Head Case: Season One (Starz DVD)
Picture:
B- Sound: B- Extras: B- Episodes: C+
For every
time you’ve watched seen a celebrity in the news or read a gossip rag and
thought to yourself, “Wow, these people must be really messed up,” for every time
you’ve said that there aren’t enough shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm or The
Office, for every time you’ve wished Jason Mewes could get work (if only
for an episode) outside of a Kevin Smith movie, for all of those times, there
is Head Case.
Alexandra
Wentworth (In Living Color, Office Space) stars as Dr. Goode,
therapist to the stars and every bit as screwed up as her patients. She shares office space with Dr. Finkelstein
played by Steve Landesberg (Forgetting
Sarah Marshall). They also share a
star-obsessed British secretary and a Hispanic handyman with only one hand. The main cast are all familiar faces that
you’ve seen before in an episode of some show or another, while the minor
characters are all big Hollywood stars that show up for an episode or two.
The humor
on the show is extremely awkward. Like Curb Your Enthusiasm, much of the
dialogue is improvised and the long awkward pauses are relished. The show also plays off of the star personas
of the celebrities that come in for treatment, and these sequences are really
the goldmine of this show. Celebrities
range from Jeff Goldblum and Andy Dick to Traci Lords and Ione Skye.
The
picture and sound quality (1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
sound) are surprisingly good. The show
is shot on high quality HD video and because of the improvisational nature of
the show all the sound is recorded on location, and while these are usually a
recipe for disaster, Head Case
really pulls it off with more skill than I might have thought possible. Both
picture and sound are crisp and well executed.
This
first season of the show is contained on two discs. The first disc has all eight half-hour
episodes and the extras are on the second disc. The extras include ten bonus shorts, each
about ten minutes long. These were
obviously the preliminary samples shot before the show itself went into
production. The sets are different and
there are a lot of the same jokes and guests, but not only are these shorts
still funny; it’s kind of cool to see the beginnings of the show and then what
it will form into. There is also a short “Behind
the Scenes” featurette and a blooper reel.
This is
really a very funny show and it’s following in the new tradition being laid
down by premium cable channels producing comedy series. The only danger is that Head Case may be a bit too similar to the rest of these shows that
are being produced. But you know what,
if you like Curb Your Enthusiasm, if
you like Seinfeld, and if you like The Office, then chances are you’ll
like Head Case.
- Matthew Carrick
