credits:

Region: 1

Weeds: Season One DVD Release Date: 10th August 2006

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Weeds: Season One DVD Review:

Recently the suburbs of America have become a popular setting for films and television, but instead of emphasizing the safe and clean elements of these areas, these programs enjoy working the underbelly. With indi-film The Chumscrubber it was anti-depressants, depression and suicide in the suburbs. Desperate Housewives is another show that makes specific use of the areas right outside of Los Angeles. The suburban sprawl of LA county is the setting for Weeds as well, but while Desperate Housewives takes a murder mystery look at suburban life, Weeds looks at a more realistic and common side of suburban lifestyle. The soap opera drama, along with the biting sarcastic humor, only help to make Weeds seem a lot like Desperate Housewives with… well, weed.

Season one of Weeds picks up with recently widowed Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker) struggling to maintain the lifestyle her two kids are used to in Agrestic, California. With a great deal of family debt, Nancy begins selling marijuana to make ends meet. As she becomes more successful, she is surprised to find how many of her neighbors smoke pot, including political figures in town (Kevin Nealon). She does her best to hide the new occupation from her family, her best friend Celia Hodes (Elizabeth Perkins), and the new men in her life, but it is a small town and new travels fast.

What makes this one of the best new shows in years is its ability to make us laugh and care for the characters, in near equal measures. Weeds has a biting satirical look at the cookie cutter homes of the suburbs, which can be seen from the very beginning opening sequence which is brilliantly executed. There is more to Weeds than satire, however. Satire often fades into scenes of very real grief dealt with in comfortingly realistic ways that aren’t always pretty. As soon as it seems that the show is merely a satire, real life sneaks in and Golden Globe winner Mary-Louise Parker grabs our heart as a struggling widow and mother.

The interaction between certain characters makes the show soar into new territories. The dialogue between Parker and Nealon is always guaranteed to be hilarious, but the interaction between Parker and Perkins is the most fascinating. Parker’s character Nancy often appears to be high (although in all fairness we never actually see her smoke in the entire first season) while Perkins plays Celia, who is nearly always drunk or drinking. Often these two will have an interaction with each other unaware of the other’s state of mind, each unable to carry the conversation normally.

Season one of Weeds has ten episodes, which are placed on two discs in a nice little package. There are special features on each of the discs, including commentary on six episodes. There is commentary by the show’s creator/writer Jenji Kohan along with many of the actors, but what makes the commentaries unique is that they are all solo commentaries. Disc one has mostly just commentaries while disc two holds all of the other goodies. “Smoke and Mirrors” is a crash course education on marijuana, giving a great deal accurate information. Documentaries have taken ten times as long to give less information than this featurette.

Other special features include two Showtime Shorts with cast interviews and a Showtime Original “Weeds” Special which is narrated far too similar to Desperate Housewives, but is otherwise decent enough. There is also a featurette about suburbia and a few humorous extras from the cast in Smokey Snippits. The last and best special feature is a bunch of “herbal” recipes. Each has “herb of your choice” somewhere in the recipe.

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Weeds: Season One DVD review written by: Ryan Izay