Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #652 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-07-11
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 283 minutes

Amazon.com
With its fantastic comedy series Weeds, cable network Showtime finally gave up its also-ran status to HBO and found itself with a controversial, buzz-worthy show that was as hilarious as it was dark, one about a truly desperate housewife. A recent widow with two growing sons, Nancy Botwin (Golden Globe winner Mary-Louise Parker) looks like a typical resident of the affluent Southern California suburb of Agrestic. She keeps a clean, upscale house (with the help of a live-in maid), attends PTA meetings, goes to her kids' soccer games, makes frequent stops at the local coffee franchise.... and sells marijuana in order to make it all possible. Left with no way to support herself after her beloved husband's fatal heart attack, Nancy turns herself into the "suburban baroness of bud," dealing to her neighbors in the area, with the help of her supplier Heylia (Tonye Patano) and point man Conrad (Romany Malco). Nancy's clients run from the local councilman (Kevin Nealon) to the just-barely-legal students at the local community college, but many in Agrestic are still in the dark as to how she keeps her family afloat, including her best friend, the sardonic Celia (Elizabeth Perkins), a wife and mother whose blistering, withering put-downs could make Dorothy Parker cringe in fear. But like many small-business owners, Nancy yearns for more success and cash, and like her workaholic neighbors, finds keeping a balance between work life and home life to be extremely precarious at best.

While Desperate Housewives yearned to be a suburban satire with bite, Weeds was the real deal, skewering upper-middle class mores with a sharp eye, a keen wit, and a mostly forgiving heart. In episode after episode, the show's creative team (led by creator Jenji Kohan) pulled back the layers of Agrestic's superficiality to show what lies beneath the squeaky-clean exteriors and smiling faces; it turns out that hunger, fear, desire, and, yes, desperation aren't that far down. However, Weeds forsakes pulpiness and florid drama for biting yet affectionate humor--its heroine is a woman with sliding morals, but one you'll root for to the very end. The effervescent Parker, the only actress who can mix perkiness with morbidity in just the right amounts, anchored the show with her amazing turn as Nancy, who by the end of the first season had become a kind of soccer-mom version of Michael Corleone, entering a corrupt world with both trepidation and fascination--and totally enamored of the power it brought her. Also perfectly cast, Perkins found the role of a lifetime as the bitterly hilarious Celia, and entering the show in its fourth episode, Justin Kirk (Parker's co-star in Angels in America) proved to be a potent secret weapon as Nancy's brother-in-law Andy, a slacker who wasn't above peddling t-shirts to elementary school kids. As icky as these characters might appear on the surface, Weeds made them all immensely appealing and great company to be around. Don't say we didn't warn you: one hit and you'll be hooked on this show. The DVDs feature six episode commentaries with cast and crew, outtakes, original featurettes, a music video, and most enjoyably, Agrestic Herbal Recipes (for entertainment value only, we assume) and the "Smoke and Mirrors" marijuana mockumentary. --Mark Englehart

Customer Reviews

Weeds - Season One
Weeds - Season One I laughted until I cryed. I just couldn't believe I was seeing this, but it was funny and sad at the same time. I can't wait to get the second season.

Addicting
This series came highly recommended by co-workers...I was not dissappointed. Days after finishing this I purchased the 2nd Season..which I have heard is even better!! cant' wait to watch.

Won me over
My initial reaction to Weeds was that it stunk. Quite frankly, the pilot episode isn't good. The characters spoke unnaturally, the scenes dragged on, and it was utterly charmless. Overall, it felt like everyone was trying too hard to be super edgy and shocking. On the advice of a friend, though, I gave the show another chance, and I had to admit that the second episode had me a little curious to see what would happen next. By the third episode, I was hooked.

It's difficult to characterize this show, in that its episodes are a half-hour each, but there's as much, if not more, drama than "comedy" here - though in the post-Sopranos world, the distinction has become blurred, which is great for a show like this. There are definitely some big laughs along the way, but once the show settles in and finds its rhythm, Weeds starts building real conflicts and character-driven stories, whether they have comedic aspects or not. And the main story arcs have some really strong momentum: it's not often that the final scene of a "sitcom" gets you rushing out to see the next season.

To me, Weeds is at its best when Mary Louise-Parker is taught the various ways in which her industry works: the business model, the economics, the dangers, etc. It's important that a show based mainly on one central character has an actress that can pull off the ranges of emotion required, and I think Parker does this well.

Like all Showtime shows that I've seen (except It's Garry Shandling's Show - thank goodness), Weeds indulges in too much graphic sex, though it's not on the level of something like The Tudors. Sometimes it works for the plot; sometimes it's just gratuitous.

Reflecting back, my only wish for this season was that it had had the pilot it deserved, but of course it's better to start poorly and then get better than to start off well and get worse. So kudos to Weeds for a strong first season. I think anyone who's enjoyed other uncompromising cable-based shows will find a lot to enjoy here.