|
Written by Kevin Filipski
|
 The best reason to stay with Showtime’s only intermittently watchable comedy series The Secret Diary of a Call Girl—Season 2 (LionsGate) has always been the magical Billie Piper, a young British actress who plays Belle, a young British prostitute, with humor, guile, wit and enormous charm. Piper is so appealing, in fact, that she calls into the question the entire existence of this series: why would this intelligent woman choose to bed down men for a living? To its credit, the series doesn't take itself very seriously, but by refusing to face that question—indeed, going out of its way to avoid it—Call Girl comes off as smarmy and smirky rather than clever and with-it. Still, Piper shines so brightly that the show continues to be a guilty pleasure. The lone extra is a fluffy interview with Piper.
Also available…
The two-hour documentary Apollo 11—A Night to Remember (BBC) entertainingly returns us to that day 40 years ago when the word watched Neil Armstrong step onto the lunar surface, through the BBC's own coverage (lone extra: excerpt from program The Sky at Night); Manchester chief detective Janine Lewis juggles work and home in Blue Murder—Set 4 (Acorn Media), the most recent season of this "Prime Suspect"-like mini-series, courtesy ITV in England; Benjamin Bratt's portryal of a recovered addict whose crew helps others get off drugs is the emotional center of The Cleaner—Season 1 (Paramount), a new series on A&E that has a chance to stand out amidst the glut of mediocrity (best extra: cast and crew commentaries); executive producer Will Farrell makes a cameo in Eastbound & Down—Season 1 (HBO), an unsuprisingly crude if funny fish-out-of-water sitcom about a former major leager back teaching gym at his old high school (best extra: deleted scenes); the ultra-cool marginal celebs of Entourage—Season 5 (HBO) played by Jeremy Piven, Kevin Dillon, et al, are joined by real-life marinal celebs like Eric Roberts, Sethe Green, Lukas Haas, and Martin Landau (best extra: cast and crew interviews); for ER—Season 11 (Warners), the revolving door of incoming and outgoing stars continues, as Noah Wyle finally exits, replaced by Shane West, who plays would-be rocker Dr. Ray Barnett (lone extra: deleted scenes); the timely if too-slick drama series Leverage—Season 1 (Paramount) stars Timothy Hutton as the leader of a group of high-tech thieves who right the wrongs done on ordinary citizens by corrupt corporations and government agencies; four more episodes of the classic cult series Mystery Science Theater 3000—Volume XV (Shout) arrive on DVD, as the mocking crew go after a quartet of ultra-bed moives with titles like Zombie Nightmare and The Girl in Lovers Lane (best extra: behind-the-scenes); if you want to return to a more innocent time (say, the 1990-91 TV season), then silly high school sitcom Parker Lewis Can’t Lose—Season 1 (Shout), mullet haircuts and all, is for you (best extra: new cast and crew interviews); the next 33 episodes of the historic first season are brought together on the new disc, Peyton Place—Part 2, which stars established names like Dorothy Malone alongside then-neophytes like Ryan O'Neal and Mia Farrow (Shout); current Disney Channel teenybopper superstars Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato give Princess Protection Program (Disney) an amusingly slight vehicle that a certain demographic (say, under the age of 10) will enjoy most (best extra: Gomez and Lovato interview); the just-cancelled CW network series about a 21-year-old bounty hunter of souls for the devil, Reaper—Season 2 (LionsGate), may well become a cult classic if its rabid fans have any say (best extra: gag reel); in The Secret Life of the American Teenager—Season 2 (Buena Vista), young Amy (the appealingly natural Shailene Woodley) must deal with impending motherhood and the usual high school traumas in a quietly perceptive series that includes a solid cast of actors, led by Molly Ringwald and Mark Derwin as her parents (best extra: cast interviews).
|
