Chicago’s infamous Gallagher clan booze, screw, drug, lie, steal, and love their way through twelve episodes.

CRITIQUE

I’ve never seen the long-running BBC series that inspired this show, and I wasn’t even aware of this show’s existence until the Blu-ray release was announced. So if you’re looking for some sort of comparison, I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to provide one. All I can tell you is that this stateside remake--the brainchild of ER and West Wing vet John Wells--is a good show that has yet to completely find its footing.

There’s a sameness to tales of fictional dysfunctional families, so some of what goes on in Shameless won’t come as much of a surprise. Frank Gallagher (William H. Macy) will do anything to avoid an honest day’s work, preferring instead to live off Uncle Sucker and stay as inebriated/stoned/high as possible. He has six kids, ranging from 21 to just a couple years old, and the task of raising the five youngest falls on Fiona (Emmy Rossum), who does whatever it takes to ensure there’s food on the table and electricity in the outlets. Regardless of how they treat others, the Gallaghers love one another, and woe be to anyone who wrongs any of the siblings.

Two things help Shameless rise above the norm and make it worth watching. The first is the show’s willingness to go to as dark and mean as necessary. Teenagers have sex, teenagers drink and do drugs, little kids torture animals, little kids use baseball bats to break the legs of older kids, and little kids kidnap even littler kids. Adults commit statutory rape, adults drink and do drugs, adults go to nursing homes and steal old ladies who suffer from dementia in order to perpetuate a Social Security scheme, and adults hold fake weddings in order to get their hands on cash. The show is vulgar, profane, and generally disreputable. A few minutes into the first episode there’s a shot of a guy getting pegged by his girlfriend; if that’s not for you, you won’t want to go anywhere near this show.

A lot of this is played for laughs, which is about the only way you can play it and make it tolerable. Were the show not funny, it would like watching a serialized version of, and who wants that? Although it comes close at times, the show’s not a jet-black comedy; the dark stuff is tempered by some decidedly goofy stuff, and it’s welcome. Well, what works, anyway.

On occasion the show gets dangerously close to becoming a sitcom for its own good. For example, the episode where Frank fakes his own death in order to dodge some creditors is more than a little preposterous, asking us to accept some sizable leaps in logic and glossing over too many details (a couple more steps into goofiness and it could be a Three Stooges short). Too many episodes like this and the show will likely start to leap a certain marine predator.

But it’s not all laughs; the show has some other things on its mind, so there’s some drama mixed in. Things tend to go smoothly when the show weaves together the comedy and drama, but it often stumbles when it goes to either extreme. Just as some of the sillier comedy seems out of place, some of the straight drama doesn’t jibe with the prevailing tone. It’s also when the drama completely takes over that most of the familiar elements come into play, with relationships, crises, and resolutions unfolding in expected ways. The fulcrum episode of this season features the return of the kids’ mother (Chloe Webb), and the confrontation between mom and oldest daughter is by-the-numbers for this sort of story, obvious and trite (as is the ultimate resolution).

There’s something of an arc to this season, but the main plots of the individual episodes are more or less standalone. That’s both good and bad, as I can’t imagine any one story the show would need multiple episodes to handle. But any give installment can feel a little overstuffed. You can see the machinery at work as the writers try to give everyone in the large ensemble something to do. Hopefully Wells and his cohorts will realize there’s no need to bring all dozen or so primary characters into a story. Rotating adventures for the characters would likely be even worse, but forced is still forced. There’s a storytelling balance that has yet to be found. And cutting back on the subplots would also cut back on the episodes’ runtime; some episodes run forty-five minutes, some up to fifty-five or so, and you can really feel those extra ten.

Arguably even more key to the show’s success than the seventy-five percent of the writing that works is the cast, which is across-the-board great. There’s not a weak link to be found (not even the younger kids, who thankfully don’t give “kiddie” performances); hell, you know something’s gone incredibly right when even Steve Howey is good. The material must be an actor’s dream (particularly for Macy), and everyone handles it deftly.

This release precedes the show’s second season by just a few weeks. What’s coming next I have no idea, but if Wells and company took the time between seasons to work out the kinks, what lies ahead could edge the show toward greatness. On the other hand, more of the same and Shameless could quickly wear out its welcome. Not many shows straddle the line between potentially great and dangerously one-note, but this is one that does.

THE VIDEO

The show is presented in its original 1.78:1 aspect ratio. Encoded with AVC at 1080p, the twelve episodes of this first season are spread across two 50GB discs. This is quite a strong presentation for a television series. The show is shot on HD video, but the only time it looks like digital photography is during a few nighttime exteriors, which are slightly flat, murky and noisy. Otherwise the image is natural and solid, with a look that complements the show’s tone and content very well. Interiors and daylight exteriors have a realistic quality; colors (the show’s three primary locations make for a nicely varied palette) are delineated very well, and blacks are suitably deep.

THE AUDIO

Lossless audio comes in the form of DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 tracks. There’s nothing spectacular about the show’s sound design, which is unsurprisingly front-heavy. The back half of the soundstage is put to good use during a few of the busier interiors and many exteriors, and there’s some music bleed (the show makes good use of prerecorded music), but there’s nothing in the way of sustained atmosphere or color. Dialogue, which is the driving force, sounds good.

French and Spanish Dolby 2.0 tracks are also included; English SDH, French, and Spanish subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

You get two commentaries. The track on Episode One features John Wells, Emmy Rossum, and Executive Producer Andrew Stearn; it’s sort of a catch-all track that covers the season in general. The track on Episode Seven (the aforementioned fake funeral) features director David Nutter, writer Etan Frankel, and actors Jeremy Allen White and Cameron Monaghan; it’s more specific to this episode.

Bringing Shameless to America (14 minutes, HD) explores the origins on the show.

Shameless: Bringing the Fun to Dysfunctional (11 minutes, HD) is a de facto making-of featurette.

A Shameless Discussion about Sex (13 minutes, HD) is a roundtable chat with Rossum, Howey, and costars Justin Chatwin and Shanola Hampton, who humorously discuss the show’s sexual content. 

Deleted scenes (12 minutes, SD) from half the episodes are also included.

Closing things out is a Season Two Sneak Peek (4 minutes, HD), a promotional look at the upcoming episodes.

A code to access an UltraViolet digital copy is also included.

FINAL THOUGHTS