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First Look: Season Two DVD Box Set
A first look at the season two DVD box set for Arrested Development.
In its first season, Arrested Development captured the hearts of critics (and dozens of fans) with sharp writing, understated performances from a talented cast, and superb guest turns from the likes of Liza Minelli, Henry Winkler, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. The show earned seven Emmy nominations and walked away with the three major comedy awards, including Best Comedy. And while not particularly a ratings success, the show was followed by rabid fan base that dissected each episode with a passion typically reserved for sci-fi series.
Fans would have been quite pleased with a second season that followed the first season’s winning formula. Perhaps in an effort to make the show more accessible, producers toned down the criss-crossing story arcs, made each episode more self-contained and included less subtle references and broader, physical comedy (see: Ready, Aim, Marry Me). But while season two may not have been quite as “intelligent” as the first season, the show still succeeded in its ultimate goal to make the viewer laugh. And despite its shortened eighteen-episode run, Arrested still managed to pull off sublimely comedic moments that range from a larger-than-life rock-paper-scissors fight to an homage to Peanuts.
For those that have the first season DVD set, the look and feel of the second season DVD set will be familiar. Three orange slim-line DVD cases are housed in a case featuring a large Jason Bateman and the rest of the cast. All of discs and cases share the same cast photo, except that each contains a different combination of visible and silhouetted cast members. A delightful plastic slipcover (pictured above) completes the experience as the translucent and transparent cover compliments the cover art within. The resulting DVD set feels more cohesive than the arbitrarily Photoshopped images of the season one set.
The episodes are presented in a widescreen format in their originally broadcast order, six per disc. Over thirty deleted scenes have been culled from fifteen of the episodes. Three episodes contain commentaries from Mitchell Hurwitz, Will Arnett, Alia Shawkat, Michael Cera, David Cross, Tony Hale, and Jessica Walter, including two from fan-favorites Good Grief and Righteous Brothers, and one from the controversial Ready, Aim, Marry Me.
The third disc also includes the three campaign videos from The Immaculate Election (they are hidden Easter eggs despite being mentioned on the back cover) and a featurette that’s billed as a “blooper reel.” That description hardly does the feature justice, which also contains some of the best moments from the show, grouped into themes like pratfalls, “Who?,” and “Marry me,” much of it set David Schwartz’s music. And if you’ve ever wondered why the set has a disclaimer about the views expressed on the discs, you won’t want to miss David Cross’s monologue at the end of the “blooper reel.”
FOX Home Entertainment. List price: $39.98. Release date: October 11, 2005.
Buy it at Amazon.
Buy it at FOXStore.com.
