Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Portlandia: Season Two Blu-ray Movie Review

My kind of town.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 11, 2012

Any of you guys with brothers probably know the routine: you could beat your sibling senseless while you were growing up (hopefully not as adults), but if any “outsider” attempted to take him on, you would spring to his defense, no questions asked. There’s something just slightly similar at hand when I approach Portlandia. As I discussed in my review of Portlandia: Season One, I have lived in Portland for most of my adult life and there is probably no one, either “SNOB” (i.e., Society of Native Oregon Born) or not, who has taken this city more to task for its pretensions and outright weirdness than I have. And yet when I watch Portlandia, I often go almost automatically into “hey, who do you think you are to satirize Portland that way?” territory. My wife once asked a co-worker what she thought the rest of the outside Oregon audience saw in Portlandia? The co-worker replied, “We’re laughing with the show, the rest of the world is laughing at the show” (and by inference at Portland). That may indeed be the case, but the second season of Portland exhibits some of the same tendency as the first season toward being overly precious about its subject matter and often beating punch lines into the ground through sheer repetition, making the actual laugh quotient variable at times. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen are often amusingly droll in various skits, and there are some standout moments in this second season, but Portlandia often plays like a long form Saturday Night Live outing, where one bit may be hilarious and the next simply falls flat.

Part of the issue with Portlandia is its insistent rhythm, which depends on treading (and retreading and retreading) familiar territory of uptight urbanites, ridiculous hipsters and the occasional angry lesbian, without ever really providing any insight into any of the characters. The show exults in poking fun at little idiosyncrasies, and when it finds its mark, it can be a very funny show. But often the jokes simply go on for way too long and in this second season especially they begin to look more and more derivative. This season for example revisits the “put a bird on it” couple, who now have the exciting new tag line “we can pickle that”. (Are you laughing yet?) There’s also a slightly morphed version of the absolutely hilarious first season skit about the metrosexuals eating at the restaurant and wanting to know about the free range chicken (named Colin, still one of the series’ best jokes). In this new skit, they’re at a restaurant that features global cuisine trying to order a simple cheeseburger, but the waiter insists on taking them through the entire world spanning menu. Another skit finds two denizens of northwest Portland (read: slightly pretentious and uppity nouveau riche) attempting to get ready for a hike, but repeatedly having to change their gear as they imagine new potentialities greeting them in the great out of doors. Good concept, but belabored here to the point of ridiculousness.

Other skits, often featuring recurring characters, manage to find more consistent humor, albeit often within that slightly annoying ambience that seems to color a lot of the series. The best of these are undoubtedly the feminist bookstore bits featuring the depressive duo of Candace and Toni, with Armisen hilariously cross dressing and partnering with Brownstein as the owner – operators of a dowdy bookstore called “Women and Women First”. Everything is a quasi-sexual assault to these “women”, including an air conditioner repairman who has the temerity to use the word “unit” (which the women take as a metaphor for the male sexual organ). There’s also a decent guest star turn by Penny Marshall as an ex-partner of the women who went on to fame and glory as the marketer of a Snuggie like phenomenon. This particular episode points one of the glaring issues with Portlandia: it often isn’t quite as funny as it tries to insist it is.

Another standout in this second season is Kyle McLachlan’s continuing role as Portland’s daffy mayor (our real mayor Sam Adams portrays his aide). McLachlan’s affably clueless take on the character seems to be perfectly aligned with what many of us here in Portland have actually experienced with many of our elected officials. Portlandia also deserves major kudos for regularly utilizing a great group of Portland professionals in supporting roles (since many of these folks are personal friends of mine, I’ll refrain from discussing their performances individually). The second season continues a nice assortment of fanciful guest turns, as evidenced by Penny Marshall referenced above. Obviously there’s something about the Rose City that is proving alluring to some of these notable personalities. If it proves to be nothing other than derisive laughter, so be it.

Portlandia: Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Portlandia: Season Two is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of VSC with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. As with the first season of the series, there's a verité style to the filming of the show which adds to its amiability, but which also keeps the series from ever really popping with high definition magnificence. A lot of the show seems to have been filmed in natural (or near natural) lighting conditions, and as such contrast is highly variable and many of the interior scenes are kind of murky, with a couple looking downright muddy and indistinct. Close-ups (and the series if full of them) do have some very nice fine object detail, and if the palette continues the kind of pallid ambience of the first season, it looks relatively accurate and full bodied.

Portlandia: Season Two Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Would lossless audio have materially improved Portlandia? Probably, at least with regard to its use of music, but the series' standard Dolby Digital 2.0 perks along well enough to handle what is this series' defining element: arch dialogue. There's not incredible separation here, with the bulk of the dialogue seeming to be pretty centrally placed, but fidelity is fine and there is certainly no damage to report. It might be nice for the producers to think about upping the ante to a surround mix for the third season, especially when the series ventures outside into the dank climes of the Portland metro region.

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

• Commentaries by Fred Armisen, Carrie Brownstein and Jonathan Krisel. These are relatively low key affairs, but major props to Armisen and Brownstein for giving shout outs to the many Portland locals who appear as featured players in several episodes.


• Specials includes:
  

  Portlandia the Tour: Seattle (1080i; 3:20) is a brief visit to Brownstein's home town. Brownstein makes no bones about dissing Portland to the Seattle audience. Not cool, Carrie. Props to Kyle McLachlan, another Washingtonian, for sticking up for us.

  Inside Portlandia (HD; 22:39) is a behind the scenes feature that was aired as a promotional piece.

  Brunch Village: The Director's Cut (HD; 45:03) has quite a bit of additional material, including McLachlan serving as a narrator – host of sorts.

  Deleted Scene "Feminine Bookstore" (1080i; 2:50) finds the never easy to please Toni and Candace trying to spend a gift certificate at a bizarre store.

• Book Excerpt from Portlandia: A Guide for Visitors features text culled from a new "tour book" scheduled to be released in November.

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

Portlandia is probably best seen as an acquired taste, kind of like its subject city itself. The show still tends to annoy as much as it provokes laughter, and Carrie Brownstein's assertion that most of the characters featured in this season are just this side of a psychotic breakdown is also one of the series' most frustrating elements. Over and over (and over) again, we get goofy people doing insanely dunderheaded things, with no relief in sight. As I mentioned in my review of Portlandia: Season One, I personally think the show would be materially better if there were occasional at least relatively "normal" people included (think Marilyn Munster in The Munsters for a decent, if archaic, example). Still, the show continues to mine the rather fertile territory of Portland weirdness, though I'm still waiting for the episode about the over critical Portland based Blu-ray reviewer who thinks he can improve a show that has won a Peabody and become something of a cultural phenomenon. Recommended.