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Category:    Home > Reviews > Comedy > Drama > Head Case: Season One (Starz DVD)

Head Case: Season One (Starz DVD)

 

Picture: B-     Sound: B-     Extras: B-     Episodes: C+

 

 

For every time you’ve watched seen a celebrity in the news or read a gossip rag and thought to yourself, “Wow, these people must be really messed up,” for every time you’ve said that there aren’t enough shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm or The Office, for every time you’ve wished Jason Mewes could get work (if only for an episode) outside of a Kevin Smith movie, for all of those times, there is Head Case.

 

Alexandra Wentworth (In Living Color, Office Space) stars as Dr. Goode, therapist to the stars and every bit as screwed up as her patients.  She shares office space with Dr. Finkelstein played by Steve Landesberg (Forgetting Sarah Marshall).  They also share a star-obsessed British secretary and a Hispanic handyman with only one hand.  The main cast are all familiar faces that you’ve seen before in an episode of some show or another, while the minor characters are all big Hollywood stars that show up for an episode or two.

 

The humor on the show is extremely awkward.  Like Curb Your Enthusiasm, much of the dialogue is improvised and the long awkward pauses are relished.  The show also plays off of the star personas of the celebrities that come in for treatment, and these sequences are really the goldmine of this show.  Celebrities range from Jeff Goldblum and Andy Dick to Traci Lords and Ione Skye.

 

The picture and sound quality (1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound) are surprisingly good.  The show is shot on high quality HD video and because of the improvisational nature of the show all the sound is recorded on location, and while these are usually a recipe for disaster, Head Case really pulls it off with more skill than I might have thought possible. Both picture and sound are crisp and well executed.

 

This first season of the show is contained on two discs.  The first disc has all eight half-hour episodes and the extras are on the second disc.  The extras include ten bonus shorts, each about ten minutes long.  These were obviously the preliminary samples shot before the show itself went into production.  The sets are different and there are a lot of the same jokes and guests, but not only are these shorts still funny; it’s kind of cool to see the beginnings of the show and then what it will form into. There is also a short “Behind the Scenes” featurette and a blooper reel.

                                                                                                    

This is really a very funny show and it’s following in the new tradition being laid down by premium cable channels producing comedy series.  The only danger is that Head Case may be a bit too similar to the rest of these shows that are being produced.  But you know what, if you like Curb Your Enthusiasm, if you like Seinfeld, and if you like The Office, then chances are you’ll like Head Case.

 

 

-   Matthew Carrick


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