Those with addiction-prone personalities may want to steer clear of the entire season of Undeclared on DVD. You'll sit down and all of a sudden the weekend will have passed you by.

This writer had never seen the show, and earlier this week when I knew I was going to be stuck in Hollywood for a few hours, I brought this disc and a handful of others to watch at a friend's house (always working for DVDFile!), and compared to Italian noir films and Mickey Mouse collections, Undeclared looked pretty damned good.

What followed was an all-out laugh riot. There are still those who claim that Undeclared is no Freaks and Geeks - that might very well be true - but that doesn't mean that Undeclared isn't a stellar show in its own right. Packed with histrionic humor that all the while maintains a lovely sense of personable, humble humanity, this show is not Sweet Valley High or even Gilmore Girls. It presents the personal, sexual, and cultural rigors of college as it is: scary as all hell.

I saw shades of my college persona in all the characters here, and that's what gives Undeclared such an inimitable empathy; everyone who's been to college will know that the characters here are only marginally fictionalized (mostly in a humorous capacity). The wonders and inherent drama within a co-ed dorm are in the situations, not the construction, and Undeclared's ears are clearly open to the truisms in post-teen colloquialisms and methodologies.

It's funny, but not too funny. It's melancholy, but not too melancholy. Without the benevolent crutch of a laugh track, this series was doomed to fail - it's too goofy for serious fare and too serious for goofy fare - but it makes its fated laps around the TV track with unflinching integrity and punch.

And now we have an opportunity to soak in the show as one large entity, a series that's less a sitcom than it is a too-short, bitingly astute musing on the ins and outs of a child's expulsion into the real world (well, college, at least). And to make matters even better, this four-disc DVD edition is the kind of release that every television show wishes it could have.

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

Undeclared looks pretty friggin' good. The show's full-frame presentation is TV-grade, to be sure, but there has been some special care afforded to maintaining black levels, keeping color contrast in line, and giving fine detail quality a nice sheen. The transfer prints are free of dust and blemish for the most part, there is little to no artifacting to be found - even with a kabillion extra features all over this four-disc edition. This is good, people.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

Undeclared also gets a leg up as far as mixing goes. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is fancy, if not wholly exploitative, and the stereo mix is fine, too. The 5.1 mix lets dialogue, effects, and especially music tracks bleed toward the surround channels, which offers more of an immersive experience, but 9/10ths of the time, the main sound in the soundscape is kept toward the front. No matter - since both the broadcast mix and an upgrade mix are included, there's nothing to complain about. Nice.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

First of all, there is unaired footage from nearly every episode of the show, and it provides a wonderful appendix to each piece of the Undeclared pie. Then come the screen-specific audio commentaries . There is a heap of them . . .

ìPrototypeî, the show's pilot, gets commentary from Judd Apatow and Jake Kasdan; Apatow and Jay Baruchel discuss ìSo You Have a Boyfriend?î; ìFull Bluntal Nugetyî (which arrives in a director's cut here with Nugent footage restored) offers thoughts from Apatow, Kris Brown, and Fred Willard; ìEric Visitsî has thoughts from Carla Gallo, John Hamburg, and Timm Sharp; ìJobs, Jobs, Jobsî has commentary with Baruchel, Gerry Bednob, and Seth Rogen; Monica Keena, Greg Mottola, Rogen, and Sharp talk about ìSick in the Headî; Apatow and Rogen discuss ìThe Assistantî; Jarret Grode, Keena, Mottola, Busy Phillips, and Rogen talk about ìTruth or Dareî; Apatow, Baruchel, Jenni Konner, and Ali Rushfield offer commentary on ìAddictsî; ìEric Visits Againî showcases Apatow, Charlie Hunnam, Jason Segel, and Nick Stoller; ìGod Visitsî has Baruchel, Hunnam, Rogen, and Rodney Rothman; Apatow and Loudon Wainwright discuss ìParents' Weekendî; Baruchel, Brown, Grode, and Rogen talk about ìRush and Pledgeî; Jay Chandrasekhar, Gallo, Samm Levine, Joel Madison, and Christina Payano discuss ìHell Weekî; Baruchel, Kevin Hart, Hunnam, Payano, and Rogen commentate on ìThe Day Afterî; Baruchel, Brent Forrester, and Martin Starr talk about ìThe Perfect Dateî; Apatow, Kevin Rankin, Sharp, and Wainwright discuss ìHal and Hillaryî; and, Gallo, David Krumholtz, and Nick Stoller discuss ìEric's POVî. Whew.

Then there's the unaired episode, ìGod Visits,î and an entire disc devoted to more special features.

We get: 22 minutes of cast auditions; rehearsal footage from six episodes; a thirty-minute concert from Loudon Wainwright III; a 70-minute Q&A with cast and crew members at the Museum of Television and Radio; and, a script for ìLloyd's Rampage.î

Exclusive DVD-ROM Features: What happens when you pop the disc into your PC?

None have been included.

Final Thoughts

Without reservation, this is a DVD to pick up. Yes, you're paying fifty bucks for it, but these four discs are so jam-packed with stellar transfers, excellent mixes, and a boat-load of extra features that you'll have no choice but to simply sit in wonder at the immensity of it all. Highly recommended.

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