Time: 132 Minutes
Studio: Comedy Central / Paramount
Rating: Not Rated
SRP: $26.98

Feature: A?

If you’ve never seen Sarah Silverman’s stand-up routine or her ridiculous television show, The Sarah Silverman Program, then all you have to do is catch one episode from the very beginning. Silverman describes the show is about her, her dog Doug, and her real sister, Laura who is a nurse. Laura dates a cop (Jay Johnston) who no one likes. Her neighbors and good friends, Brian (Brian Posehn) and Steve (Steve Agee) are gay stoners who spend all day playing video games. Together they often find themselves in bizarre situations and half-baked adventures. Here’s a brief taste of what I mean.

Episode 1: Brian and Steve argue over Dungeons and Dragons while Sarah leads a group of extreme pro-lifers to shut down an abortion clinic, until they find out that she’s aborted a few babies herself.

Episode 2: Curiosity killed the cat, but here it put Sarah in a world of trouble and Doug is separated from her when she decided taste for herself, just how good a dog’s asshole could be. Meanwhile, Brian and Steve discuss their commitment to each other.

Episode 3: In “Face Wars,” Sarah bets her waiter at her local diner that it’s harder living life as a Jew than as an African-American. After a visit to a makeup artist who paints her in blackface, she understands just how quick people are judge her on face value.

Episode 4: When their mother’s grave site and remains has been violated, Sarah and Laura go on their favorite TV show, Cookie Party to try and win money to replace her tombstone.

Episode 5: Tucker Smallwood reprises his role as God and hooks back up with Sarah. But when he begins to resemble a needy boyfriend she uses him to impress others at her high school reunion. Brian and Steve contemplate giving up the chronic but at what cost?

Episode 6: Sarah finds out she can be a terrible person when she fires her maid, Dora and gets her deported on the suspicion of stealing one of her dolls. It turns out Sarah needed Dora more than she thought and must go down to Mexico to convince her to come back.

The cast and crew is comprised of Mr. Show grads and Silverman’s comedy friends. Posehn and Agee deliver some of the show’s best laugh-out-loud moments and Silverman will charm the pants off you with her cute tomboy looks and then leave you gaping after dealing a vulgar blow. Many of the stories come from Sarah’s demented childhood and wicked mind but also someone who indy comics fan know, Rob Schrab, of Scud The Disposable Assassin fame. He is the director of the show, a writer, and makes a small role as Mini Coffee, who’s best experienced on screen rather than any description I can come up with. It’s a show that’s understated as unique and best taken as a piece of Sarah Silverman.

There’s no exaggeration in my summaries and if you found yourself giggling reading them, then this show’s for you. On the contrary, if you didn’t find the synopses amusing, then you might want to move along. Comedy is such a subjective thing, and in no way is Silverman’s comedy is for everyone–especially those easily offended. She balances the tightrope of absurd silliness and smart satire but has carved her own brand of funny capitalizing on stereotypes, current events, and sensitive touchstones. Dave Chappelle’s not the only one who can do it right and in some instances I think Silverman takes it further and you go, “did she really go there?” You’ll feel guilty at first for laughing but it’s contagious and once it’s started, nothing feels better than a hard, tearing laugh at something as screwy as this. 

PRESENTATION, AUDIO, and VIDEO: B

A slipcase holds two slim cases that each house a DVD. The menus are plain simple, but appropriate. It’s standard TV affair at Dolby Digital 2.0 so there’s nothing there to surround you. But it’s a dialogue-driven comedy show so there’s no reason to expect any more than that. There are no other audio options. The Sarah Silverman Program is colorful and looks as clear as a DVD can look. Nothing’s been altered to the point of aggravation and the aspect ratio is full-frame 1:66:1.

EXTRAS: B

For a TV show we get a lot of things to open up?but don’t be mislead?a lot of them are really short lasting 2 minutes or less. On Disc One, there are seven audio commentaries for five of the six episodes and is broken down like this: Sarah and Laura Silverman do commentaries on eps. 1 and 4, Laura Silverman and Jay Johnston on episode 3. director Rob Schrab and executive producer Daniel Sterling on eps. 4 and 5, Brian Posehn and Steve Agee cover eps. 5 and 6.

The Good: the Posehn and Agee tracks are well-worth a listen; they keep the conversation going and varied. Schrab and Sterling also turn in solid ones too because again, find plenty to talk about, shedding some light on working on such a wild and creative show. The Bad: These episodes are about 25 minutes each, but with the amount of dead spots in the sisters’ commentaries, you’d think they were 25 hours each. The ladies really struggled to put hold your attention. The Ugly: two episodes have two commentaries and episode two didn’t even have one. What happened there?

The biggest and best extra on the second disc is the 2007 Comic-Con Q&A (29:33) after the first season. Moderated by the very dry and witty Zach Galifianakis, this gives fans a taste of the Comic-Con experience where the success of these panels depend on the strength of audience questions and the panelists being able to play off of them. With this cast, the answers start straight but they go on tangents and go south fast. And by south I mean vulgar and funny. On one creepy note, whenever Jay Johnston answers a question his answers tends to create awkward moments or quiet the room–completely.

Two Digital Shorts are a few skits designed for the DVD release. The first is a fantastically silly uncensored animated short featuring our favorite gay duo in Steve and Brian’s Basement Adventure (2:40). It’s silly, like everything else, but it’s short. A poltergeist with an unpublished screenplay haunts Brian’s New Office (1:57) In the fourth episode we got to see a clip of Sarah’s favorite TV show, Cookie Party. There’s three more episodes of the uncensored cartoon hosted by Mini Coffee (Rob Schrab) and Ookie. They’re insanely funny and inane shorts about scrumptious cookies that come alive and fart to save the day. Cookies Come Alive Part I (3:44) Michael Cookieson fends off the evil Crookie who wants his talking cookies. In Part II (4:15) Michael builds a robotic oven but the cookies aren’t having anything to do with it. Part III (4:27) The cookies get drunk. If you ever see the Cookie Video Game (1:00) on the shelves, do not buy it, I repeat, Do not buy it!

Last but not least are the eight behind-the-scene clips, again most at or around two minutes feel like skits that were drawn up to just film for fun but were never designed to see network airing. They’re made just for the fans. The best of the lot are the interviews with cast members done by Michael Smith who is anything but a professional journalist leading to very awkward moments.

SILVER IS GOLDEN – OVERALL SHOCK VALUE: B+

Whether you first so her in The Aristocrats or from F-ing Matt Damon, Sarah Silverman knows how to manufacture laughs. It’s hard not to like her -even if just a little bit – and her show is damn funny. It’s dark-roasted laughs from a sassy, sexy Jewess, and every episode that airs is a miracle it doesn’t ruffle more feathers in our seemingly overly conservative society. But all comedy comes with personal barometer for each viewer and their experiences. Some stuff may go sailing over your head, and other jokes hit the bulls-eye every time. I only wish that Comedy Central release this as one box set instead of splitting it up into two volumes. This DVD release is sure to please the already-converted and loyal congregation that laughs under the church of Silverman and may find those looking for something fresh and funny to arrive at an epiphany.