There are few things guaranteed in this world: death, taxes, and the fact that NBC's 30 Rock will consistently make me laugh more than any other series on television right now, with its winning combination of absurdist humor, off-kilter characters, and brainy throwaway lines. (What other series would have jokes about H. R. Halderman, Bernie Goetz, and Mystic Pizza, I ask you?)
Universal Home Video releases 30 Rock's Emmy Award-winning second season on DVD today and it's easy to see just why 30 Rock works when watching these 15 episodes (save for the shaky "Ludachristmas" and "Episode 210" episodes, filmed during the writers strike without rewrites; hell, the latter doesn't even have a name!), which comprise some of the very best comedy writing to be found on television.
While at its center, 30 Rock appears to be about the deeply dysfunctional cast and crew of a fictional NBC sketch comedy series, it's actually also a delivery system for insightful and cutting humor about political, social, and gender issues and a look at the sacrifices professional women have to make in the workplace. Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) might not be the most put-together woman working in the entertainment industry but you can't help but root for her as she strives to find a balance between her professional and personal lives, which often include fake pregnancies (spurred into a false positive by her beloved Sabor de Soledad Mexican cheese curls), nearly getting thrown under a subway car by ex-boyfriend/Subway Hero Dennis Duffy (Dean Winters), and, well, eating an entire sandwich on camera in order to get past airport security to stop the potential love of her life, Floyd (Jason Sudeikis). Like I said, Liz needs all the help she can get.
She's helped and often hindered by her boss, Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin), who this season dates a Democratic Congresswoman from Vermont, Celeste Cunningham (Edie Falco), who is suing NBC parent company Sheinhart Wig Company after they poisoned a river with wig dye that turned many children orange; he also engineers the biggest NBC ratings success story with MILF Island (even after Jerry Seinfeld threatens to buy NBC for $4 million when Jack has him digitally inserted as the series' host) and takes a position with the Bush administration when he's forced out of his job by his longtime rival Devon Banks (Will Arnett), who is engaged to the daughter of Jack's comatose mentor Don Geiss (Rip Torn). Whew.
Fey and Baldwin turn out two of the most memorable comedic performances of recent times; both of their characters can managed to be over the top, complex, and likable, even when they're engaging in some not-so-likable behavior. It's the push and pull of their complication relationship (dare I say, even friendship) that propels the plot of 30 Rock and keeps us coming back for more. Together, they comprise a paradigm of authority vs. oppression, creative vs. corporate, male vs. female. (It's awe-inspiring to watch them in action, particularly when they are willing to cast aside any boundaries in their performances, such as when Jack channels great black TV performers of the past in Tracy's therapy session in "Rosemary's Baby.")
Equally fantastic is 30 Rock's supporting cast, which truly get a chance this year to shine as Jenna (Jane Krakowski) gains a massive amount of weight while starring on stage in a musical version of Mystic Pizza, Kenneth (Jack McBrayer) battles evil head page Donnie, Pete (Scott Adsit) tries to reconcile with his estranged wife (while still living with Liz as her roommate), and Tracy (Tracy Morgan) creates the first porn video game, in between other misadventures. Each of them gets more than a few opportunities per episode to shine, and series' writers virtually offer up a manual on how to incorporate a sprawling cast of characters and still make them relevant each week, from ditsy Cerie (Katrina Bowden) and uptight Toofer (Keith Powell) to scumbags Frank (Judah Friedlander) and Lutz (John Lutz).
The second season of 30 Rock, while sadly shortened due to the writers strike, offers up many memorable episodes, including some of my particular favorites in "Cougars," in which Liz dates a much younger coffee boy, Jack and Tracy coach a little league team in Knuckle Beach, the worst neighborhood in New York, and Frank believes he's gay, "Somebody to Love," in which Liz suspects her neighbor may be a terrorist and Jack falls in love with someone of the opposite political persuasion, "Sandwich Day," in which Liz gets a visit from ex-boyfriend Floyd and must consume that aforementioned sandwich (and dipping sauce), "Rosemary's Baby," where Liz teams up with a former old school comedy writer (guest star Carrie Fisher) to take on every possible political target and Jack helps Tracy give up dog fighting (it also coined the now-memorable phrase "Never go with a hippie to a second location"), and "Cooter," in which Jack discovers the sad state of the Bush administration when he takes a job in Washington and strives to get pens for the office... and willingly creates career suicide by creating a "gay bomb."
It's hard to choose one favorite when you've got so many to choose from and that is reason enough to buy 30 Rock on DVD today. I could watch these episodes over and over again (and have on many occasions) but the folks at Universal Home Video have also loaded the two-disc box set with a host of extras, including the 30 Rock staged reading at Uprights Citizen's Brigade in New York (which raised money for the series' out-of-work PAs during the strike), deleted scenes, audio commentary, the Saturday Night Live episode hosted by Tina Fey, and the 30 Rock event at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. (Sadly, no full-length video for Tracy Jordan's Halloween hit "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah" can be found on here.)
But my absolute favorite extra has got to be the "Cooter" script read-through, which presents not only video of our beloved cast at the read-through but also the original script presented on-screen for viewers to read along with. It's a fantastic bonus feature and hilarious to boot, giving the audience a peek behind the curtain at 30 Rock and some insight into the comedy writing process to boot.
All in all, 30 Rock's second season proves to be one DVD that is a must have for your television collection.
30 Rock Season Two is available for sale today with a suggested retail price of $39.98. Or get it at Amazon.com for only $26.99!
Today's the day. What's that, you're asking? The day for what exactly?
After waiting and moaning and waiting some more, today is the day that loyal US viewers of the supremely hysterical and witty UK series Spaced--written by and starring Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes (née Stevenson) and directed by Edgar Wright--finally is released on DVD in the States.
For those of us who know and love Spaced with a zeal that knows no bounds, the DVD of Spaced: The Complete Series--which is released today with a suggested retail price of $59.99-- has been a long time coming. We've hoped, prayed, and made Faustian bargains to get those music rights cleared for use so that we can hold that box set in our hands. (Thanks to the good folks at BBC Video, I got mine early and have spent the last few days in Spaced heaven.)
If you aren't familiar with Spaced, I feel for you, I really do. Spaced is the ultimate geek pleasure, a series so laden with pop culture riffs, comic book allusions, quirky characters, in jokes, and filmic homages that, unless you are a veteran member of the geek kingdom (all rise who are), it might be hard to follow the gags without a guidebook.
Ostensibly, Spaced tells the sitcom-ready story of twenty-something slackers Tim (Pegg) and Daisy (Hynes) who both find themselves between housing situations. Meeting in a coffee shop one day and hitting it off, they spy an ad in the newspaper for what seems like an ideal living arrangement. The only catch: the ad specifically says professional couples only. What are two house-hungry, cash-poor kids to do but pretend to be a couple in order to land the place? Of course, they have to fool alternately sullen/optimistic alcoholic landlady Marsha (Julia Deakin) into believing they're a couple... achieved through a brilliant montage in which they reveal details about their pasts, pose for holiday snaps, and construct an elaborate lie that wouldn't really hold up weight if they're questioned.
Tim and Daisy drag their respective best friends into their hastily constructed lie: Tim's best mate is Mike (Nick Frost), a gun-crazy member of the Territorial Army who was suspended after stealing a tank and attempting to invade Paris; Daisy's BFF is the bitchy Twist (Katy Carmichael), who claims to work in "fashion" but really works in a dry cleaner. Quickly, their eccentric artist neighbor Brian (Mark Heap) catches on to Tim and Daisy's true relationship but he nobly decides to cover for them, joining their gang of borderline psychotic personalities.
While Spaced's set up could have quickly descended into Z-grade sitcom buffoonery, Pegg and Hynes--aided by the stunning visual style of Wright--elevate the material considerably, constructing a comedy that is as much about the aforementioned wink-wink-nudge-nudge jokes and sight gags (if you like Scooby Doo visual jokes or worship at the shrine of Buffy, this is the series for you) as it is about the minutiae of life for a twenty-something Londoner at the turn of the millennium. The result is a series which never manages to become cartoonish, characters that never turn cloying, and a concept which could have yielded at least another season.
The DVD set contains all fourteen episodes of Spaced, spread out over two seasons, along with a host of extras, including: episode commentaries with cast members Simon Pegg, Jessica Hynes, Julia Deakin, Mark Heap, Nick Frost, Katy Carmichael, producer Nira Park, and director Edgar Wright; brand-new bonus commentary tracks featuring the likes of Kevin Smith, Diablo Cody, Matt Stone, Bill Hader, Quentin Tarantino, and Patton Oswalt; outtakes; the "Spaced Jam" music video; raw footage; cast and crew bios; footage of the 2007 Spaced stage reunion; and "Skip to the End," a feature-length documentary about Spaced which aired on Channel 4 in the UK and which features at its very conclusion, the absolute perfect ending for Spaced: The Series, featuring a reveal so pitch-perfect that any fan will turn into an absolute puddle of goo. Whew.
I'm happy to say that these episodes have not only held up, but held up magnificently since their original airing, Matrix jokes notwithstanding. (For an example on how not to do brilliant parody, sublime homage, or quirky comedy, check out my review of the pilot for the US version of Spaced, which was outright terrifying in its lack of humor and grace.) The guest stars--from Little Britain creator David Walliams (stunning as Brian's lost love, a transgender performance artist named Vulva) to Black Books' Bill Bailey and a certain Office creator--astound as much today as they did years before; it's as though Spaced caught these luminaries right on the cusp of stardom.
But it's Spaced's regulars who keep us coming back for more. In the hands of gifted writer/actors Hynes and Pegg, Daisy and Tim remain wholly real, picture-perfect snapshots of the late 1990s/early 2000s slacker dissatisfaction, underachievers who--despite our collective will--can barely manage to get up off the sofa, much less change the world. And that's perhaps why we love them so much: that they teeter on a knife's edge between sanity and (relative) madness at any given time.
Together, they face the trials and travails of semi-adult life: looking for jobs, losing jobs (and, in a glorious One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest homage episode, landing the job from hell), getting a dog, falling in love, falling out of love, and figuring out what the bloody hell you're going to do with the rest of your life... while, all along, not realizing that their best, most perfect, partner is right there on the couch with them. Along the way, the duo attend raves, argue, fend off teenage hoodlums and Matrix-like government agents with a combination of pantomimed gunplay and actual high-flying action, battle (imaginary) zombies, attend experimental theatre productions, play video games, and have drunken conversations about the meaning of life. If that doesn't sound like your twenties in a nutshell, I don't know what does.
Ultimately, Spaced: The Complete Series is a three-disc set that any Spaced fan--present or future--should have in their collection and will treasure for years to come. As Marsha might do, why not open a bottle of red wine (or three or four), settle back on the couch, and enjoy? You'll thank me afterward.
What's On Tonight
8 pm: NCIS (CBS); Celebrity Family Feud (NBC); Beauty & the Geek (CW); Wipeout (ABC); Kitchen Nightmares (FOX)
9 pm: Big Brother 10 (CBS); America's Got Talent (NBC); Reaper (CW); I Survived a Japanese Game Show (ABC); House (FOX)
10 pm: Without a Trace (CBS); Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (NBC); Primetime: Family Secrets (ABC)
What I'll Be Watching
8-10 pm: Britcoms on BBC America.
I don't know about you but by Tuesday night, I'm usually in need of some comedy in my life. Why not stick around on Tuesday nights for BBC America's new comedy lineup, consisting of classic episodes of Coupling, new comedy Not Going Out, and Absolutely Fabulous?
8 pm: Kitchen Nightmares.
'Cause I miss the softer side of Gordon Ramsay.
10 pm: Flipping Out on Bravo.
Season Two continues tonight with a brand-new episode ("Looks Like New"), Jeff makes Chris take the bus, leading to a teary breakdown; Jeff and Ryan return to work for Courtney but discover that she may only want to employ Jeff and not Ryan.
I'll admit it: I joined the Mad Men party late.
The reason? I was less than impressed by the original pilot episode I saw about two years ago and then, try though I might, just couldn't get into the series when it launched last year on AMC. Beautiful, yes, though I felt the first few episodes left me absolutely cold. But lest you think that I am a complete philistine, I'm beating myself up now because, having watched the DVD box set for Mad Men, I can see what I had missed out on all along.
Created by Matthew Weiner, Mad Men ostensibly tells the story of ad man Don Draper (Jon Hamm), a brilliant creative director of ad agency Sterling Cooper in the year 1960; while Don may be the focus of much of the series' action, he is arguably the entry point to a complex cast of characters who reflect the era's shifting ideological, socioeconomic, and gender politics during the birth of modern, post-WWII consumerism. It dares ask the eternal question as to whether advertising has created the American Dream... or destroyed it.
Mad Men's lure comes in part from the naturalistic and moving performances of its talented crew of actors, from Jon Hamm to Elisabeth Moss, January Jones, Christina Hendricks, John Slattery, and the entire cast, all of whom bring an understated elegance to their roles, playing their parts as though they'd lived in them all their lives; you truly believe that these people actually exist and never for a moment doubt their veracity. That in a nutshell is the magic of Mad Men: aided by a painstaking detail to recreating 1960 Madison Avenue (and the era's suburban gilded prison of its housewives) from set design, costume, and hair and makeup--all of which can be learned more about in the DVD set's fantastic bonus features--the actors are allowed to embody their roles in a way that exceptionally rare in television today.
Hamm himself grounds the action in a sophisticated and debonair elegance that's at odds with the way he casually cheats on his loving but naive wife; his is a carefully constructed persona that hides a deeper mystery: the true identity of Donald Draper. In an era where material goods defined a person's status, Don discovers that the biggest product of all is one's own identity and, as an ad man incarnate, sets out to reinvent himself as a commodity, transforming himself from neglected whore's offspring Dick Whitman into the suave man's man we see before us at the start of Mad Men. It's a tough performance to pull off but Hamm manages to play both Don's innate self-loathing and his ambition to obliterate his previous life to fine effect, offering a tour de force performance that should be required viewing for all would-be thespians.
If Draper tries to be the calm at the center of the storm (and, sadly, fails at sublimating his temper, desires, and vices), Sterling Cooper is itself a dangerous sharkpool of activity, which strongly contracts with the sunny, almost upbeat vibe of its offices. Here, recent secretarial school graduate Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) finds herself facing down a pack of hungry sharks in the form of the firm's account executives, copywriters, and, well, anyone having a Y chromosome. For all of their differences in terms of their current status, Peggy and Don are startlingly similar; both come from humble beginnings, are looking to transform their lot in life, and, while Don stumbled into the means to achieve that metamorphosis, poor Peggy slips further and further into self-hatred as the first season continues. Her doughy form and prim nature are a sharp contrast to the curvy, flirtatious Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks), the only woman at Sterling Cooper with any semblance of power, who tries to take Peggy under her wing. The scene in which Joan offers her advice about her weight--and Peggy realizes that for all of Joan's sharp comments and hurtful criticisms, she is actually trying to help--is a brilliant crystallization of the sometimes-combative relationships between women.
As for the men, they are a boozy, womanizing, and rowdy bunch, each jockeying for power amongst themselves as they look to conquer and humiliate every woman in the office in turn. They are wholly believable in their pursuits and each is brilliantly cast, from the bosses, including John Slattery as womanizer Roger Sterling and Robert Morse as eccentric company founder Bert Cooper (love the touch of him forcing visitors to his office to remove their shoes). Vincent Kartheiser is pitch-perfect as Machiavellian Pete Campbell, so hungry for Don's approval that he seeks to denigrate him at every opportunity in an effort to avenge Don's slights against him. Aaron Staton's Ken Cosgrove is a study in complexity, seemingly charming and smooth, he's a vicious misogynist even as he nurses a desire to become a writer. Rich Sommer's married intellectual Harry Crane victoriously beds another secretary at the office only to realize everything he's thrown away, in a beautiful scene during which Don pitches Kodak their Carousel slide projector. Finally, Michael Gladis' Paul Kinsey tries to rise above his fellow men, putting them down at every opportunity, even trying to humiliate Ken after his story gets published in The Atlantic Monthly. Despite the passage of more than forty years, we all know men like these today.
Much of the first season's action takes place in a series of boardrooms and bedrooms, many of them involving Don Draper. Trapped between beautiful, poised, perfect wife Betty (January Jones)--who develops a case of nerves early on, following the death of her mother--and several other women, Don uses each of his relationships for various means. Betty provides a sanctuary away from Manhattan, from work, and from the professional sphere. She is the consummate housewife even as she begins to come apart at the seams, leading Don to reluctantly agree to her getting psychiatric help, a plot point which plays off brilliantly at the conclusion of the first season when Betty realizes that Don has been cheating on her. Jones plays Betty with such elegance and wide-eyed wonder, that it breaks your heart when she realizes that she's been had by the man she loves so dearly and has no one to turn to, sobbing to a neighbor's child in a parking lot. (That Jones, nor any of Mad Men's talented female cast, didn't snag an Emmy nomination yesterday is a real injustice.) Don's affair with Midge (Rosemary DeWitt), meanwhile, offers the ad man the opportunity to enter the bohemian demimonde of artist Midge, with her anti-materialistic streak (remember how she casually chucked that television out her window?) and beatnik friends. But the real threat to Don's marriage comes in the form of Jewish female executive Rachel Menken (Maggie Siff), a Manhattan woman who not only understands business but thrives in the ultra-competitive environment it fosters; it's to her and her alone that Don unburdens himself, telling her about his secret past, a confession that he can't even bring to tell his wife Betty.
While Mad Men begins on a slow note, it quickly transforms itself into a slow burn series of deft plot maneuvering involving Don's double life, Betty's emotional disintegration, Peggy's awakening resolve, Pete's unquenchable ambition, Roger Sterling's health and his longstanding affair with Joan (more was said in his simple "honey" to Joan in front of a stunned Don and Bert than in some entire seasons of other series), and the quest of all parties for the Good Life, whether that be in the form of money, power, sex, or booze.
I found that by around episode five ("5G") or six ("Babylon"), I had become completely hooked, having fallen under Mad Men's lush spell; not so coincidentally, it's when various story threads begin to pay off in meaningful ways, with Pete pushing his new wife to contact the man to whom she lost her virginity in an effort to get his story published, Roger and Joan's secret affair being revealed, and Peggy being asked to write copy for the agency's Belle Jolie lipstick campaign. The second half of the season moves a relative breakneck speed, as these storylines and several other ones (including a hell of a shocker involving Peggy, if you're not paying careful attention to her burgeoning waistline) pay off in abundance.
With Mad Men's second season about to launch on July 27th, there's no better time to travel back to 1960 with Draper and Co., thanks to this divine DVD box set, which collects all of Season One's thirteen episodes, as well as several fantastic features about the flawless production design, music, hair and makeup, and costumes of the series. My only complaint is that the discs' promised "teaser" for Mad Men Season Two didn't offer a second of any original material, just repurposed scenes from the first season. Any ad man knows that you've got to follow through on the promise of your pitch. But maybe the producers are hoping that Mad Men speaks for itself as a product and a brand, enough that you'll tune in to its sophomore season even without a peek behind the curtain. And, funnily enough, I know I will.
Mad Men's second season kicks off on July 27th at 10 pm ET/PT on AMC.
What's On Tonight
8 pm: Ghost Whisperer (CBS); Most Outrageous Moments/Most Outrageous Moments (NBC;); Friday Night SmackDown! (CW; 8-10 pm); Dance Machine (ABC); The Animal (FOX; 8-10 pm)
9 pm: NUMB3RS (CBS); Dateline (NBC; 9-11 pm); Duel (ABC)
10 pm: Flashpoint (CBS); 20/20 (ABC)
What I'll Be Watching
9 pm: Doctor Who on Sci Fi.
Season Four of Doctor Who continues tonight with "Turn Left," in which the established timeline begins to unravel after Donna meets a fortune teller and Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) returns with some dire news about Donna and the fate of the universe. Can Donna and Rose stop the approaching darkness? Find out tonight.
