The Best Years – The Complete First Season (2007/Koch Vision DVD)

 

Picture: C     Sound: C+     Extras: C     Episodes: C

 

 

Bad formula shows are bad formula shows.  You would think with the arrival of High Definition, the TV production companies would be ambitious to make great TV shows to sell the shows, HDTVs and now DVDs and Blu-rays to go with the upgrades.  The big three networks did the same with the arrival of color.  But instead, we keep getting uninspired junk and the latest is the would-be teen drama The Best Years, about a young lady named Samantha Best (Charity Shea) in one of the worst new shows we’ve seen in a while.

 

The 4 DVDs have 13 hour-long shows, so the series is not more like a mini-series, but it is loaded with every cliché going and it is melodramatic disaster after melodramatic disaster, becoming sillier with each twist instead of building anything that resembles as realistic storyline.  This is aimed at teens, but is so condescending that it is shockingly bad.  Miss Shea is pretty and the illicit appeal to pity that she runs from an orphanage to be in college is an amusing ploy, but Room 222 this is not.  It’s not even The Electric Company.  It is bad and will likely only get worse.  Skip it.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is really soft for a new HD shoot, with motion blur and a color-challenged palette that makes this look as boring as it plays.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is slightly better, but the recording can be harsh and more digital than it should be.  Extras include cast interviews, outtakes, behind-the-scenes footage and audition/screen test segments.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo