Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Boss: Season Two Blu-ray Movie Review

He is the boss of you.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 4, 2013

My, my, my, how the world of television has changed. For years, it was de rigeur for new series to get an order of 13 episodes to prove their mettle. Series that took off right away then got their orders for the so-called “back 13” (or fewer) episodes to fill out their first seasons, while those that didn’t cut the ratings mustard were either left to wither on the vine, or in especially spectacular cases of failure, were pulled from the schedule before even the first baker’s dozen of episodes could finish airing. The niche aspect of cable networks has changed all of that. While the broadcast networks still tend to work in this “group of episodes” buying gambit, cable networks sometimes follow a completely different paradigm altogether. The case of Boss is a salient example. Before this show even aired, it was picked up for two seasons, a decision that may have seemed ill advised once the show premiered to mixed if slightly favorable reviews but a less than thrilling audience count, leading to its rather unceremonious cancellation seemingly as quickly as it had been greenlit for two years. Of course in the shorter form world of cable, even two seasons can mean fewer total episodes than those typically produced during one season of broadcast network fare, but even so, the situation with Boss is an object lesson where initial expectations are perhaps so unreasonably high that no one is able to meet, let alone exceed, them. The series will no doubt be remembered as a prime opportunity for Kelsey Grammer to ditch memories of one Dr. Frasier Crane once and for all, but with plot threads left hanging, character arcs stopped in midstream, and no ultimate answers given to several pressing questions, whether anyone will want to devote copious hours to delving further into the lives of Mayor Tom Kane and the cast of supporting characters may be a losing proposition.

In some of the supplements appending Boss: Season One, the creative staff likens the series to a tragedy by Shakespeare, but that may in fact be more wishful thinking than actual reality. Boss’s first season was often compelling, but its turgid plot developments became more and more soap operatic as the season progressed, so much so that the central conceit of the high and mighty dealing with personal peccadilloes seemed like a warmed over reboot of Dynasty. Unlike Dynasty, however, it’s obvious that Boss had ambitions—serious ambitions—which one might either applaud or ultimately laugh at, considering the tendency to have a gaggle of characters where virtually everyone is compromised in one way or the other and where all of them are involved in sometimes ridiculous machinations. One almost expects the sudden appearance of Joan Collins in absurd shoulder pads at certain points in Boss, a tendency that continues into this second year.

Any show whose first season included one character getting his ears removed from his head as punishment for misbehaving, as well as another character losing his life for misbehaving via an almost Godfather-esque hit, can not be accused of anything approaching subtlety. But that’s what’s so odd about Boss at times. It surely has rather substantial literary ambitions, as evidenced by its self-created comparisons to Shakespeare, and yet it also makes no bones about wallowing in some patently ridiculous muck so much of the time that one has to come to the conclusion that either forces beyond the creative crew’s control intervened or those very ambitions were tempered by delusions of pop culture grandeur. Boss’s tonal uncertainty only continues in the second season, as Mayor Kane’s neurological condition devolves to the point where some episodes seem like a sojourn out of Chicago and into Twin Peaks.

The second season has a number of elements that some may feel help the series, while others may question their wisdom. One of these is an increased emphasis on the rather large and gangly supporting cast. All sorts of hyperbolic subplots are introduced in this season, to the point where one wonders if each cast member had a contractual stipulation that they got at least one manufactured crisis per season in order to have adequate material for their Emmy nomination reel. For example, the continuing dysfunction between Kane and his semi-estranged wife (Connie Nielsen) almost takes a back seat as Mrs. Kane gets more involved in fairly useless tangents involving her family as well as some extramarital dalliances on her part. It’s as if the writers weren’t willing to totally trust the central meltdown of the Mayor and had to have several surrounding characters also sucked into the same morally ambiguous maw.

One is tempted to say that the main problem with Boss is that there’s simply too much going on, with seemingly every character involved in their own subterfuges and a resultant lack of anyone with whom to empathize and too many intersecting stories for any individual arc to really develop much connection with the audience. These tendencies may indeed have borne fruit had the show been able to flourish a bit longer and allow the writers more time to develop all of these various strands, but as it stands, Boss plays less like its perceived update of Richard III and more like something akin to Richard 1 1/2.

Boss: Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Boss: Season Two is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Boss continues to be one of the more cinematic series on television, and this high definition presentation offers often incredible fine object detail, especially since the series to frequently exploits extreme close-ups (as several of the screenshots accompanying this review reveal). The series does tend to color grade (frequently to the ever popular cool blue-gray side of things) and even desaturate fairly aggressively, two tendencies that can occasionally make the image appear a bit less crisp. This season includes some hallucinatory material as Kane's mental condition worsens, and those elements are rather well woven into the otherwise gritty imagery. Contrast is quite strong throughout this presentation, though again some directors and their DPs have intentionally pushed things in some scenes.

Boss: Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Boss: Season Two follows in the sonic footsteps of the first season of the series by featuring a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 which is admittedly excellent through and through but which may still seem like a bit of overkill to some listeners, especially since the series is not especially ambitious from a sound design perspective. While surround activity is fairly consistent, it tends to be limited to ambient environmental effects or nice representations of depth, as in some cavernous offices where there's clear delineation between foreground and background speakers. But the glut of this series is dialogue, and often fairly small scale dialogue at that, such as hushed conspiratorial whispers between two characters and the like, and so there's really not much "wow" factor in what tends to be a highly nuanced but extremely understated track. Fidelity is top notch and there are brief bouts of dynamic range here and there, made perhaps all the more noticeable by dint of the fact that the bulk of the series tends to be more conversational.

Boss: Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Louder Than Words – Audio Commentary with Executive Producer and Executive Story Editor. Once again participants in a commentary start out by not introducing themselves, though Angelina Burnett (Story Editor) is smart enough to introduce Producer and Show Runner Dee Johnson. This is fairly conversational but interesting due to the fact that these are behind the scenes people, though Johnson seems a little under-informed about some of the details of the series.


• Mania – Audio Commentary with Executive Producer and Writer. Dee Johnson (who does remember to introduce herself this time) is back, this time with Kevin Hines. Mania is one of the more interesting episodes of this season, and both commentators talk about how important this episode is within the overall arc of Kane losing control of his faculties.


• True Enough – Audio Commentary with Executive Producer and Co-Executive Producer. This time Dee Johnson (no introduction again, at least not initially) is joined by Julie Ebert. How many times does Johnson have to talk about the opening credits (which were designed by Gus Van Sant)? Evidently every time. These two perhaps unintentionally hint at the hyperbolic aspects of this season, talking about doing too much in order to get enough on screen.


• The King and His Court (1080p; 15:10) is a fairly standard EPK with lots of interviews with cast and crew and scenes from the series. Once again the comparisons to Shakespeare are rife, perhaps (not to put too fine a point on it) "such stuff as dreams are made on".

Boss: Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Boss was an interesting attempt, that much can't be denied, and it's anchored by a commanding performance by Kelsey Grammer, who more than likely won't be remembered as only Frasier Crane from here on out. But the series is often muddled, overly hysterical and ill at ease with its Shakespearian ambitions which blend none too well with its more low rent soap operatic hyperbole. If the show had been able to muster a third or fourth season, my hunch is some of these inequities would have evened themselves out, but as it stands, the second season is going to be a mere curiosity more than much of anything else. Fans of the series will no doubt want to include this Blu-ray set in their collections as it offers superior video and audio and some fairly interesting commentaries.