STUDIO: Lionsgate
RELEASE DATE: May 13, 2008
STARRING: Mary Louise-Parker, Elizabeth Perkins, Romany Malco, Justin Kirk, Mary Kate Olsen, Kevin Nealon, and Matthew Modine
CREATED BY: Jenji Kohan
FEATURES: Gag Reel
Uncle Awol Featurette with Justin Kirk
G.M.A.: Good Morning Agrestic!
Mary-Kate Olsen Bio
"Little Boxes" Randy Newman Featurette
8 Commentaries with Cast and Crew
7 Trivia Tracks
"Little Boxes" Music Montages
Soundtrack Sampler

With Entourage taking the summer off and 30 Rock coming back a little off its game post-strike, Weeds is primed to become the best comedy on television. How great is Weeds? So good that even though I had seen all of season three when it aired last summer on Showtime, I watched every single minute of it again when the DVD hit my doorstep. There are very few comedy series EVER that you could sit and re-watch an entire season of, much less within a year of its original airing. Weeds is that well-written, acted, and nuanced that you can easily find yourself sucked into the suburban angst more than once and get as much, if not more, out of it a second time. There are dozens of TV series released on DVD between June and October - it's the prime time for networks to get fans pumped up for new episodes - and the season three set for Weeds will be one of the best.

If you're completely unfamiliar with Weeds, it naturally makes sense to start with seasons one and two, but it's not absolutely essential. The show seemed to really increase in popularity in the summer of 2007, so there were plenty of people who started with season three and then worked backwards and caught up with the exploits of Nancy Botwin (the Emmy-worthy Mary Louise-Parker) and her crazy friends and neighbors. As good as the series was in its first two seasons, the third chapter was actually the best Kohan has yet produced (although I have high hopes for the fourth). The previous two seasons felt like they were building to this one, when the theme of "drugs in suburbia" took a serious turn. Weeds is still primarily a comedy, but near the end of season three, when Nancy looks around and sees how damaged her family is - one kid is on the verge of insanity, talking to his long-deceased father, and the other was nearly beaten to death - it had as much emotional resonance as anything on TV last year. That's the brilliance of Weeds - it's an insanely over-the-top comedy with everything from drive-by shootings to porno shoots to geysers of crap - but Parker and the excellent writers behind her always find a way to ground it in a believable reality. Like the best comedies, it's on the edge, always threatening to become too ridiculous, but never quite going that far into unbelievable behavior. And nearly everyone in the ensemble - especially Parker, Elizabeth Perkins, and Justin Kirk - deserves to hear their names called at this year's Emmy nominations.

And if my love for Weeds wasn't obvious or strong enough already - I'd recommend you pick it up even if Lionsgate didn't provide a single special feature - the DVD set for season three is as impressive as any TV box we've seen so far this year. Eight out of fifteen episodes feature commentary tracks with cast and crew and seven feature trivia tricks. It's great to sense that a project is so beloved by the people that made it that they're willing to come back to share their insight into making it. You may remember that the theme song was redone every week by a new artist and there's a music montages feature that highlights that along with some awesome featurettes and a gag reel. It's a fun and informative series of special features that fans of Weeds will adore. If you've never seen the show or if you're a huge fan, Weeds: Season Three is one of the best TV on DVD releases of the year to date.