Fat Actress – The Complete First Season
Picture: C
Sound: C+ Extras: C Episodes: C+
A long time ago, even before Cheers, Kirstie Alley
received good press and fan attention when she showed up as Lt. Savvik in the
1982 space opera classic Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan in what is
still her best work. After her hit
sitcom, which she joined belatedly, she found herself in a second hit: Veronica’s
Closet. Even those silly, lame Look
Who’s Talking films inexplicably did business. So what went wrong?
Except for the rare times something interesting albeit staged happens in
her “reality TV show” Fat Actress, her entry into the sad, lame world of
bad TV.
She is very overweight and determined to make some kind of
comeback. The problem throughout is
that we are supposed to believe she just gained 100 pounds all of the sudden
and her career vanished without explanation.
The semi-comedy boasts dozens of celebrity appearances, better seen in
smart feature films like The Player, Mistress, or The Muse. The episodes for this first season are:
1) Big
Butts
2) Charlie’s
Angels
3) Holy
Lesbo, Batman
4) The Koi
Effect
5) Crack
For Good
6) Crybaby
McGuire
7) Hold
This
Overall, you will either like the show or not, but since
it is more obviously a set up, some amusement is to be had, just as long as you
do not have high expectations.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1/16 X 9 frame displays
very disappointing color, definition and depth, giving it a cheap field of the
wrong kind. The Dolby Digital 2.0
Stereo is no match for the 5.1 mix, but all that can do is the spread around
the production sound. Otherwise, though
the sound is a bit better than the picture, rewatchability is questionable
unless you are laughing all the time.
Extras include audio commentaries by various cast and crew on the four
episodes on DVD 1, while DVD 2 plugs DISH Network and four other Showtime
series, then adds more on the show.
This includes on the set footage, over nine minutes of deleted scenes,
Showtime shorts and the premiere party for the series.
Well, if you don’t subscribe to the Showtime service, at
least the show is sold separately.
- Nicholas Sheffo
