In Living Color: Season 2
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Cast: Keenan, Damon, Kim, Kelly, Shawn, Tommy, T’Keyah, David, Jim and all the others
Extras: Commentary Tracks, Featurettes, Season Overview
Rating:
Following the smashing success of the show’s first season, Keenan Ivory Wayans and his brothers, sister, friends and collaborators went into the second season with the knowledge that America was indeed ready for their subversive, side-splitting attacks on society. They created a series of new characters – such as Handiman or the Head Detective for example – and went out on the limb even a little further by mocking minority groups and white people alike without ever slowing down. The result is a second season with 26 episodes of anarchic comedy that is as funny as anything you’ll ever see.
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment is bringing the second season to DVD in its original fullframe aspect ratio. The transfer is clean and clear but a bit soft at times as a result of the production limitations at the time. Still no defects or other blemishes mar the presentation, making ’In Living Color’ a vribrant, vivid and, well, colorful affair. The compression is without artifacts and no edge-enhancement is evident either making it a true pleasure to view these episodes.
The audio on the release is presented as a Dolby Stereo track that fully serves the purpose, since it is not effects heavy and pretty much in-your-face at all times. Dialogues are well balanced and always understandable and the music is also solid with a good frequency response.
Once again 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has added some supplements to the release, such as commentary tracks on selected episodes by writers Kim Bass and Buddy Sheffield, a full overview over the second season and two featurettes.
The first one is ’notorious ILC’ and covers some of the most memorable characters that sprung from the show while the second one focuses more on the production of the show per se.
There can be no doubt. Fans of the rambunctious comedy that is ’In Living Color’ have to pick up this 4-disc DVD set. It offers hours of hilarity that is sorely missed from today’s TV fare.