Broad City: The Complete Series - DVD Review

[Michael Scott]

Broad City: The Complete Series



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



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Movie
Broad City has been a wacky and bizarre adventure for the last 5 years. A brain child of comedians Ilana Grazer and Abbi Jacobson, it revolves around two “broads” in New York City and the whacky adventures that they get into trying to navigate life. I’ve seen all 5 seasons from beginning to end as part of this reviewing job, but I’m not sure that I would have gotten into the show had it not been for that requirement. The series is a loose set of vignettes in a sort of “docudrama” setting, and those types of shows usually don’t appeal to me. HOWEVER, this has been one of Comedy Central’s main pulls for the last half of a decade and it’s not hard to see why. The series is very easily digestible and has very little “depth” to it, and while that may sound bad written on paper, it is much more fun upon viewing.

Season 1
Season one was a rough start for the show, but also it’s best season at the same time. Like most first seasons it had a time getting started and the storylines suffered a bit as a result (what little “plot” there is in the series). Ilana and Abby’s chemistry are really what saves the first season. The two are literally ON FIRE with their quips and jabs, with Abbi playing the straight person to Ilana’s straight up zaniness (though they’re both on the edge of sanity). It’s a solid season, and one that plays well to it’s strengths, but it’s really the 2nd and 3rd season where the show finds it’s groove.

Season 2
Broad City is very much a rough and dirty sitcom that falls much into the same vein as “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”, just on a much more “mature” level (and of course really forgoing any serialized plot line). The two young women live in New York City, and have to deal with their menial day jobs. Abbi is the supposed “sane” one of the two and is forced to deal with the drudgery of a custodial job at her local gym, while the insanity of Ilana reigns supreme over while she blows off her boring office job under her milksop of a manager. Comedy usually has a straight man and a funny man in any pairing of comedians, and Abbi certainly comes off as the straight guy, while Ilana is the crazed funny girl. This is really a façade in fact, as Abbi is just about as crazy as Ilana is, but she has snowed herself into thinking that she really is the responsible one, when the reality of the situation is that Ilana does nothing but roll her eyes and smile, eliciting the desired response from Abbi.

As I mentioned, there is no real serialized plot behind the series, rather than the bonding of the two girls over their resentment on living slave level jobs in the high priced city of New York. The series revolves around the two basically trying to find any entertainment they can to make their lives just a little bit easier during the day (and nights). Being that they are about as jaded and cynical about their life as they can be, Abbi and Ilana have no compunction about being as disrespectful and completely carefree as they want to be, which is where most of the humor comes from. The two literally deal with life as if it’s a big joke, and in some ways it is that to the pair. They’ve been struggling and suffering for so long that they have to find humor and fun in some of the most UN fun situations in their life.

While the humor can sometimes be a bit too mean spirited at times, I can certainly see what the show is trying to do. It’s a modern day revolt against the craziness of our life. Life has become so hectic and so unflavorful, that it’s almost refreshing to see someone bucking the trend and fighting against the status quo. In fact pretty much EVERY character in the show is shown in that light. The cameos, the extras, the secondary characters are all shown in the most unflattering of circumstances as well as showing the least flattering aspects of their personalities to the cameras. Walking through life with a sense of narcissism and bitterness, they almost make Abbi and Ilana look normal by comparison.

Season 3
New York City is an amazing and crazy place, but one of the most unique factors about the 5 Burroughs that make up the expansive mega city is the differing facets and sides to it. TV shows have been made and linked to those many facets for many a decade. “Seinfeld” was more of an upscale twist with a slightly breezy take on the big apple, while “Louis C.K.” has a harsher, but more surreal, take on living there. Many of the aspects of a show taken on the characteristics of the people that the show is about and the same can be said for “Broad City”. Comedians Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer are rude, crude, foul and completely disgusting (albeit humorous), so the look and feel of New York tends to copy their outlook on life. It’s disgusting, crude, slummy, and horrifyingly profane. But the core concept of two women trying to make it in the big city is ridiculously funny at times, yet not so strangely a turn off at the same time.

Broad City has been hailed as one of THE biggest hits that Comedy Central has had for quite some time. The viewers have latched onto Ilana and Abbi’s profane sense of humor with a vengeance and it has made the 10 episodes per season sitcom into one of the hottest intellectual properties that they have at the moment. Sadly, I can’t give it a rousing thumbs-up as I tend to see the cruder aspects of the show off putting. The show reminds me of how much I HATE New York City (sorry native New Yorkians). It’s a city that’s dirty, profane, twisted and completely too busy for its own good. This slightly country boy has a hard-enough time dealing with a city of 500,000 people in it let alone one with MILLIONS of people and high rises as far as the eye can see. The filthy humor of Ilana and Abbi remind me all too well of the rudeness and crassness that permeated my experience there and tempers some of the funnier points with what seems like a dose of reality.

Still, the show can hilariously funny too. Ilana is completely and UTTERLY insane this season (like she is every season really). She gets a 12 lb chain wrapped around her waist without hope of getting off, gets fired from her job at “Deals Deals Deals” (not that she actually DID any work there anyways), and gets banned from her organic foods co-op….and that’s just in the first three episodes! Abbi is always the voice of reason in the show (which is a terrifying concept being that she’s not that far behind Ilana in the crazy department), but now that she’s a more assertive person than she has been previously (again, small bits, as she’s not THAT grown up) in the last few years’ things are turning out better for her. At least for a little while.

The series doesn’t take itself too seriously on the surface, but underneath the lunacy and insanely crude humor is a scathing take on society and life in general. The two girls, and the show in general, is a bitter and caustic take on the lower class having to slum it while so many other people in the world get by without seeming to try. This is exemplified by Abbi’s old roommate Max who seems to have it all together, or the rich snobs and people about town that drop in and out of their lives. While the show isn’t highbrow by ANY means, it has attracted a goodly amount of cameo actors who add their own flair and flavor to the show. Everything from Vanessa Williams as an investor at Alana’s job, or Whoopi Goldberg making a flash mocking of her famous “Sister Act” persona when Alana is fired from her job.

Season 4
It’s amazing how much YouTube has infiltrated our lives, and absolutely incredible how someone can be a “nobody”, only to make something giant out of their lives with the use of said internet social structure. Justin Beiber was put on YouTube by his mother, and suddenly he’s a giant popstar worth millions. Someone can pick up an item and start reviewing it weekly, and suddenly they’re paid 10s of thousands of dollars a year to advertise and talk about products. And just a few short years ago Ilana Grazer and Abbi Jacobson were a couple of friends making a YouTube show, and BOOM! Comedy Central picked them up and they’ve just completed the 4th season of their hit comedy show (with a 5th season already contracted and on the way)!

Crude, rude, nasty and completely random Broad City features Ilana Wexler (Ilana Glazer) and her friend Abbi Abrams (Abbi Jacobson) as they live their lives in New York City. Neither of the them are very stable, and in fact, are a bit crazy if you think about it. Ilana is the epitome of the stereotypical rebel, living life to the extreme and not letting anyone tell her any different. Abbi is supposedly the “stable” one, but has enough hang ups and female empowerment issues hearken herself to Ilana as her counterpart. Much like Seinfeld, Broad City is a show about nothing, and everything all at once. The show chronicles the foibles and mistakes the girls make as they try to live in the joyous chaos that is the big apple.

Seasons 1-3 carried a unique flair, and also happened to take place in the gloriously bright summer months. A sort of call out to the joy and bubbly optimism the two girls share. However, the 4th season takes a drastic curve and shifts the tone of the show to a much bleaker vibe by changing the weather from the bright outdoors of summer, to the dark and gloomy winter months. Much of this centers around the politics of the day, as a Trump presidency changes their outlook on life (Trump is also bleeped out to T***p, as if its a swear word). Episodes that feature Abbi and Ilana’s “Friendiversary” seem to be going one way, and then the tone shifts instantly and it’s moving in a complete 180. Abbi discovers she has a grey hair, and the girls bask in their own misery as they wonder what is going to happen to their rights under this new political regime.

I like that the series took a chance and moved from upbeat and optimistic, to darkly brooding and gloomy. It keeps the series fresh, and allows for the show to adapt and change, while still staying mostly the same throughout. Taking this tonal change from bright and sunny, to dark and gloomy also allows us to look into the personalities of Ilana and Abbi and see who they are in this period of their life, instead of just the “same old, same old” of the previous three seasons. Personally I find the politics a bit distatsteful, but that’s mostly because I swing more conservative and my biases come into play. The crudity and savage nature of the show hasn’t changed one bit, though, and for those who are accustomed to it, the series will still ring true and comfortable.

Season 5
And we wrap all of this up with a fifth and final season for the show about aging millennials. The sort of “joke” of the entire fifth season is that these aging millennial goofballs are finally growing out of their societal “motif”. The first episode is Illana and Abbi celebrating Abbi’s 30th birthday by walking from one end of the island to the other, live streaming the entire thing as they go, complete with idiotic snapchat filters and the like. As the season progresses you can see the two women coming to grips that they aren’t 20 year old slackers anymore, and that they’re kind of outgrowing the teenager like antics of their youth, and reconciling with the fact that they ARE growing out of their millennial like behaviors.

Now, that doesn’t mean that they’re going to go into the night willingly. Instead the two are going kicking and screaming, begrudging the fact that they’re growing up and trying to claw and fight their way back into their old antics. Even if they do have to begrudgingly admit to themselves that “we’re just too old for this crap!” as time goes on (aching bones and hangovers that hurt more than they used to included).

The show seems to be taking a cue from several other modern shows, and bowing out gracefully instead of pushing past their expiration dates like so many others that came before it. This modern Laverne & Shirley is still funny, mean, completely insane, but have taken the smart route with their exit. The jokes are still zinging, and the camaraderie is high, so the swan song for the show is a little bittersweet. On one hand fans of the show are going to be begging for more, but at the same time fans can appreciate the series went out naturally instead of just being randomly canceled out of the blue, so the show winds down with a sense of simplicity and finality.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

The show has had a VERY stable and VERY consistent look over the last 5 years, so forgive me if this is me sounding like a broken record. Shot on with its traditional use of handycams and other recording devices to imitate a “docudrama”. The show is a bit rough and raw in its filming style, but the textures and vibrancy of the show is still quite enjoyable. There’s a glossy sheen to it that replicates the raw look of New York City, and colors pop through with excellent saturation levels. Fine detailing is appealing to the eye, and while there are some funky contrast issues and a few bouts of macroblocking, the DVD-9s themselves look to be fairly free of any digital abnormalities. Sunny day shots show off the most detail, with small bouts of digital noise cropping up inside of the cramped apartments that the girls call home and in dim lighting. The crude nature of the show’s filming style may be intentional, but it is also in no way detrimental to the show, as there has been quite a lot of care taken to make it look as good as it can with the artistic style intended for it. All 11 discs are housed in a clamshell case that is typical of Paramount "complete series" released over the last several years, with the "crossed over" type of disc overlapping in the sleeves.




Audio:

Seasons 1 and 2 of the series was given a 2.0 Dolby Digital track (the track really didn’t call for a whole lot), but season 3-5 has been upgraded to 5.1 Dolby Digital with the option of a 2.0 track. Both mixes are perfectly fine, as the comedic stylings of the docudrama setup really don’t call for a WHOLE lot, but the 5.1 mixes in the later 3 seasons do allow for a more immersive mix with some of the hubbub and chaos of New York City. LFE is punchier as a result, and the din when Ilana and Abbi start yelling at each other in a crowed restaurant, or in the streets of New York make for more aural enjoyment.








Extras:

Season 1
• Outtakes & Deleted Scenes
• Video Commentary on Select Episodes
• Photo Gallery

Season 2
• Outtakes & Deleted Scenes
• Pop-Up Enhanced Episode
• “Hack Into Broad City” Series
• “Body by Trey” Videos

Season 3
• Hack Into Broad City
• Behind the Scenes with Broad City
• Deleted Scenes
• NOMO FOMO: An Art Show About Broads In The City

Season 4
• Hack Into Broad City
• Behind Broad City
• Deleted & Extended Scenes

Season 5
• Hack Into Broad City
• Outtakes & Deleted/Extended Scenes

Complete Series Special Features Disc
• Abbi & Ilana’s Broad City
• Behind the Scenes—Includes two set tours and two featurettes on the costumes
• Fan Surprise
• The Making of Season 5—Three featurettes, one of which is exclusive to the DVD
• A NYC Broad City Send-Off Fit for a Queen—Exclusive to the DVD

Final Score: ​

I for one am rather comfortable with how the series wrapped up. All 5 seasons have been very consistent in tone and themes (except for season one, which had a few issues getting off the ground) and the decision to wrap the series up before it got stale was a smart one. The show is one of those “like it or hate it” type of shows, complete with a sense of millennial humor that you have to be accustomed to to fully appreciate. Paramount has let the series complete with a 5th season boxset to grab if you’ve gotten all the others, OR get this big giant clamshell boxset if you’ve been waiting to grab it all at once. It comes complete with all the discs from the individual 5 seasons AND a special features disc that is exclusive to the full series boxset. While the show is NOT for everyone, it gave me more than a few laughs while watching and the boxset is a snazzy way to wrap up the series and collect the whole thing. Recommended for fans.



Technical Specifications:

Starring: Ilana Grazer, Abbi Jacobson, Hannibal Buress
Created by: Ilana Grazer, Abbi Jacobson
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 MPEG2
Audio: English: Dolby Digital 5.1, English DD 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Paramount
Rated: NR
Runtime: 1087 Minutes
DVD Release Date: July 2nd, 2019

Recommendation: Great Buy For the Fans

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[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Never heard of this one but will check it out.