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Weeds: Season Four
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Lions Gate Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (11th August 2009). |
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The Show
 Jumping in to the middle of a series is a hefty proposition for most shows today, as many have moved away from the more episodic storytelling of the past and towards a far more serialized story that turns each season into a really really long movie. Sometimes it hurts viewers, like my beloved “Lost” (2004-2010) that has been known to loose some viewers who miss out on episodes, but it’s hard to understand when it’s compelling enough from episode to episode and with that sort of storytelling it commands being read like a book: cover to cover. But that’s a sort of extreme example considering the complicated mythos and storytelling going on in the greatest show to hit television. Others are much simpler, like when I jumped in on “Dexter” (2006-Present) it was still a semi-serialized, linear story with it’s own twists and turns, but it pulled me onboard enough through the reuse of “Oz” (1997-2003) actors and good acting. Showtime’s other production “Weeds” (2005-Present) has always sort of piqued my interest, but since it’s expensive to watch that network I never got involved. I wish there was a way to catch up on the three seasons before jumping into the fourth, but I don’t have that kind of time or money and I think my experience was a bit lesser for it. Picking up after the burning down of her house and neighborhood at the end of the third season, season four of "Weeds" follows Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker) as she moves into the town of Ren Mar to act as a drug runner between the San Diego – Tijuana border for Guillermo (Guillermo Díaz). The DEA is on to Nancy’s former operation though, and tries to follow her trail to Ren Mar. Meanwhile she learns the new ways of running the drug trade, until she learns of some complications with the scheme. At the same time she begins a relationship with Guillermo’s boss Esteban (Demián Bichir) the corrupt mayor of Tijuana. The show is fun enough and the characters are fine, but it just doesn’t grab me like I would expect. It seems like the show has started shooting for darker comedy and more drama infused into the show which would work if I had more connection to the characters, but picking up in season four I just don’t really bond to any of them. Instead I identify them by actors and it makes sense that my two favorites, Nancy and Guillermo, are identified with their prior work in “The West Wing” (1999-2006) and “Half Baked” (1998) respectively. Parker is a good actress and funny on the show, she doesn’t play up her humor too much and maintains a good amount of likeability through the entire season and does a great job of carrying the show around her character. As far as I can tell Guillermo Díaz is a new addition to the cast, but he’s got some of the best lines and is all around funny in the show. Of course since the show is a premium cable show, it has much more leeway (it’s named "Weeds" and is all about drugs, that’s the first clue) and uses it to a fair extent but doesn’t use it as a crutch for comedy looking for bizarre or extreme scenarios to put the characters into that would seem out of character for some ex suburban drug dealers. The writers show a healthy restraint that doesn’t overstep it’s bounds but gets too overly serious and self concerned, which I could appreciate with more foundation to work off of, but going in expecting a light marijuana based comedy and getting a dramedy is a bit too jarring for me to get into this late in the game without any prior history with the show. Between my lack of experience with the show and the short season, 13 episodes at about 26 minutes each, it’s too hard to get caught up in the middle of something and I get a sense of frustration with some of the cast and the characters. Not because they are necessarily doing anything wrong on the show, but I just don’t care enough about them to give them the sort of leeway the show runners are banking on for the movement of the show. Here’s a list of the episodes included in the fourth season: “Mother Thinks the Birds are After Her” “Lady’s a Charm” “The Whole Blah Damn Thing” “The Three Coolers” “No Man is Pudding” “Excellent Treasures” “Yes I Can” “I Am the Table” “Little Boats” “The Love Circle Overlap” “Head Cheese” “Till We Meet Again” “If You Work for a Living, Why do you Kill Yourself Working?”
Video
The 1080p 24/fps 1.78:1 widescreen transfer with AVC MPEG-4 encoding looks fairly good for most of the scenes animated and set in Ren Mar, but for many of their low light encounters near the border the video quality gets much grainer and grittier in an unintentional way. However the rest of the show looks good and hits at the glossy look that the show displays on the back and cover, except with less marijuana puns in the text. The transfer overall looks clean and clear, except for some of those low light problems, and shows off how much money cable shows have to throw behind their short and critically acclaimed programming.
Audio
Presented in English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 surround mixed at 48kHz/24-bit, there isn’t a lot to the soundtrack other than the dialogue and a few stray bong hits in the soundtrack, but it all comes through clearly in the transfer and sounds fairly crisp. It seems a bit much to put a 7.1 transfer with such a low-intensive sound show, but it doesn’t hurt to overcompensate, it just makes me think that there’s a little something extra missing from the show when there is supposedly so much to the audio file for such a plain sounding soundtrack. The music selections and original little bits of music are also still good though and come through clearly with the dialogue and rest of the audio. There are also optional English and Spanish Subtitles.
Extras
The full season is contained over two Blu-ray discs, containing audio commentaries, a couple of picture-in-picture commentaries, a gag reel and eight featurettes. DISC ONE: There are five audio commentaries for four episodes, described below: Audio commentary with creator Jenji Kohan on the episode “Mother thinks that the Birds are After Her” is not the best flowing commentary but makes points about moving from the suburbs and the different changes that were made to the show as well as some stories about working at the Tijuana border. Audio commentary with writer Roberto Benabib on the episode “Three Coolers” is slightly more talkative and more typical of commentaries where Benabib spends most of his time talking about the change in venue for the show and praising the actors on the show. It’s not a bad commentary, but it seems a little arrogant in praising how well the show moved from being in the suburbs to being about drug trafficking. Audio commentary with actors Kevin Nealon and Justin Kirk on the episode “No Man is Pudding” is more active and conversational, featuring the typical barbs and jibs between the two actors while poking fun at what happened on the show. However it still features a suprising amount of pauses and gaps for such a short episode to commentate on and the duo sound pretty high while they are commentating since they seem so laid back about what’s going on. Audio commentary with actors Elizabeth Perkins and Allie Grant on the episode “Excellent Treasures” is similar to the previous commentary with Nealon and Kirk as well as the other crew commentaries that praise the actors and joke between one another while laughing along with the show. There’s not a ton of insight, though there are some interesting points about the sets on the show, but they spend most of the time commenting on the plot, script and actors. There is also a "Coyote" BonusView picture-in-picture video commentary with actors Kevin Nealon and Justin Kirk, which is a direct repeat of the previous audio commentary with Nealon and Kirk, but presented as a picture-in-picture format with the show. It’s not much more interesting, as you just see them in a recording room with microphones in their faces and headphones on. The gag reel is a typical gag reel that runs for 8 minutes and 25 seconds, with the usual goofs around on the set, Parker being unable to start her prius and lots of improvised or mistaken lines. “Little Titles” featurette runs for 5 minutes and 30 seconds, this is a compilation of all the different opening title cards that the show shifted to instead of having an opening song, with narration by creator Jenji Kohan over the different title cards. Kohan explains why the shift and what the different cards were supposed to do with each episode. “Moving Weight” runs for 8 minutes and 27 seconds, in this featurette Guillermo Díaz talks about the trafficking of weed as it’s shown in the show by his character. The twist comes when he goes to speak with a defense attorney about what the legal ramifications about transporting marijuana or ‘moving weight’ are within the United States and the history of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Like his scenes within the show, Díaz’s featurette makes for the most interesting part of the set talking about the legal ramifications of what happens in the show and manages to be funny at the same time. Worth watching at least to hear the crazy ways people transport drugs into the United States, like stuffing live squids with marijuana to avoid drug sniffing dogs. “I’m a Big Kid Now” runs for 9 minutes and 34 seconds, this featurette looks at the rate of growth of the different child actors involved in the show, how they deal with the different kids growing up as the show goes on. Hunter Parrish, the oldest, does most of the talking, but the other two kids, Alexander Gould and Allie Grant get more involved as the featurette goes on. It’s interesting to hear from the child actors on a show that’s fairly adult in content, as well has hearing about how they deal with growing up on a TV show. DISC TWO: There are four audio commentaries on three episodes this disc: Audio commentary with actors Kevin Nealon and Justin Kirk on the episode “I am the Table” and it’s very similar to their previous commentary but a bit more lively and touches on points that they didn’t cover in their previous commentary, like the growth of the child actors, the talent that was brought in for this season and other little aspects about the production. Audio commentary with actor Hunter Parrish on the episode “Head Cheese” could use another commentator to help keep him from pausing, but he brings in some good information about the continuity that they had to worry about indifferent scenes or what parts were improvised or written. However he has a tendancy to just sit back and laugh at the show that is a little frustrating for people listening to the commentary for him to just add a laugh track. Audio commentary with creator Jenji Kohan on the episode “If You Work for a Living, Why Kill Yourself Working?” where she talks about how the show tries to homage a film for each finale, saying this one references “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” (1966). It’s the most interesting commentary between the two discs as Kohan points out all the little references they tried to throw in to the film, as well as the different scenes that got cut or removed or deleted from the track. It’s still not as constant as I would like, but it’s fairly informative and does the finale justice. "Coyote" BonusView picture-in-picture video commentary with actors Kevin Nealon and Justin Kirk on the episode “I am the Table”, and is the exact same as the audio commentary track on that episode, but with video, just like on the previous disc. It’s a little redundant, especially since they’re so inactive during the commentary. “The Real Hunter Parrish" runs for 6 minutes and 3 seconds, a short featurette where Parrish talks about his life offset while playing with his dog. He seems to think the microphone is further away than it really is as he tends to talk really loud for the camera. A nice little mini biography on the actor, but really short. “Tour of Bubbie’s House” featurette runs for 7 minutes and 41 seconds where Julie Bolder the set decorator for the show walks through the different little set pieces in the ‘bubbie’s house’ set, with little interviews from the different actors interjected throughout, raving about the different sets. The featurette tends to favor the actor interviews a bit more than the sets themselves, but not a bad behind-the-scenes look. “One Stop Chop Shop” runs for 5 minutes and 33 seconds, this featurette discusses the tour around the Tijuana border that was mentioned in the earlier commentaries and how they got different story ideas from the trip. Again, it tends to focus more on interviews praising people rather than tours through the Tijuana set that they created on the backlot. “The Weed Wranglers” featurette runs for 6 minutes and 5 seconds. Here the cast and crew talk about the fake weed provided for the show, discussing how it’s produced and having an extended conversation with the prop master about running the different plants and products of marijuana that run through the set. I’m a sucker for production featurettes and it’s neat to see how they create the fake plants for the show. “Burbs to the Beach” runs for 6 minutes and 32 seconds, this final brief featurette covers the movement of the show from suburbia to the boarder coast. Again it’s information that’s been covered in the commentary, but expanding to talk with the different actors and more producers, again a bit arrogant talking about unique the idea of moving set is, but a brief and to the point featurette none the less.
Overall
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