Weeds - Season 1 (DVD, 2006)

Wish there was a widescreen version.

With its fantastic comedy series Weeds, cable network Showtime finally gave up its also-ran status to HBO and found itself with a controversial, buzz-worthy show that was as hilarious as it was dark, one about a truly desperate housewife. A recent widow with two growing sons, Nancy Botwin (Golden Globe winner Mary-Louise Parker) looks like a typical resident of the affluent Southern California suburb of Agrestic. She keeps a clean, upscale house (with the help of a live-in maid), attends PTA meetings, goes to her kids' soccer games, makes frequent stops at the local coffee franchise.... and sells marijuana in order to make it all possible. Left with no way to support herself after her beloved husband's fatal heart attack, Nancy turns herself into the "suburban baroness of bud," dealing to her neighbors in the area, with the help of her supplier Heylia (Tonye Patano) and point man Conrad (Romany Malco). Nancy's clients run from the local councilman (Kevin Nealon) to the just-barely-legal students at the local community college, but many in Agrestic are still in the dark as to how she keeps her family afloat, including her best friend, the sardonic Celia (Elizabeth Perkins), a wife and mother whose blistering, withering put-downs could make Dorothy Parker cringe in fear. But like many small-business owners, Nancy yearns for more success and cash, and like her workaholic neighbors, finds keeping a balance between work life and home life to be extremely precarious at best.

If a show is dark, funny, subversive, and controversial, you know its on HBO or SHOWTIME, the only channels bold enough to have produced shows that network TV would run away from. Weeds is exactly one of those shows. A comedy about a young suburbanite mother with two kids who turns to dealing pot after her husband dies, Weeds flies directly in the face of the conventional comedy. That's what makes it such a good show. Weeds has already been picked up for a second season, so this show will be around for a while!

Nancy Botwin (Golden Globe winner Mary-Louise Parker) has a normal life as a housewife in the LA suburb of Agrestic. She has a nice husband and two wonderful kids and a slacker brother-in-law named Andy(Justin Kirk). When her husband dies suddenly, Nancy needs a way to come up with a steady income so she can support her family. So she turns to dealing pot, and becomes the pied piper to the pot smoking denizens of Agrestic, including her accountant, Doug Wilson (Kevin Nealon). So how can you be a full time dealer and mother without getting busted, without your brother-in-law horning in on the action, and how can you lecture your kids when you break the law to support them? This show explores the humor in these predicaments as well as the drama in the 10-episode First Season.

The acting in Weeds is superb. Parker was wonderful in West Wing and is even better here, and Elizabeth Perkins makes a great comeback with her role as Nancy's frenemy Celia Hodes. Kevin Nealon is hysterical as Doug, reminding people how good a comedian he really is when not starring in bad material. Like other Showtime hits, this show not only explores Nancy's life and loves, but develops dramatic arcs for the lives of the other main characters, giving the show much more depth and range.

The Complete First Season on 2 discs contains all 10 first season episodes with a run time of 283 minutes. According to information posted on TvShowsonDVD website, there will be 6 cast and crew commentaries, and several featurettes including "Smoky Snippets" and "Smoke and Mirrors: Original Marijuana Mockumentary." It is in 2.0 and 5.1 Dolby Digital Audio. Check out their website for more info.

Weed's is a ground breaking show on Showtime about a widowed wife that has to resort to selling pot to keep her financial troubles at bay. There really has never been a show like it. It's a dark comedy that is really funny and deals with everyday family problems. Some people may be offended or turned off by the drug content but the show is a lot more than about weed. It's not dumb stoner humor like Cheech and Chong or anything. It's a great show and fairly cheap so give it a try!

Wow, I had heard a lot of things about this show, but they did not prepare me for such a great show. We watched the whole season in two nights. I couldnt get enough and I cant wait for Season 2. This is a quirky offbeat comedy that had me empathizing with the main character Nancy, played by Mary Louise Parker. The second best character in this show is Celia, played by Elizabeth Perkins. These two ladies take you on a wonderful, sad, amusing TRIP..... Dont miss it.. You will not be disappointed..

Since the show is on its 4th season, I wanted to get an idea of the cast of characters from the beginning when the show started. The writers have added a new depth of irony in the form of a pot-selling mother trying to keep afloat in suburbs USA after her husband drops dead. To make it even funnier, she has to buy the pot from the black family that she deals with and since she is always out of money, has handed over her diamond wedding ring and her lease car until she can pay off the debt. There is a lot of cursing going on, even from the children in the show and what bothered me is that these really young kids had to learn these lines. Also a lot of referrals to sex and positioning them to look like they are having sex. Definitely not a family series. Funny? I think so.