Everwood: The Complete Third Season

First, I have to point out that I'm reviewing Season Three of EVERWOOD. The other three reviews appear to be of Season Two. My only guess is that at some point Amazon had this listed as Season Two and changed it.

I'm giving Season Three five stars even though I don't think it was quite as good as the previous two seasons. This could be a perception issue, but Season Three seemed to be slightly melodramatic, slightly more inclined to milk dire situations, a bit more inclined to do "very special episodes." I also found myself getting more irritated with characters than before. Ephram's meltdown after finding out about why Madison left town was hard to take at times. And while one of the appeals of the show was its willingness to present Andy Brown as a protagonist with feet of clay, in Season Three he simply makes too many bad decisions and involves himself in too many family crises of his own making.

Still, the show continued to be a superior family drama. While it bordered on soap opera at times, it usually corrected itself and kept the story moving in significant ways. Why doesn't this qualify as soap opera? The latter never really goes anywhere. One of the more important scholarly studies of the genre is entitled STORIES WITHOUT END. Each story arc in a way establishes a reset and season after season the characters simply waffle around, never really going anywhere significant. There is a certain arbitrariness to anything that happens to any of the characters and a sense that just about anything could happen to any of them, and that any soap opera character is capable of changes that in real life would be incompatible with the rest of their life history. But in EVERWOOD only certain behaviors are open to Andy or Harold or Amy or Ephram. In a soap opera if a character engages in quite extreme behavior is simply belongs to the genre, it is part of its charm. But if characters in a family drama go too far it is perceived as a fault.

I like also that the show is willing to go to some places that make us feel conflicted. The newly arrived Jake Hartman becomes involved with Andy's next door neighbor Nina, even as we know that Nina is in love with Andy and Andy comes to realize that he has some feelings for Nina. Andy has a romantic involvement that is intense and highly improper. We are surprised often, disappointed frequently, and pleased occasionally. I didn't like everything that happened in Season Three, but the mark of a character driven drama like this is that you come to care for the characters and what happens to them. In most instances that comes to trump plot, which is secondary.

There were some nice guest appearances in Season Three, including Anne Heche in a multi-arc appearance, though my favorite was an uncredited cameo by Treat Williams's HAIR co-star John Savage as a heavily bearded but appreciative patient in the season finale.

Season Three has not yet been announced on DVD, but Greg Berlanti has hinted that the chances are good that we will see the final two seasons. Much of the hold up has been music. They had to change a great deal of the music in the first two seasons and comparable changes are taking place with additional seasons. I tend to be pretty tolerant of these kinds of changes. I'm a practical realist. NORTHERN EXPOSURE would never have appeared on DVD if the music hadn't been changed. ALLY MCBEAL took far longer to debut on DVD because it took so long to clear the licensing (probably the only show that had specific music integral to the show is a different Greg Berlanti creation, ELI STONE). But ALLY MCBEAL is going to sell a heck of a lot of copies than EVERWOOD. The only chance that EVERWOOD has of coming out on DVD is for it to cut its costs as much as possible. So, I think there is a good chance that all four seasons of EVERWOOD will appear on DVD, but I also think it inevitable that most of the music will be changed. And I think that is OK.

Everwood Season 2, Is FANTASTIC...I've waited so long to see season 2 AND now I am waiting for season 3..it was worth the wait, it is a T.V. series that you should put on your list. It is Family friendly, full of the right amount of drama, suspense and the BEST characters. The life appealing drama has wit and tears, it has exactly what so many of us face in daily living, if not us, than people we know. Again, totally worth it, quality is great, adventure, family humor, sincereity and believable characters.

Season 2 is what first got my husband and I hooked. We then watched 3 and 4 as they aired and bought the season 1 DVD. And we do actually think Season 1 is the best - we've watched the whole season proabably four times all the way through. But season two is good, and introduces the Madison character which is key to the rest of the show. Also gives Bright's character a chance to develop. There is just about nothing worth watching on TV these days, and we miss Everwood so much! Gossip Girl and 90210, etc. are just trash. No soul at all. Friday Night Lights is excellent, and a good fill-in while waiting for Everwood DVDs to come out. I can't recommend Everwood enough. It is one of a kind.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 41 reviews  5.0 out of 5 stars