My Name is Earl (TV Series) (DVD)
Season 2 / 4-Disc Set
APPROX. 508 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 2005 - MPA RATING: NR
" One of the funniest shows on television today, if, that is, you can get past the show's lack of political correctness.
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5) "Van Hickey"-Earl reunites his old rock band to make amends with the former lead singer, and THAT works well.
6) "Made a Lady Think I was God"-Earl messed with the head of the former manager of the trailer park, and now tries to set things right, for Joy's sake.
7) "Mailbox"-Turns out Randy and Earl used their local mailbox for a trash bin, and now they're delivering a letter that never made it because of their abuse.
8) "Robbed a Stoner Blind"-Earl visits a commune to try to make amends for robbing a hippie, and it leads him to revelations about ecology and global warming.
9) "Born a Gamblin' Man"-Earl introduces his friend, Kenny (Gregg Binkley), to gambling, hoping to make him look and feel more manly.
10) "South of the Border"-Catalina is deported, and Randy and Earl meet their Mexican counterparts when they go after her.
11) "Our 'COPS' is On!"-The Crab Shack gang reminisce about their pasts as they watch a rerun of a COPS episode shot in their own Camden County.
12) "Buried Treasure"-Earl, Randy, and Joy rob the local library in an episode that parodies the series "My Name is . . ." format.
13) "Kept a Guy Locked in a Truck"-How do you make it right when the guy is dead? Maybe throw a big bash of a funeral!
14) "Foreign Exchange Student"-Earl invites a Frenchman he tormented as a young exchange student to revisit America. His first act? Deck Earl!
15) "B.L.O.W."-It's wrestling time as Earl tries to get Joy and her half-sister to patch things up.
16) "The Birthday Party"-Earl's surprise birthday party turns out to be a bummer.
17) "Guess Who's Coming Out of Joy?"-When Earl sees Joy pregnant, and we wonder what the child is going to look like, Earl remembers what her first pregnancy was like.
18) "Harassed a Reporter"-Earl's story becomes the subject of a TV news report.
19) "Two Balls, Two Strikes"-Earl tries to help Little Chubby, and it puts his own manhood to the test.
20) "GED"-Earl goes back to school, and he has no tolerance for the kind of screw-up student he once was . . . so little, in fact, that he helps teachers get revenge.
21) "Get a Real Job"-Earl tries to grow up, finally, by taking a real job at an appliance store, but co-workers get annoyed by his go-get-'em attitude.
22) "The Trial"-Earl has a new girlfriend and a new apartment, but Joy's trial proves, once more, that you can't second-guess where karma will take you.
Video:
Production values for TV-on-DVD have really improved over the past few years, with a number of shows shot with home audiences in mind. "My Name is Earl" is presented in 1.78:1 widescreen that's stretched to fill out a 16x9" screen. Colors are bright, detail is pretty sharp (only a very slight grain), and black levels are strong. Nice quality.
Audio:
Same here, with powerful and resonant English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround audio with subtitles in English, Spanish, and French. The sound is crisp and clear, with a strong bass and complex-sounding treble.
Extras:
There's a blooper reel, but I have to say that the show is so funny that you don't want the characters to mess up, because nothing can top those lines. A few deleted scenes are also included, along with a number of commentaries.
Fans will enjoy eight tracks: "Sticks & Stones" and "Larceny of a Kitty Cat" features creator Greg Garcia, writer/executive story editor Hilary Winston, and actors Suplee and Amy Sedaris; "Van Hickey" features Garcia, Lee, Suplee, and Gioivanni Ribisi; "Our 'COPS' is On!" features Garcia, writer/actor Tim Stack, Suplee, and Pressly; "Kept a Guy Locked in a Trunk" features Garcia, Lee, Suplee, and fans Beth Perry and Alesia Lewis for a new twist; "Foreign Exchange Student" features Garcia, writers-producers Bobby Bowman and Mike Mariano, Suplee, and Velazquez; "Guess Who's Coming Out of Joy" features Garcia, Pressly, Steeples, and Beau Bridges (who plays Earl's dad); "The Trial" features Garcia, Mike Fresco (who directed eight episodes, including this one), editor Billy Marrinsen, Lee, and Suplee. Mixing it up like this makes it more interesting, but there are times when you'll wish it wasn't so crowded on the air.
Wannabe screenwriters or TV directors will appreciate a start-to-finish run-through of the episode "Robbed a Stoner Blind," but the other features are kind of throwaways or larks. Each major character does a brief sit-down, look into your fish-eye lens "web cam" direct address to Internet fans, and Earl and Randy also double up on one. Nothing outrageous here, just gimmicky. Same, actually, with "My Name is Earl as a Telenovela," which is really a trailer that treats "The Passions of Catalina" as a Spanish soap opera. It would have been more fun to have actually see them put together an episode with a Spanish soap treatment.
Bottom Line:
"My Name is Earl" is one of the funniest shows on television today, if, that is, you can get past the show's lack of political correctness and the way it pokes fun of "white trash" and the "trailer-park" lifestyle.
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