Parenthood Season 1   Starring: Peter Krause, Lauren Graham, Dax Shepard, Monica Potter, Erika Christensen and Sam Jaeger Universal Playback RRP: £29.99 8282626 Certificate: 12 Available 04 July 2011

The Braverman family has grown to integrate three generations of the family, with the generational gap creating a chasm. The family have to battle trial and tribulation to stay together...

Parenthood (2011) was loosely based on the movie, which had already produced a previous comedy show. As a show it’s about as far removed from the British My Family as you can get, having a much more innocent approach to its subject matter.

The show has a gentle feel good tone, even when discussing infidelity, which is not very evident in a lot of family comedies today. However, the tone often shifts, presumably trying to emulate the comedy/drama mix of successful shows like Six Feet Under, and for the most part it does it successfully. The show also has an occasional irritating wobbly camera technique, which is supposed to lend the show a documentary feel, but just ends up being annoying.

The head of the embattled family is played by Craig T. Nelson, who makes for a sympathetic character; around him the family loves and fights, while he tries with Bonnie Bedelia (Camille Braverman) to keep the dysfunctional, functional.

The first season is presented over four DVD discs. Disc one contains the pilot as well as Man Vs Possum, The Deep End of the Pool and Whassup. Disc two contains the episodes The Situation, The Big O and What’s Going on Down There. Disc three contains the episodes Rubber Band Ball, Perchance to Dream and Namaste No More. Disc four contains episodes Solace, Team Braverman and Lost and Found.

The set contains some reasonable extras for a television show. Disc one has a pilot commentary with Jason Katims and Thomas Schlamme, which is light hearted, in an informative way, full of detail for fans of the show. Disc two has deleted scenes from The Big O and What’s Going on Down There. Disc three has deleted scenes from Perchance to Dream and Namaste No More. The last disc and we have more deleted scenes, this time for Team Braverman and Lost and Found.

The disc is presented with a fair TV quality picture and a 5.1 audio track, which most of the time has little to do, but this is the nature of the show rather than any intrinsic problem.

It’s not a bad show, its only real fault is that it reflects the homogeneity which seems to be infecting a lot of American shows recently. For a good decade their invention and innovation made American television far better than our domestic fare, but somewhere along the way they all started to fit the same mould.

So, not bad, it’s certainly is well written and acted, but it’s not likely to be considered a classic.

7

Charles Packer