Wednesday, August 25, 2010

See Showtime's New TV Hit Series Weeds

By Alexis Snow

For the last ten years, there's been a defining trend in fictional television: Realism. It started with reality television and influenced fictional television before long like Sopranos, and Weeds is definitely one of the funniest in this trend, and certainly belongs on your downloads queue the next time you pay a visit to your tv and movie download service.

It began with reality television. See, for a time, fictional television had just plain gotten too darn formulaic. It always felt like you were just watching mindless television. It always came down to the same characters: The wacky neighbors, the football loving dads and their football widows, stories about the kid borrowing the car without asking and so on, and... It was just really predictable.

So, while reality TV may be, at times, crass and artless, and not to mention, they often rearrange events with editing to make situations seem more dramatic than they really were, the fact remains that they had some appeal in their unpredictability and real human situations which stole a lot of viewers away from the fictional television shows which were really not offering anything new, and really hadn't since Seinfeld and Drew Carey went off the air.

The first show to adapt and survive in this new television climate was The Sopranos. Twenty years ago, it could have just been some mafia show. See, in Goodfellas, the characters worry about the business, but on The Sopranos, the characters worry about business as well as family, personal finances, their relations with their friends, sex, health, psychological well being and so on. You know, everything we have to worry about in real life.

Weeds follows the same trend and utilizes a great concept: Suburban single mom runs a massive marijuana selling empire. You get an equal mix of great stoner humor, crime storytelling and family drama, and it's always funny.

The show is really defined by some great characters. The Candyman is one of the best. She's actually a female character, codenamed the Candyman. She runs a bakery that specializes in marijuana goodies. She's also a fitness nut, refusing to sell to anyone who doesn't promise to exercise and burn off the extra calories provided by her brownies and cupcakes.

The show follows two primary plot threads: One following the mother's journey in building her criminal empire, and one following her family issues and the local gossip. Watching how the two stories affect one another is always worth a laugh.

Be warned that the show is quite addictive. Each season is really designed as a self contained story, as opposed to each episode, so when you watch one, you'll want to watch the next one right away. Make sure to download a whole season at a time if you really want to enjoy the series. Just be ready to set a few hours aside whenever you want to sit down and watch.

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