My Name is Earl Season One
November 2006 Reviewed by: Josh Barber Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Though it is definitely white-trash comedy, My Name Is Earl is a story of personal redemption, not an excuse to throw out redneck jokes. Moments after scratching off a winning lottery ticket, no-good loser Earl Hickey (Jason Lee) is hit by a car, his riches riding away with his winning ticket on the breeze. While hospitalized, he discovers the concept of karma from a very unlikely source and decides to turn his life around. He makes a list of every bad thing he's ever done -- 259 and counting -- and starts to erase the misdeeds. Soon, his lottery ticket is returned to him, giving him and his brother Randy (Ethan Suplee) the free-wheeling lifestyle necessary to cross everything off the list and make karma happy.

When Earl was originally broadcast, most viewers saw it fullscreen, but it was filmed in widescreen for HD broadcasts. There is a bit of grain in some scenes, and the colors are muted, but because Earl and his cronies don't come from the shiny, well-polished side of the tracks, it works.

The disc features a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, but it is not flawless. There are several spots where the sound just seems to drop out briefly -- what one would expect from an aging videotape. Otherwise everything is satisfactory and the soundtrack is excellent, and if not for those few rough spots, the rating would be higher.

My Name Is Earl -- Season One comes on four discs in two slim-line cases. The bulk of the extras are on the fourth disc, but there are plenty shared among the other discs as well. There are audio commentaries on select episodes and deleted scenes with optional commentary. These are presented on the same disc as the episode they are taken from, which sure beats dumping them all at the end. None of the commentaries are very informative, but we do get a good cross-section of the cast, and the track for the episode "Dad's Car" -- which features everyone's mother -- is an interesting idea, at least.

The fourth disc does feature the world's longest blooper reel, clocking in at an unbelievable 20 minutes. It drags in a few places, but as with the real show, the mistakes are still much more entertaining than anything similar. "Making Things Right" is a 38-minute documentary about the creation of the show -- not just the filming, but the actual genesis of the concept and the process involved in bringing Earl to the screen. We even get to hear from the unsung production members, such as the hair stylist and the make-up artists.

The final extra, "Bad Karma," is a 13-minute look into a different world, a world in which Earl doesn’t learn about karma but gets a much different message. It is basically an off-kilter re-imagining of the pilot, and a very hilarious extra. This isn't really the type of thing most sitcoms could get away with, because most sitcoms don't have as strong a premise as Earl’s. In case you don't recognize him without his moustache, yes, Jason Lee is playing two roles.

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