DVD/TV Series Review: The O.C. Season 4

 

+++Fair Warning this will contain the major season 3 spoiler and some hints, but nothing major from the final season. If you have not yet seen the third season (which is unlikely by now) avoid the first couple of paragraphs.+++

The fourth and final season of The OC was the shortest season (just 16 episodes) of the series and aired during the fall of 2006 into the winter of 2007. The season rebounded nicely from the messier season 3.  The first half of the season was all about Ryan (and Julie) coping with the death of Marissa, who was revealed to have died in the car accident at the end of the third season. Julie essentially recruits Ryan to go after Volchuck to exact revenge, which, of course, Ryan is all too willing to do, While Sandy, Seth, and Kirsten try to get him to stop pursuing Volchuck and come home. Once that part of the story ends, the focus is really on wrapping up the series and the lingering storylines. The various character relationships are tested again, but luckily not by unlikable characters as in past seasons. The focus is kept (as it should be) on the remaining core characters, with a few ancillary characters (including an appearance by Ryan's father) mixed in.

The DVD set is a five-disc set. The extras include commentary tracks on a couple episodes and a few featurettes on the 5th disc. The focus is on the evolution of Christmakah and the evolution of Summer as a character. There is not a ton of bonus material, but what is included is good. The final episode gives a nice glimpse back at the series as well as a flash into the future to see where the characters ultimately end up. While it is not really a show that requires everything to be tied up in a little bow at the end, I think the writers did a good job of wrapping up the series. While this season is still not as good as the first two seasons, it is still worth the time to watch.

DVD/TV Series Review: The O.C. Season 3

 

+++Fair warning, this will contain spoilers from season 2, but no major season 3 giveaways. Chances are, after all this time, anyone reading will know how season 2 ends, but just in case, skip the first couple of paragraphs.+++

Season 3 of The OC included 25 episodes that aired during the 2005-2006 TV season. The third season is much darker than the others. The season continues the fallout over Caleb's death, Kirsten going off to rehab for alcoholism, and Marissa's shooting of Trey. The cast shuffle continues this season with the departure of Tate Donovan (the show uses Jimmy's continued money woes to write the character off and introduces a bunch of ancillary characters to stir up relationship issues (mainly the Ryan/Marissa relationship). Personally, I think the best addition to the cast is Autumn Reeser, who plays Taylor Townsend. At first, she is kind of a villain for the younger characters and ends up being (almost) one of the group. She has great comedic chops and brings what little comedy there is during the season. Willa Holland also joins the show this year, taking over the role of Marissa's younger sister, Kaitlin.

The rest of the season is really about the characters spiraling off the rails. Sandy takes over the Newport Group and becomes more and more like Caleb than he or anyone else wants. Seth goes through a "troubled" phase, which is fairly tame considering but threatens his relationship with Summer. Marissa continues the tailspin she never really got out of, which leads Ryan to have to choose whether to try and protect her or let her go. Like in the other seasons, they jam-pack a lot of storylines into the season. Some play themselves out within a few weeks, and others linger throughout the season. I don't necessarily think trying to take the characters in a different direction (which they were clearly trying to do, at least to some extent) always worked very well this season. I think the show would have been better off putting a heavier focus on a few of the storylines and not trying to jam as much in. The season does end on a massive cliffhanger that will definitely have reverberations in season four.

The DVD set is a seven-disc set, and the extras include a few behind-the-scenes featurettes and a gag reel. While there are no episode commentary tracks, there is a feature with commentary/interviews about specific scenes.  The acting in the show was still very good despite some lackluster material to work with. Autumn Reeser pretty much stole every scene she was in, especially toward the end of the season. The recasting of Kaitlin Cooper with Willa Holland was okay, but they never really gave the character much to do besides being a trouble-making brat. There was not as much of the main cast interaction that made the first couple of seasons of the show really good, and the show did fall off some as a result. I am not in the camp of people who totally despise this season, but I did think it was more lackluster than the first two seasons. Even so, it is still worth the time to watch.

DVD/TV Series Review: The O.C. Season 2

 

+++Fair warning, this will contain some spoilers from season 1 and plot lines (but no major spoilers) from the second season.+++

The second season of The OC included 24 episodes that aired during the 2004-2005 TV season. This season was all about the relationships between the various characters and how they were strained after the events at the end of the first season played out. At the start of the season, Ryan is back in Chino with a pregnant Theresa, and Seth has run away, sailing off into the sunset. While those storylines were brought (somewhat) to a conclusion after the first episode of the season, the repercussions play out for the teenage characters and the adults all throughout the season. The basic stories around the teenager relationships were the will-they/wont-they get back together for Ryan-Marissa and Seth-Summer. A couple new characters get thrown into that mix, including Olivia Wilde joining the cast as a major recurring character for most of the season. The adult relationships are also strained throughout the season. Sandy and Kirsten are both tempted to stray and cheat on each other, and there is a Julie/Caleb/Jimmy triangle for part of the season.

Overall the second season has less jumping from storyline to storyline than season one did. There is still some of that, but it is clear what the focus of the season is. The show also benefited from paring down some of the cast. Although more recurring characters did appear throughout the season, you did not have as many episodes where someone would totally disappear or have nothing to do, as was the case in the first season. The show kept its blend of witty comedy, family drama, and trashy soap opera going this season. I thought the show really found its footing this season and even made fun of itself a little.

Toward the end of the season, they put a twist on the initial season one storyline when they brought back Ryan's brother Trey (recast and played by Logan Marshall-Green). Trey's storyline is kind of a doppelganger-like version of Ryan's story from season one and plays on the differences between the two characters. The season also dealt with issues like infidelity, alcoholism, same-sex relationships, rape, and drug use. The show did not dive into the deeper stories all the time, but when it did I think they were well done. Like in the first season, it is enjoyable enough to watch as an adult outside the "target" age group of those who were in high school or college when the show aired.

The DVD set is a seven-disc set. Most of the bonus content is on the final disc in the set. The bonus content includes gag reels from season 1 and season 2, a half-hour retrospective on the first season and the wild popularity the show had right out of the gate, and then a 12-minute feature on the style and fashions on the show. There are also commentary tracks on select episodes and a few deleted scenes spread throughout the other discs. All in all, enough to make the people who like going through the bonus material happy. If you are a fan of the first season, the show continues to evolve and get better in season 2, and is definitely worth the time to watch.

DVD/TV Series Review: The O.C. Season 1

 

The O.C. was the latest in a line of teen-centric nighttime soap operas that sprang up in the early-mid 2000s. The first season consisted of 27 episodes and aired during the 2003-2004 TV season. The show was created by Josh Schwartz and starred Ben McKenzie, Mischa Barton, Rachel Bilson, Adam Brody, Melina Clarke, Peter Gallagher, Kelly Rowan, Tate Donovan, and Chris Carmack. It was what I would describe as a mini "it-show" in that it was very popular out of the gate and had some mainstream exposure. It was not necessarily a show that you could not miss on a weekly basis, but it was talked about a lot. The easy comparisons are to shows like Beverly Hills 90210, Dawson's Creek, etc, and there are certainly similar elements from those shows and pretty much every other show in the genre that got incorporated into this one. But unlike some of those, the OC also made the stories with the adults interesting enough that you did not have to be in (or recently graduated from) high school at the time to appreciate and enjoy it.

The first season had a lot of episodes (27 in all) and as a result, the storylines were kind of all over the place. It had a very large ensemble cast (some of whom would eventually be weeded out), and there was a lot going on with all the characters. The main story revolved around Ryan Atwood (played by McKenzie), who was a good kid from Chino but who had a bad family situation and was starting to follow his brother into a life of crime. His public defender, Sandy Cohen (Gallagher), ends up taking him in (initially for the weekend), much to the chagrin of his wife (Rowan). The first part of the season really plays on Ryan adjusting to life in the rich, glitzy Newport Beach as he falls for the girl next door, Marissa (played by Barton), befriends the Cohen's teenage son Seth (played wonderfully by Adam Brody) and is always teetering on the edge of going back to juvie.

The adult stories center around the Cohen's, the next-door neighbors, the Coopers, and Kirsten Cohen's rich real estate mogul Caleb (played by Alan Dale). The standout from that story, in my opinion, was Julie Cooper, played by Melinda Clarke, who plays a great "bad guy" character. At the beginning of the series, she is almost an over-the-top caricature of the rich, snobby housewife who only cares about money, gossip, and how she looks. Clarke stole almost every scene she was in, especially when her character was basically the butt of a joke. Over the course of the season (and the series), she became more and more central to the story, and she was one of the best-developed characters on the show.

The first season almost suffered from doing too much too soon. They were jamming so many stories into the first season that the storylines seemed to jump all over the place. They honestly probably had enough material in the Ryan "crossing the tracks" story and developing that to get through the season without introducing Kirsten's sister, some of the other Chino characters, etc, until season 2. That said, the show did a good enough job of juggling it all, ending a couple of the storylines (even though it meant getting rid of a couple of the characters), and making things flow well enough that it did not get too hard to follow.

Overall, the show was very good and entertaining. It was, at times, somewhat formulaic, given the genre. The themes mirrored many other similar shows but threw in a Westside Story vibe and made it unique enough that it did not just seem like a carbon copy of other shows. The writing and acting were very good. The Ryan-Seth relationship (and all the things that stemmed from that, like the Seth-Summer-Anna love triangle) made the teen part of the show work, and Peter Gallagher, who was involved in almost all the storylines set around the adults, made everything else work. It definitely had the guilty pleasure soap opera elements to it. Lots of skin (especially early on) and the will they/won't they bounce with the Ryan-Marissa relationship, but it also focused on more serious subjects like physical abuse, drug and alcohol abuse, homosexuality, abortion, and the seemingly required adult-teenager sexual relationship.

The DVD set is a seven-disc set with the episodes and the extras spread throughout the discs. As far as extras go, there are a few making of and behind-the-scenes features on the last disc, as well as some deleted scenes. There are also commentary tracks on select episodes that usually include Schwartz and one or two cast members. There are definitely a lot of decent extras for those who like to watch the bonus material. The show is (and especially the first season) very good. It could appeal to people who were in high school in the early 2000s as well as people who were in their mid-20s and into their 30s and 40s. It is certainly not a show that will appeal to everyone. If you only watch documentaries and high-brow dramas, this is probably not going to be your cup of tea. But it is a show that blended comedy and drama and touched on enough serious subject matter that if you are a fan of coming-of-age shows and movies, then it is worth the time to watch.

Blu-Ray/Movie Collection Review: Lethal Weapon Collection

 

This is a five-disc set with the four original Lethal Weapon series of buddy-cop movies (1987's Lethal Weapon, 1989's Lethal Weapon 2, 1992's Lethal Weapon 3, and 1998's Lethal Weapon 4). All of the movies starred Mel Gibson as Martin Riggs and Danny Glover as Roger Murtaugh. Throughout the series, Gary Busey, Mitchell Ryan,  Joe Peschi (who would be a co-star in parts 2-4), Patsy Kensit, Renee Ruso (who would co-star in parts 3 and 4), Chris Rock, and Jet Li (among others) would co-star.  It should be noted that this set only contains the theatrical versions of the movies. If you strongly prefer the extended editions of the movies, which to this point are only available on DVD, then you will probably want to steer clear of the Blu-ray set. It does, however, include the extended scenes (for films 1-3) included as bonus material on the disc for that movie. 

As I said above, there are 5 discs in all in this set. There is one disc for each movie, and then a 5th disc that contains 4 separate featurettes (one for each movie) which is essentially a 25th-anniversary commemorative documentary, with the highlight being a sit-down interview with Donner, Gibson, and Glover, interspersed with interviews from some of the other actors (mainly Renee Russo and Chris Rock) and filmmakers from the series. They also weave in some footage from the filming of each movie. In all the bonus disc has about 2hrs worth of additional material. The bonus material on Lethal Weapon 4's disc is a 30 min compilation of alternate and deleted scenes and gag reel material from each movie. So between the 4 movies, all the deleted scenes and bonus material there is about 10.5 hrs worth of content for those who go through all the extra features.

As far as the quality of the movies goes. Obviously, the A/V quality is better in the 4th movie than any of the others. You can tell there was no heavy film restoration done, so the movies pretty much look exactly the same as they always have. So, you are not getting the great jump in picture quality that you would get from movies that have a ton of CGI or released more recently. That is why sticking with the DVDs for those who prefer the extended editions of the movies is fine. I am not sure that the material included on the bonus disc is out there on the DVD releases though so you may want to take that into consideration. Hopefully, at some point, especially if a fifth movie gets made, there will be 4k restorations of all the movies, but that remains to be seen.

Overall, I am very happy with the set and would recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the series, especially those of us who are old enough to have seen all (or, in my case, the last three) of the movies in the theater when they were originally released. The movies mostly hold up well, but some of the dialogue (especially from the first two movies), is cheesy and/or would be considered non-PC these days. Even so, they still hold up as movies with great action blended with comedy and drama.