Shameless: The Complete First Season [Blu-ray]

A Wild And Out Of Control Ride That Starts To Find The Right Road As The Season Progresses
Few things make me more nervous than when someone has the bright idea to adapt one of my favorite British TV programs into an American version. For every successful translation ("The Office"), there are dozens of failed attempts ("Coupling"). So when I heard that Showtime was preparing to drop "Shameless" with William H. Macy, Joan Cusack, and Emmy Rossum--I got very very scared. Not because of the cast, but because, to me, "Shameless" is a quintessentially British show. The original version is an absolutely lunatic bit of brilliance that has all the elements to be a crashing disaster and yet balances them so adeptly, so audaciously, and so precisely. Instead of pushing into nightmarishly precious, overwrought, and quirky territory--somehow the show succeeds spectacularly. Don't get me wrong--the show is precious and overwrought and quirky--but every bit of it is in a good way.

So how did Paul Abbott do in formatting his original creation for an American audience? I'd say...

One of the Best comedy-dramas you may never see.
Brilliant, "comedy-drama". Because of the differences between British humor and American humor an American audiences will find more drama than comedy. Yes, we do "get" irony; however, it tends to make us smile rather than laugh out loud.

This series contains some of the best, most powerful scripts I've ever seen written for broadcast television. Yet, I expect this very R-rated series to be heavily criticized for coarse language, for themes of sex, scenes of drunkenness, and under-age smoking. Nevertheless, this series is one of the most family-positive series you'll ever see.

Imagine the picture perfect family, the very embodiment of "family values". Then one day somebody in the family snaps and is revealed to be involved in criminal activity, or infidelity, or substance abuse or darker more sinister assaults on the body and mind of other family members. In short, this imaginary picture-perfect family is dysfunctional.

Now, envision the opposite,...

I laughed, I winced, I got teary eyed.
I ordered this DVD without having seen or heard anything about the series, and I was more than pleasantly surprised. It was thoughtful, funny, and generous, even while maintaining a gritty realism. Whenever an episode or storyline started to drift into the ridiculous or melodramatic it was quickly intercepted by a brutal but honest (and hopeful) reality. And even when their characters were at their most unlikable, the actors brought to them a warmth and passion that kept you involved. (In my opinion episode six is one of TVs best examples of the diversity of emotion that can be explored in under an hour.)

Basic plot: Single father Frank Gallagher [David Threlfall], whose wife disappeared about three years ago, lives (sometimes) on a council estate in Manchester (England) with his six children (Fiona, Lip, Ian, Carl, Debbie, and Liam), aged 20-3, respectively. Other central characters include the children's neighbors, a young couple named Kevin and Veronica, and Fiona's...

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