At Home With The Braithwaites – Complete Second Season
Picture: C+
Sound: B- Extras: C- Episodes: B
Still trying not to laugh when thinking about how funny
the first season was, At Home With The Braithwaites – The Complete Second
Series has now been issued by Acorn as a follow-up to that terrific
set. With the cat out of the bag about
the multi-million Euro win, the immediate question is, where can they go
next? Allison (Amanda Redman) was the
winner and the insanity she feared would pour out of her family not only comes
to life, but nobody could imagine how much it would spread to others. They even have family coming out of the
woodwork.
The show is still funny, but this time, it takes on some
unexpectedly dark twists that prove writer Sally Wainwright was taking the
material even more seriously than one might have thought. Here, she gets serious about trying to show
just what kind of repressed aspects of personality are bound to return. Also, the more demented side of all involved
that would never happen without such cash shows it ugly head. In most respects, she and her three
directors succeed in ways I thought even they would not have the nerve to. That is why this season is a worth
continuation of the first.
Running eight hour-long shows this time, the shows still
never waste a moment. That is not easy,
especially with the usual TV grind, but because these are limited to a
still-small amount of shows that prevents them from being run-ons or having
filler. I have to give Peter Davidson
credit for going further with his father character David. He is one of the best all-around British
actors and despite how insane David goes over his infidelity, his wife’s new
revelations of her own and his constant position of being an oaf on the worst
end of everything, he never goes into caricature. That is not easy, especially with such an exceptional cast, but
he is that good and nearly steals key scenes.
It gets crazier when his rival brother shows up, who was not in the
first season. His story too is a
hoot. This is just the beginning of the
new twists that keep you watching. Be
sure to catch our coverage of the first volume as well, elsewhere on this site.
The image this time is at an anamorphic 1.78 X 1 ratio,
but still has some lack of detail, however limited. The copies used for this DVD are still clean and clear, but there
is a touch of noise. The anamorphic
enhancement improves the image quality slightly from before and helps the color
a bit too. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
once again has healthy Pro Logic stereo surrounds and good fidelity. Those who have seen it on TV should know
that some music has been replaced or edited due to DVD music rights not being
secured, but that does not hurt the presentation here. There are no technical flaws or
imperfections that tell where tampering many have occurred. Extras include another stills gallery and
same filmographies of the cast as the last set. At Home With The Braithwaites is once again a winner. Where they can go for a third season is
anyone’s guess, but if they do (or did), we can’t wait.
- Nicholas Sheffo
