The Story So Far...
Jamie Kennedy parlayed a modicum of celebrity (Scream being his biggest role) into his own TV show on the WB, which took advantage of his ability to disguise himself to play tricks on innocent victims. Hosted by Kennedy in a studio with a live audience, the 30-minute episodes featured an average of three segments each, occasionally involving celebrities in their pranks. The show ran for three seasons, producing 62 episodes in all.

Paramount had previously released two seasons of "The Jamie Kennedy Experiment" on DVD. DVDTalk reviews are available for Season One and Season Two.

The Show
Watching the second season of "The Jamie Kennedy Experiment" certainly didn't make me a fan of the show. The pranks were too complicated and the jokes weren't all that funny. Because of that, I didn't look forward to reviewing the third and final collection of episodes. But once I got the discs into my DVD player, I saw the show had improved tremendously between seasons, as a result of several changes to the show. One of the biggest provided the series with a multitude of new possibilities.

Instead of Kennedy hosting the show in a Hollywood studio, he's on the road, hosting on location, in places like New York, Miami and Philadelphia. Thanks to this change, he can do new location-specific gags, like working with local pro athletes (a situation that produced some of the season's best segments.) In dropping the complicated controlled settings of L.A. for on-location shoots, the energy and vitality of the gags increases ten-fold. Unfortunately, the hosting segments have the fake energy of the old "Club MTV," as hip, young people gyrate around Kennedy. But since they are short, they can be excused.

The biggest strengths of the show continue to be Kennedy's incredible ability to give himself over to his characters, his make-up crew's talent with wigs and prosthetics, and the chance to see human nature play itself out unfettered by (visible) cameras. Being able to see what people would do when no one is looking is a special treat for fans of sociology and schadenfreude. Some of the best bits in the show come when Kennedy leaves the room and the "mark" feels like he's alone. As seen on these DVDs, hidden-camera television reveals the best and worst of humanity.

Among the better "X's" in this season are the three Sports Dad segments, one with the Los Angeles Dodgers, one with the Philadelphia Flyers and one with the Miami Dolphins. In each, Kennedy plays the father of a young boy who has received the chance to practice with the pros. Unfortunately, he's unbearable and abusive to his kid. This doesn't sit well with the players, and their reactions are great. Another fabulous bit involves an extremely small apartment that finds about 20 people in a blackout. The way this is handled on-screen is comic gold.

Surprisingly, you don't get the vibe that humanity is on a steep spiral downhill from this show, unlike other hidden camera shows. The subjects are actually real people acting very real. More real than that "reality" crap that's been so popular on TV.

The DVDs
The 22 episodes from Season Three (two of which are part of a double-length special) are presented on three DVDs, each packaged in a ThinPak with a cover that lists the contents, airdates and a synopsis for each episode. The three cases come sheathed in a cardboard slipcase. The episodes are split with eight on Disc One, eight on Disc Two and six on Disc Three. Like last time, the menus are static, with no set-up options, and each episode is listed with segment titles. There are no subtitles, but the discs do have captioning.

The Quality
Once again, Paramount has presented the full-frame video at a very high level of quality. Depending on the location of the segment and the type of camera used, the lighting varies in quality, and skintones and shadows differ accordingly. The video seems to run a bit red at times, but overall the color is good. The audio is in Dolby 2.0, but is surprisingly deep, with laugh tracks and the main dialogue separated into different speakers. The music is also quite active. For a second straight season, the end credits are missing music, which may be a music rights issue there.

The Extras
With the series wrapped up, it seems like Paramount's up to their old tricks, including just six "2nd Marks," alternate takes with different targets for selected sketches. The previous collection had two commentaries and a selection of 2nd Marks, while the first set had 40 minutes of 2nd Marks, a behind-the-scenes featurette and commentaries. I guess they felt since the series is over, there's no fanbase to cultivate. It's unfortunate that the series wrapped up this way on DVD.

The Bottom Line
"The Jamie Kennedy Experiment" finished up strong as a series, and may have been cancelled too early, considering the strength of these episodes. The overly-complicated set-ups are gone and the level of comedy is probably the best seen during the show's run. The decreased amount of extras are certainly a disappointment, but if you're a fan, you'll enjoy this set. Anyone looking for a fun hidden camera show could do worse than this series.

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*The Reviewer's Bias section is an attempt to help readers use the review to its best effect. By knowing where the reviewer's biases lie on the film's subject matter, one can read the review with the right mindset.