Creators:
Mark V. Olsen
Will Scheffer
Cast:
Bill Paxton ………. Bill Henrickson
Jeanne Tripplehorn ………. Barb Henrickson
Chloe Sevigny ………. Nicolette Grant
Ginnifer Goodwin ………. Margene Heffman
Amanda Seyfried ………. Sarah Henrickson
Douglas Smith ………. Ben Henrickson
Daveigh Chase ………. Rhonda Volmer
Grace Zabriskie ………. Lois Henrickson
Bruce Dern ………. Frank Harlow
Harry Dean Stanton ………. Roman Grant
Shawn Doyle ………. Joey Henrickson
The Show:
Another groundbreaking series from HBO, Big Love is in lay terms, a show about polygamy. Surprisingly, something like it has not been attempted before and it takes an age-old practice and puts it into a modern context, focusing specifically on one fictional family in Utah.
Hardware store owner, Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton) was thrown out of his family’s compound as a teenager and worked hard to make it on his own. While he is successful with his business, he struggles with maintaining ties to the community that shunned him and the same community to which his mother and brother still belong. What he does not struggle with, is living the ‘Principle’ life and that includes maintaining three wives.
Henrickson’s three wives are very different and this adds to the complexity of the show.
The first wife is Barb (Jeanne Tripplehorn) and being the top draft pick clearly has its benefits and its flaws. Referred to as the ‘Boss Lady,’ Barb is in charge of the family business. She has three children and runs all of the meetings that the wives have. These meetings include planning baptisms and laying out the monthly schedule for who has Bill for the night. During the first season of the show, the audience learns that Barb had cancer and how Bill’s loyalty to her, led him to a debt and eventually even into the practice of polygamy itself. Barb is also the only wife who works and her job earns her a nomination as teacher-of-the-year which is one of the key storyline arcs of the show.
The second wife is Nicolette (Chloe Sevigny). She is the link to the old school polygamists that live in ‘The Compound.’ Her father, Roman Grant (Harry Dean Stanton) is the main antagonist of the show and is The Compound’s prophet and religious figurehead. It is a job that he stole from Bill’s grandfather. Because of the financial help that he provided to Bill during Barb’s illness, Roman believes that he is entitled to a major piece of the Henrickson Hardware and it is suggested that marrying Nicolette was part of the debt that Bill had to pay back to her father.
Finally, there is Margene. The newest addition to the Henrickson clan, the third wife really gets more than she bargained for after marrying Bill. Her story arc is fascinating as she yearns to go back to a life before kids, two sister-wives and cigarettes. At the same time, she struggles with not being accepted by Barb and Nicolette and tries to find people to identify with, leading to problems for the family at large.
While the show also features secondary storylines including the tumultuous relationship between Bill’s parents, Sarah questioning her family’s choices and Ben’s reluctance to give in to sexual temptation, the show obviously revolves around the controversy of the three marriages and how it is perceived by the rest of society and especially by Uta’s church-going community.
One of the important facets of the show that must be recognized is that Big Love is based on the concept of traditional storytelling. As a result, the first few episodes are slow as the characters are properly introduced. The entire show leads up to the finale, entitled “The Ceremony.” While the episode title appears to be the introduction of a fourth wife, this is not the case any by the time you get to episode twelve, you have already developed an affinity for all of the characters and can experience both their trials and triumphs.
The DVD:
Video:
The DVD is presented in a widescreen anamorphic aspect ratio of 16:9. No complaints here.
Audio:
A 5.1 mix in English, and a Spanish dub in 2.0. Subtitles are available in English, Spanish and French.
Special Features:
This is where the DVD really loses points. There aren’t many special features at all.
On the fifth disc, there is a 12-minute featurette called “Big Love: A Balancing Act On Ice,” but this is strictly about the making of the title sequence which features the actors ice skating. It would have been preferable to include something about the show’s controversial material or actor auditions so that the viewer could see what the creators were looking for in each wife.
In addition to the featurette, there is really nothing else available. There are a couple of commentaries available with two of the episodes. The finale includes commentary from Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny, and Ginnifer Goodwin but because they never saw the final episode, they do not elaborate on any of the behind-the-scenes stories that you might expect.
There is also commentary for the fifth episode on the second disc. The episode is called “The Affair” and the basic plotline revolves around Bill and Barb spending a lot of time together, without telling the other wives. It obviously features commentary from Paxton and Tripplehorn and is somewhat interesting.
Really though, the special features leave a lot to be desired.
