Featured TV on DVD Review: Divorce: Season One
May 8, 2017
Divorce: Season One - Buy from Amazon: DVD and Blu-ray
This HBO comedy has an impressive cast, but its reviews were merely good and its ratings were weak compared to most other HBO shows. It did well enough to get a second season, but will audiences come back? Will those who missed it the first time want to check it out on the home market?
I don’t remember requesting a screener for this show, but it arrived on my desk last week, so I figured I should review it. I only got about ten minutes in when I realized this was a mistake. This show is not for me. It stars Sarah Jessica Parker and Thomas Haden Church as Frances and Robert Dufresne, a married couple who are going through a rough time. In the pilot, they go to a party at Diane and Nick’s place. During the party, Diane gets drunk, gets into a fight with Nick, and this fight escalates until a gun becomes involved. Robert is really shaken up about this, but Frances has an epiphany. She doesn’t love Robert anymore and wants a divorce. At first, Robert is in denial, but that will change when he finds out she’s having an affair. The man she’s having the affair with, Julian, is equally upset, because he liked the secret nature of their affair and if she gets a divorce, that will end. The pair sometimes try to reconcile and get back together, other times they try and go after each other and get revenge.
The also have two kids, which adds to the messiness of the divorce. The writers don’t give the kids a lot to do, on the other hand.
So that’s it for the setup. How is the execution? I’m going to compare the show to another HBO comedy, VEEP. In my review of that show, I mentioned that the show was filled with unsympathetic characters and that might turn off a lot of potential viewers. This is certainly the case here, but to a much worse degree. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have VEEP’s sharp writing or its award-worthy acting, so all it is left with are horrible characters doing horrible things to each other. It is a real chore to sit through. Even the secondary characters like Diane and Julian grated on my nerves. Worse still, it all feels so fake. The characters and situations feel like creations of a screenwriter, which they obviously are, but good writing can make characters and situations feel organic and real. Sarah Jessica Parker and Thomas Haden Church don’t have any chemistry together, so I never believed they would have gotten married in the first place, so that further hurts the overall quality.
There are some scenes that work and some jokes that land, while there are a few minor characters that were fun. There were some great songs in the soundtrack. In fact, the soundtrack was probably the best part of the TV show. ... Lila has a Dōmo-kun bag. ... Yeah, I’m really stretching for parts of the show that I liked. It is really that bad.
The only extra on disc one is an audio commentary track on episode three, while disc two has audio commentary tracks on episodes six and seven.
I have mentioned in previews reviews that I don’t get the appeal of watching a show with terrible characters. If I wouldn’t spend time with these characters in real life, I don’t want to waste my entertainment time watching these characters on TV. Not every character has to be sympathetic to be worth my time, but none of the main characters on Divorce are pleasant. On the other hand, the DVD and Blu-ray have three audio commentary tracks, which isn’t bad for a TV on DVD release, so if you liked the show, it is worth the approximately $17 to buy on Blu-ray.
Video on Demand
The Show
The Extras
The Verdict
Filed under: Video Review, Thomas Haden Church, Jemaine Clement, Tracy Letts, Sarah Jessica Parker, Molly Shannon, Sterling Jerins, Charlie Kilgore