8/28/2011

Shameless: The Complete First Season (2006) Review

Shameless: The Complete First Season (2006)
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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, a family with all the trappings of being dysfunctional. The father is unemployed and alcoholic, the children thieve, smoke and swear. One child has to keep his head shaved because he's so prone to nits, and there is no mother in the home because she's taken the family van and run away. Yet, this family is supportive, loving, caring and more honest than the Brady Bunch ever was.
There are no skeletons in the Gallagher family closet. They are very much a what-you-see-is-what-you-get group. Sometimes funny sometimes surreal and unlikely the goings on in this family are often moving and always entraining. While not promoting "family values" this is a very family positive series (but not for the whole family: R-rated I said). There is good reason why this show is called "Shameless".
One warning for American audiences. The story is set in Manchester, so that people in the story have strong northern accents. If your ear is unused to this or if your exposure to British accents ends at Hugh Grant... there are subtitles available on the DVD.
An excellent show, a sort of a fun-house mirror Waltons. Give it a chance


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Meet the Gallaghers. Mum went AWOL years ago, Dad stayed at home with the six children only to hit the bottle ... and sometimes the kids... Blisteringly funny, offbeat drama following the rollercoaster lives and loves of an anarchic family from Manchester. The real head of the family is big sister Fiona, who looks after Carl, Debbie and baby Liam. She is occasionally helped, more often hindered, by streetwise 'Lip' and the actively gay, but very private, Ian. Welcome to the hectic world of sexual adventures, triumphs, love, scams and a fair bit of crime on a rough Manchester housing estate, where wheel-less cars are the norm and the moving ones are stolen. DVD Features:Biographies:Meet the CastInterviews:An Interview with Creator Paul Abbott


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