Chappelle’s Show – The Lost Episodes (Uncensored)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C Episodes: C
Dave Chappelle
left Comedy Central in a creative dispute, despite a $50 – 55 Million
contract. The company in retaliation
said they would do a cash-in of stringing together unused skits and he vowed
never to work with them again if they did.
After watching Chappelle’s Show –
The Lost Episodes (Uncensored), he’ll have all new reasons to keep his
promise.
It is one
of the most cheesy, bizarre things I have ever seen in DVD history. Chappelle did not have that many skits
unaired before he left and there are three shows here, but instead of all kinds
of Chappelle material, we get Charlie Murphy stand-ups and a treatment of
Chappelle that is eerie in that it treats him like he either moved on to some
phenomenal hit film or was suddenly dead.
That half of each show features Charlie Murphy as the star makes it
worse. Most amazing of all is that this
DVD has extras skits that should have been in the actual episodes instead of
Murphy filler that feels like producers are purposely making viewers wait for
more Chappelle.
The
result is a crass, tired, lame, often pathetic package deal that is the nadir
of Comedy Central on DVD and DVD in general.
A more respectful job could have been done, but obviously the animosity
is ugly here and it inadvertently comes through making for one of the most
shockingly bad releases of the year.
The 1.33
X 1 image is typical of the show looking good, but not great and is one of the
last such TV productions we will be seeing.
The skit footage looks best, while the comedy sequences are more
obviously videotaped and look cheap. The
Dolby Digital 2.0 is simple stereo at best, with some of the Chappelle skits
sounds a generation down. Extras include
unaired sketches, deleted scenes and bloopers, plus strange audio commentaries
and odd making of featurette. Overall,
this is just lame and it is sad this had to have so much filler.
- Nicholas Sheffo
