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My Name Is Earl: Season Four
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (10th November 2009). |
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The Show
 For me sitcoms have never really been a part of my primetime viewing habits. There are some comedies that I love, but for the most part my comedy viewing has come through DVD just because I don’t ever bother to set aside primetime for a comedy. Sitcoms like “My Name Is Earl” (2005-2009) confirms of my hesitation about watching primetime comedy in primetime just because it’s not a show I want to genuinely set aside time for. I like Jason Lee as an actor and I really enjoyed the ‘Rubberband Man’ Office Max commercials starring Eddie Steeples, but I never wanted to bother sitting down to watch “My Name Is Earl” while it was airing. Getting the Fourth season on Blu-ray was enough though to get a look at the show that’s mildly funny enough to keep going, but not enough to get me to want to go back and watch earlier seasons. More in parallel with the first season, the fourth and final season of “My Name Is Earl” involves Earl (Jason Lee) trying to cross names off of a list of things that he has done to wrong other people in his life by making amends in different ways. Earl is still joined in his misadventures by brother Randy (Ethan Suplee), who at one point in the season decides to create a karmic list of his own to fulfill. Still, Earl keeps trying to make amends to his ex-wife Joy (Jaime Pressly) and her new husband Darnell Turner (Eddie Steeples) who has been helping Earl in little ways while providing support to Joy. Yet throughout the day to day good deeds that Earl tries to perform, we find out more about his relationships with Joy, and a bit of Darnell’s mysterious past. Yet “My Name Is Earl” strikes me as a prime problem with the sitcom, I just don’t care that much to watch it. Sure it’s blacker than “Friends,” (1994-2004) which isn’t that hard to do, but it doesn’t particularly change much from sitcom style comedy after that. The plot itself is interesting enough to keep things going, getting in a bit of fun between trying to make Earl make amends for his previous ways through similar future mishaps, but it just doesn’t provide a consistent source of comedy for me. Some of Earl’s mistakes are comedic and some dialogue by Randy can be fairly funny, while Darnell’s more deadpan delivery throughout the show is the funnier than many of the jokes that get brought up. Still, it doesn’t bring a consistent amount of comedy to keep me genuinely entertained. Plus in the mix are some little micro-homophobic jabs that are fairly common in sitcoms that don’t help the show’s already not so funny case. The cast itself is still fairly well put together, Jason Lee and Eddie Steeples are by far the standouts of the cast, with Jaime Pressly and Ethan Suplee providing good support to those two. And still the cast seems to have a fairly good chemistry between them. They each seem to have a good grasp of their characters and have fun in the roles, even if I’m not having as much fun waching them as they are having playing the characters. Out of watching “My Name Is Earl: Season Four: The Final Season” I realized why I never really have gotten into primetime sitcoms since my childhood days of eating up “Family Matters” (1989-1997) and TGIF on ABC every week. Very rarely do they bring enough jokes, comedy and story to make me want to revisit the story, they’re best viewed on lazy days with nothing to do but sit around or clean your house with the TV on, that way it just makes everything seem funnier since you get smaller portions of funny in a meal with many courses, though I’m not quite sure if “Earl” gets to the point of being a watchable enough show to leave on for reruns. The episodes of the final season included on the disc are: - "The Magic Hour" - "Joy in a Bubble" - "Stole an RV" - "Sweet Johnny" - "we've Got Spirit" - "Quit Your Snitchin'" - "Little Bad Voodoo Brother" - "Sold a Guy a Lemon Car" - "Earl and Joy's Anniversary" - "Nature's Game Show" - "Reading is a Fundamental Case" - "Orphan Earl" - "Got the Babysitter Pregnant" - "Darnell Outed, Part 1" - "Darnell Outed, Part 2" - "Randy's List Item" - "Friends With Benefits" - "My Name Is Alias" - "Chaz Dalton's Space Academy" - "Witch Lady" - "Pinky" - "Bullies" - "Gospel" - "Inside Probe, Part 1" - "Inside Probe, Part 2" - "Dodge's Dad"
Video
Each episode is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio in high-definition 1080p 24/fps with AVC MPEG-4 encoding @18 MBPS and looks about as clean and crisp as you would expect. From a recently produced show, there’s a couple instances of grain that come along every now and then depending on the shading of the skyline or the lighting of the scene, but for the most part the show looks clean and has a good color contrast to give the show a fairly high quality look for a sitcom.
Audio
The whole series has an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 transfer mixed at 48kHz/24-bit that sounds really high quality and comes through really clearly. Everything in the show is well balanaced and put together originally, even if the shows music may be a little lackluster. The sound is still really clear and manages to get all the subtleties across well without overdoing it. Optional subtitles included are in English for the hearing impaired, French and Spanish.
Extras
Across the 4-disc set the special features are fairly tame, including deleted scenes on each disc with only a featurette, gag reel, a fake trailer and as couple of bonus trailers. The dramatic lack of commentaries or other featurettes for the final season’s release is a little disheartening. DISC ONE: There are just 4 deleted scenes on this disc, playable together for 4 minutes and 41 seconds or separately by the episode they’re in: - “The Magic Hour” runs for 2 minutes and 15 seconds, Earl and the gang plan for the movie. - “Vote For This And I Promise To…” runs for 28 seconds, a prank involving a fake dead jogger . - “We’ve Got Spirit?” runs for 24 seconds, Darnell offers his son an ice cream sundae. - “Quit Your Snitchin’” runs for 1 minute and 34 seconds, Earl debates out reporting a crime. Bonus trailers are for: - “I Love You, Beth Cooper” runs for 2 minutes and 26 seconds. - “The Marine 2” runs for 40 seconds. DISC TWO: 5 deleted scenes on this disc run for 7 minutes and 3 seconds together, or individually described below: - “Little Bad Voodoo Brother” runs for 29 seconds, Randy explains where babies come from. - “Sold A Guy A Lemon Car” runs for 1 minute and 53 seconds, Joy watches the Discovery Channel, Earl Contemplates the meaning of his list. - “Earl and Joy’s Anniversary” runs for 2 minutes and 34 seconds, Earl shows a video montage of his and Joy’s Marriage. - “Nature’s Game Show” runs for 1 minute and 10 seconds, Earl and Randy debate their dreams. - “Reading is a Funda Mental Case” runs for 56 seconds, Randy eats pizza from the middle while Earl watches wrestling from a bathtub. DISC THREE: Again, nothing but 3 deleted scenes running 3 minutes and 11 seconds together, or separately: - “Darnell Outed, Part 2” runs for 2 minutes and 4 seconds, Joy disappears and Earl needs to find her to cross her off his list, Joy doesn’t adjust well to her new identity. - “My Name is Alias” runs for 41 seconds, Darnell Has trouble adjusting to his new job. - “Chaz Dalton’s Space Academy” runs for 26 seconds, Earl and Randy try to teach astronomy. DISC FOUR: 4 deleted scenes here run for 5 minutes and 4 seconds together, with different sections described below: - “Gospel” runs for 39 seconds, Earl makes a typo on the church’s program. - “Inside Probe, Part 1” runs for 156, some extra interviews investigating the disappearance of the crab shack owner. - “Inside Probe, Part 2” runs for 338, more interviews and some footage of drinking games. - “Dodge’s Dad” runs for 504, Joy tries to remember who she had sex with at a Halloween party. The gag reel runs for 8 minutes and 2 seconds, one of the longest gag reels I’ve ever seen, but considering it was the show’s final season they probably tried to put as much in as they could of the usual flubbed lines and bloopers. “‘2 The Max’ Movie Trailer” runs for 1 minute and 19 seconds, is a fake trailer for the Max Patrick movie from Episode 1 “The Magic Hour.” “Earl’s Fan Mail” runs for 33 minutes and 3 seconds. A gigantic featurette with Jason Lee and the various producers, actors and generally people involved in the show that is essentially a Fan question and answer featurette between fans, cast and crew. But that also means it’s better for the fans rather than a half hour question and answer between fans, cast and crew.
Packaging
The four disc set comes in a 4 disc amray blu-ray case.
Overall
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