Television

The L-Word: The Complete Fifth Season

Will & Grace: Season Eight

The eighth and final season of "Will& Grace" on DVD is loaded with special features, including all new Themed Featurettes, a seson 8 Outtake Reel, newly recorded audio commentaries, and cast interviews.

Will & Grace: Season Seven

What is this; Seinfeld? Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer have nothing on Will, Grace, Karen, and Jack when it comes to acting self-absorbed, vain, and downright rude in this penultimate season. But unlike that other New York quartet, Will, Grace, and company are allowed the occasional, redemptive vulnerable moment, as in the season opener, when Grace must decide whether to forgive her cheating husband, Leo (Harry Connick Jr.). In this comparatively lackluster season (its 15 Emmy nominations notwithstanding), Will & Grace seems to be scratching its own seven-year itch. For gay Will Truman (Eric McCormack) and his lifelong straight best friend Grace Adler (Debra Messing), dealing with their self-diagnosed "toxic" codependent relationship has become stale even to them, as they tell their therapist in the episode "The Blonde Leading the Blonde": "Blah, blah dysfunctional, blah, blah, blah, psychologically crippled; we've been over it so many times, we have it on coasters." So why analyze? Will & Grace, this season, is gag-centric Family Guy-funny. We may not recognize the characters at times, but they make us laugh in their own inimitable style. Sean Hayes' in-your-face, get-used-to-it Jack, especially, has been reduced to "a moron," as Will so bluntly calls him at one point. But at least the writers finally found him a job that brilliantly serves his character. He is hired as an executive at a new gay network, Out TV, giving him license to create such shows as the Punk'd rip-off, Pink'd, with an unsuspecting Will as its first victim. Grace's love life is as lorn as ever. In "Partners," she is set up with the spank-happy husband (a gleefully demented Buck Henry) of Will's boss (Lily Tomlin). In the season cliffhanger, she is drawn to a former college boyfriend (Eric Stoltz) who, turns out, is married. Karen (Megan Mullaly), whose own marriage lasted all of 22 minutes, finds herself the target of a former high school classmate bent on ruining her life (Jeff Goldblum). Will, for once, has the most romantically stable relationship with sensitive lug of a cop Vince (Bobby Cannavale, honored with an Emmy this season), but more arresting is his late-season career change that happily (for viewers) finds him rather suspiciously employed by the mysterious Malcolm (Alec Baldwin in what was perhaps a dry run for 30 Rock).

Season 7 is a typically star-studded one, but the personages who appear as themselves (Jennifer Lopez, Janet Jackson) do not fare as well as those who portray characters. Sharon Stone displays her comedic instincts as a no-nonsense therapist who sparks a rivalry between Will and Grace. Molly Shannon makes a welcome return as the unstable Val. Kristin Davis appears as Nadine, Vince's own "Grace," who hates Will until Grace sets her straight. Alan Arkin also appears as Grace's emotionally distant father. How much fun would cast commentary have been? The next best thing is the bonus outtake reel that captures the ensemble's genuine chemistry that redeems even the most obvious of jokes. --Donald Liebenson

The L Word - The Complete Fourth Season

No Description Available.
Genre: Television
Rating: NR
Release Date: 23-OCT-2007
Media Type: DVD

If the third season was marked by transitions, The L Word's fourth concerns growing up--or trying to, at any rate. Shane (Katherine Moennig) becomes her brother Shay's guardian, Bette (Jennifer Beals) and Tina (Laurel Holloman) stop fighting over their daughter Angelica, and Bette's new boss, Phyllis (a very game Cybill Shepherd), decides it's time to embrace her true nature. So, after 25 years of marriage (Bruce Davison plays her husband), Chancellor Kroll comes out of the closet--and sets her sights on Alice (Leisha Hailey). For all the inclusiveness, Max (Daniela Sea), still remains on the margins. Dumped by Jenny (Mia Kirshner) the year before, Max continues to share her apartment while acclimating to life as a man.

For those who felt season three was too dark, four offers a welcome corrective. There's still plenty of angst--Jenny's memoir meets with a few negative notices (Heather Matarazzo's journalist pens the harshest critique) and Helena (Rachel Shelley) learns to live without Mommy's money--but there are plenty of moving moments to compensate (most revolving around Shane and Shay). New additions also arrive to shake things up, like Marlee Matlin as an artist who helps Bette to broaden her horizons, Kristanna Loken as a single mother with a yen for Shane, and Rose Rollins as an Iraq War veteran with whom Alice has a tryst (leading to a well intentioned, if heavy-handed message about how even liberals should support the troops). As in seasons past, the directorial line-up impresses as much as the acting talent, and includes Oscar winner Marleen Gorris (Antonia's Line) and playwright Moisés Kaufman (The Laramie Project). Since creator Ilene Chaiken makes most special features, like deleted scenes, available online, this set offers few extras, other than biographies, a photo gallery, and episodes of The Tudors and Californication. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Will & Grace - Season Six

The unique relationship between Will Truman and Grace Adler continues to evolve this season in the adult comedy about two best friends - Will who is gay and Grace who is straight. Contains the complete sixth season.System Requirements:Runtime: 500 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 031398212553 Manufacturer No: 21255

The year 2004 marked the end of Sex and the City, Friends, and Frasier, leaving Will & Grace to carry the torch as TV's reigning urbane sitcom, deftly balancing physical comedy with a sparkling wit that made even the crudest oral-sex double entendres sound like Oscar Wilde. But it's always a red flag when a long-running series flirts with the meta side. In the episode, "No Sex 'N' the City," Karen (Megan Mullally) and Jack (Sean Hayes) encounter Frasier's Bebe Neuwirth. "Talk like Lilith," Karen beseeches her. "We hate your real voice." "I will if you will," Neuwirth replies, to "ooohs" from the studio audience. On the whole, the A-list guest stars that appeared as themselves this season (Jennifer Lopez, James Earl Jones, Barry Manilow, and medium John Edwards) do not fare as well as those who portrayed characters. John Cleese received an Emmy nomination as Lyle Finster, the father of Karen's former rival, Lorraine (a saucy Minnie Driver). Their loony courtship provides the season with one of its most rewarding story arcs. Edie Falco (The Sopranos) and Chloe Sevigny (Boys Don't Cry) appear in "East Side Story" as intimidating lesbians who engage in a turf war with budding "apartment flippers" Will (Eric McCormack) and Grace (Debra Messing). Mira Sorvino (Mighty Aphrodite) appears in "Last Ex to Brooklyn" as the only girl with whom gay Will had sex. Geena Davis (A League of Their Own is at her endearing best as Grace's flaky, free-loading sister in "The Accidental Tsuris." But the Emmy-winning, lightning-in-a-bottle ensemble need no reflected star power to shine. "Strangers with Candice," which unfolds during an eventful evening out, is Will & Grace's version of the classic Seinfeld episode "The Chinese Restaurant." Over the course of a dinner, a stood-up Will has a "date" with an unsuspecting female patron, Grace hooks up with a former fling, and Karen engages in a prank war with her "nemesis/best friend," Candice Bergen (Boston Legal).

The sixth season is something of a Grace-less one, as Messing was pregnant and missing in action in several episodes. But the remaining trio picks up the slack with rich storylines of their own. In addition to Karen's courtship, Jack becomes a student nurse and gets a new boyfriend (Dave Foley of NewsRadio and Kids in the Hall), and Will meets his future life partner, Vince (Bobby Cannavale), a policeman. As for Grace, her rocky marriage to Leo (odd man out Harry Connick Jr.) gets the season-finale-cliffhanger treatment. Will & Grace's ensemble got along famously, which makes their outtakes, included here as a special feature, particularly fun. Also included with this set is just over a half-hour of themed montages ranging from "Fashion Quips" to "Pop Goes the Culture." --Donald Liebenson

Angels in America

Academy Award-winners Al Pacino Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson lead an all-star cast in a 6-hour HBO Films Event. Directed by Mike Nichols and written by Tony Kushner based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning play: Angels in America.Running Time: 352 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 026359229923 Manufacturer No: 92299

Tony Kushner's prize-winning play Angels in America became the defining theatrical event of the 1990s, an astonishing mix of philosophy, politics, and vibrant gay soap opera that summed up the Reagan era for an entire generation of theater-goers. Post-9/11 would seem to be too late for a film version--philosophy and politics don't always age well--but this 2003 HBO adaptation, ably directed by Mike Nichols (The Graduate), provides a time capsule of the '80s and reveals the deep emotional subcurrents that will give the play lasting power.

The story centers around Prior Walter (Justin Kirk) and Louis Ironson (Ben Shenkman), a gay couple that falls apart when Prior grows ill as a result of AIDS. But cancer is not the only thing invading Prior's life: He begins to have religious visions of an angel (Emma Thompson, Sense and Sensibility) announcing that he is a prophet. Louis, who doesn't cope well with disease and suggestions of mortality, leaves and starts a relationship with Joe Pitt (Patrick Wilson), a closeted Mormon who works for Roy Cohn (Al Pacino, Dog Day Afternoon)--the real-life right-wing lawyer, notorious for his ruthless behind-the-scenes machinations. Add in Joe's depressed and hallucinating wife Harper (Mary Louise Parker, Fried Green Tomatoes), his determined but open-minded mother Hannah (Meryl Streep, Adaptation), a fierce drag queen/nurse named Belize (Jeffrey Wright, Basquiat, reprising his celebrated performance from the Broadway production), and you've still only begun to discover the wealth of characters and storylines in Kushner's ambitious work.

The powerhouse cast (also featuring James Cromwell, Michael Gambon, and Simon Callow) is uniformly superb. The script has its weaknesses--some of the fantastic elements, including Prior's journey to Heaven towards the end, fall flat--but even what doesn't work is bristling with ideas and a ferocious desire to capture human existence in this time and place. --Bret Fetzer

Queer as Folk - The Complete Series

Based on the British television series of the same name that became a sensation abroad Showtime's QUEER AS FOLK quickly became as big a hit in the US as the original was overseas. Focusing on the lives of five gay men in Pittsburgh--Michael an insecure 29 year-old; Brian an ad executive who isn't into relationships; Justin a wide-eyed and innocent 17 year-old; Emmett a flamboyant jack-of-all-trades; and Ben an HIV-positive college professor--and their circle of friends the series has earned both critical praise and scorn for its unflinching look at gay life love and sex. Whatever one may think of the show's sexual content QUEER AS FOLK is an undeniably compelling funny moving and thought-provoking series. This collection presents the entire five-season run of the groundbreaking show. Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS UPC: 097361302744 Manufacturer No: 130274

The L Word - The Complete First Season

Explores the personal and professional lives of a group of lesbian and bisexual women in Los Angeles.
Genre: Television
Rating: NR
Release Date: 9-NOV-2004
Media Type: DVD

Four years after Showtime made gay men the focus of its original series Queer as Folk, it was time for a little turnabout with The L Word (bad title, great show). Centering around a tight-knit group of lesbians in Los Angeles, this drama was far removed from its working-class male counterpart in both style and content. While the men of QAF enjoyed a fabulous if melodramatic life on the middle-class streets of Pittsburgh, the women of The L Word lived it up in sunny California, with gorgeous houses, glamorous careers, and sexy wardrobes. Ironically, though, The L Word adhered more to the everyday drama of ensemble shows like thirtysomething than the soap opera antics of QAF, and the results were surprisingly heartfelt and effective, appropriately stylish but never over the top. There was plenty of room for titillation, but creator Ilene Chaiken fashioned from the start a show centered on characters and not just sex, aiming for the heart rather than... well, other places.

The L Word focused primarily on committed couple Bette (Jennifer Beals) and Tina (Laurel Holloman), a former power-career duo who've decided to have a baby; however, artificial insemination and the changing dynamics of their relationship throw their previously happy existence off-kilter. Within their orbit are spunky journalist Alice (Leisha Hailey), sultry hairdresser Shane (Katherine Moenning), closeted pro tennis player Dana (Erin Daniels), and espresso bar owner Marina (Karina Lombard) who, in the show's most polarizing storyline, bedded the seemingly straight Jenny (Mia Kirschner) and shook up her heterosexual world. Jenny's am-I-straight-or-not? kvetching frustrated both her fiancé (Eric Mabius) and many viewers, who were alternately irritated and intrigued by her inability to decide one way or the other. But Jenny's weakness was part of The L Word's strength: in exploring many sides of many issues, both domestic and political, it never came up with an easy answer for any of them, making the show all that more fascinating--and compulsively watchable. --Mark Englehart

Will & Grace - Season Four (2001)

As the fourth season of NBC's award-winning comedy begins, Will (Eric McCormack) has just returned from France--alone--while Grace (Debra Messing) is still seeing Nathan (Woody Harrelson). Meanwhile, Jack (Sean Hayes) is adjusting to fatherhood of newfound preteen son Elliot (Sky High's Michael Angarano), while Karen (Megan Mullally) remains, well, Karen. Alas, in "Crouching Father, Hidden Husband," the authorities finally catch up with her (never seen) tax-evading hubbie Stan and toss him in the clink. Grace's relationship with Nathan, on the other hand, continues to blossom until talk turns to marriage in "The Rules of Engagement."

Guest stars include Parker Posey as Jack's stylish supervisor ("Loose Lips Sinks Relationships," "Jingle Balls"), Matt Damon as a closeted choral singer ("A Chorus Lie"), Glenn Close as an eccentric photographer ("Hocus Focus"), and her former co-star Michael Douglas ("Fagel Attraction") as a "detective" with the hots for Will. There are also recurring guests, like Debbie Reynolds as Grace's drama queen mother ("Moveable Feast," a double-length episode), director Sydney Pollack as Will's wayward father ("Cheatin' Trouble Blues"), and Jack's favorite diva, Cher, as herself ("A.I.: Artificial Insemination," the season finale). By the end of season four, Will and Grace will still be single, Karen's husband will still be incarcerated (but at least she'll have maid Rosario to keep her company), and Jack will still be, as he used to say, "Just Jack!" As always, the year will end with a cliffhanger as Will and Grace decide to have a baby together. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Will & Grace - Season One

Will & Grace debuted with a controversial splash because one of its two lead characters is gay--but smart writing and topnotch performances, not politics, have made the show a hit. Two neurotic and sharp-tongued urbanites--gay lawyer Will (Eric McCormack) and straight interior designer Grace (Debra Messing)--delight in their volatile but enduring friendship as they share a sumptuous New York apartment. Sweeping into the mix are Will's unapologetically queeny friend Jack (Sean Hayes) and Grace's wildly eccentric assistant Karen (Megan Mullally). Much like Seinfeld, the humor on Will & Grace springs from self-obsession, petty jealousy, and compulsive interfering in each other's lives--basically, the building blocks of human nature. The show's writers apparently feel compelled to keep the lead characters warm and likeable in the usual sitcom mode (which hardly seems necessary, as McCormack and Messing are naturally engaging). As a result, it's Jack and Karen who get free reign to be truly obnoxious and ridiculous--which, of course, makes them incredibly funny and charismatic. Hayes and Mullally rise to the occasion, ripping through absurd situations and arias of narcissistic wit with dazzling panache.

Will & Grace's plots routinely center around scenarios that could feature a married couple or two same-sex roommates: Will and Grace bicker over buying a dog, find their relationship tested by apartment renovations, or discover they're both pursuing the same guy--standard sitcom material that the gay factor gives a clever spin. Though their relationship gets in the way of their sex lives, the two take so much pleasure in each other's company that they can't help but stick together--a surprisingly chaste theme for such a culturally groundbreaking show, but one that Will & Grace's addicted audience undoubtedly appreciates. --Bret Fetzer