'Tracey Takes On... Complete Seasons 3 & 4'
(Tracey Ullman, et al / 3-Disc DVD / NR / 2009 / Eagle Media - Vivendi Entertainment)
Overview: This 3-DVD set contains the final two seasons of the HBO comedy series "Tracey Takes On..." based on characters created and performed by Tracey Ullman. Each episode focuses on a particular subject (Sports, Love, Agents, Loss, etc.) in a sequence of hilarious scenes involving a number of Ullman-created characters.
DVD Verdict: The woman-of-a-thousand-faces, Tracey Ullman spins out a dozen crazed characters in her HBO series, 'Tracey Takes On...,' each episode dedicated to a different topic and comprised of monologues, vignettes, and multi-part stories starring Ullman's wildly varying personae!
In what was once classified as a all-new auto biographical show that traced her childhood, inclusive of her early career in dancing, acting and music, and her subsequent rise to stardom on television and films, it's now nothing short of a stop-start performance art episodic arena, to allow this talented and beloved comedic chameleon to (still) make everyone aware she's still in the country!
Bt, the first problem here is that all across the net the advertizing stated that this was a "4-DVD set" and that it contained the final two seasons of the HBO comedy series. But, in all honesty, HBO allows you to speak freely, to have freedom of language, well, basically, to swear your ass off, if needs be!
Here, Vivendi seems to have taken the 21 season 3 and 4 episodes and butchered them literally beyond recognition! Indeed, some episodes are as short as 5 minutes, and it looks as if every one has been edited to some degree. And that language we discussed earlier, well, it is so OBVIOUSLY censored! In some episodes, she says things like "I don't give a fig" and anyone can easily see that is NOT the word that came out of her mouth!
I can understand network TV editing language, but NOT a DVD ... and not, supposedly, from the anything goes HBO channel of all channels! Fans deserve better than this, sorry. This is a Widescreen Presentation (1.85:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs and comes with the Additional Bonus of three 24 minute, never-been-seen charcater episodes: Virginia, Ruby and Rayleen.
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