The Henry Rollins Show: Season One [Import]

Rollins' show is a thoroughly engrossing mix of no-audience one-on-one interviews where the interviewer actually listens to his guests and holds a genuine discussion with them, along with sharp, no-holds-barred commentary pieces from Henry himself.

And then, there are great musical performances from artists you would rarely see on the usual late night talk shows, and it's the musical part where I give this DVD a huge star-off deduction. Pretty much every musical act does two numbers, but Rollins informs the viewers that the second number can only be viewed on the website. Sorry, I like to enjoy musical performances on my big-screen TV and multi-speaker audio system, not sitting in my office watching them on my computer, and it's mind-boggling--especially in light of Rollins being a musician himself--that this obvious extra of putting both songs on the DVD so fans could at least buy them and enjoy each artist's pair of songs together wasn't done. Instead, we get the straight show as it aired.

Great show; frustrating missed opportunity. How about it next season, guys? Either put both songs together in the show, put the second number after the credits or gather them all in a bonus features section, but please! And maybe even include the missed songs from this first season as extras as well so we can finally enjoy them in DVD quality...

I think that pretty much sums up the tone of HR's Season 1 of this talk show. He's got a wide variety of artists and popular figures who all have a stake in what we see in the public fora. In addition to some occasionally lightweight, but usually interesting interview questions, he displays a good, old-fashioned iconoclasm for the features of today's public landscape. One standard piece of the interplay is the amount of respect the interviewees have for this van-living 500%er and what he has made a living of saying to his rapt audiences.

His musical guests are outstanding and library-expanding. Everyone from the New York Dolls to Thom Yorke shows up and does a decent (at worst ) set. His Soapbox feature allows multiple POVs the chance to air their tenets out and you get to hear all sides.

Most enjoyably, you get to hear from a person that respects only what is honest with itself. He cheers on those phenomena that reflect true pursuit of a point of view while reviling and savagely berating the gamesmanship of BSery.

Overall, this show has been refreshing, inspiring and simply enjoyable since viewing one.

Maybe it's because I subscribe to a Rupert Murdoch owned pay tv enterprise but as far as material like that which you see on Rollins show goes I am definitely NOT spoilt for choice, if however I wanted to hear people rant about the dangers of iran, china, terror at my doorstep etc then I have plenty to keep me going, so that's the first reason I like this show. Secondly Rollins promised that on this show he would be talking about important subject matter which he does and when interviewing celebrities promises that he will not discuss their love life, private affairs and other banalities which seem to be the order of the day, and again he delivers on that promise, and what's more the interviewees seem to be quite enthusiastic about this, leading to some enjoyable discourse, so if the idea of that makes you yawn because you've seen it all before then fair enough, but for me this material is not prevelant on my TV and so as someone who has watched Bush and co with a sense of foreboding I am grateful to Rollins for reminding me the other side of the coin hasn't been extinguished.