Weeds Season Two
August 2007 Reviewed by: Doug Blackburn Format: Blu-ray	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Weeds is a great example of how a cable/satellite network with limited resources can clean the clocks of every broadcast network when it comes to developing unique programming. The writing is first-rate by any standard, and the casting and performances are stunning. Best of all, it’s not mainstream and is not dumbed-down for the general public. For better or worse, this quirky program wouldn’t attract a huge network audience, but on Showtime it becomes a huge hit. The female lead (Mary-Louise Parker) beat out all the Desperate Housewives for the Golden Globe Award (Female Performance in a Musical or Comedy). Weeds received four other Golden Globe nominations and five Emmy nominations.

The plot line revolves around Nancy Botwin (Parker), mother of two and resident of an upscale California town, who finds herself widowed with no means of support nor any prospects. She turns to selling marijuana to keep her family afloat in the high-cost-of-living environs to which they have become accustomed. In season one you see her as a complete novice making every mistake in the book. In season two, the circle of people surrounding her aids and abets her efforts to move into other areas of "the business." I hesitate to say more lest the juicy details spoil too many of the surprises in store if you haven’t previously watched Weeds. You’ll definitely want to watch season one first, as this show has a single long story that builds on itself. The worst thing about Weeds is the long hiatus and short season (12 to 15 episodes). Television this good should be on every week without breaks. The 12 episodes of season two add up to about six hours (two discs) of the best TV you can ever hope to see.

Image quality is noticeably better than when the episodes are shown on Showtime HD via DISH Network or Time-Warner Cable, where compression artifacts cause a grainier appearance and softening of edges that the Blu-ray release doesn’t have. The color is spectacular, and there are no detectable image defects to be found anywhere. The sharpness won’t knock you out, but the overall image quality is quite good -- almost lush, like soft California sunshine. Flesh tones, bright colors, and the green lawns and trees perfectly capture the colorful SoCal vibe.

Since this is a comedy-drama, there’s not much going on in the surrounds or LFE channel, but I can’t criticize the sound in any way. For this programming it is essentially perfect. Dialogue drives the story, and it's always easily intelligible. The soundtrack is more or less unnoticeable, as it should be with programming like this. There are no audio distractions to interfere with the storytelling.

There’s a substantial list of extras: seven commentaries (they're not terribly revealing, but interesting tidbits do pop up here and there); trivia tracks for a number of episodes (often with trivia unrelated to the show in any way); a gag reel; a weed-culture vocabulary lesson (I picked up a dozen or so terms I hadn’t heard before); weed tutorials (hydroponics, tools of the trade, and top five varieties); a Huskeroos commercials (you have to watch the show to appreciate this); a performance of "Jammin’ Nation"; a Little Boxes montage; and a short-term-memory game. A large collection with maybe one good hit for every three tokes, but the good hits are really good!

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