Series: The War At Home: Complete First Season is a Fox Network series about a nuclear family set in modern day New York where none of the family has any special abilities, insights, or outstanding characteristics. In fact, they are probably the most realistic television family I've seen in the last 40+ years of voracious watching. The family in question is the Gold family, with insurance salesman Dave (Michael Rapaport) as the dopy father, Vicky (Anita Barone) as the MILF mother, Hillary (Kaylee DeFer) as the slutty daughter, Larry (Kyle Sullivan) as the older and effeminate brother, and Mike (Dean Collins) as the 13 year old street smart youngest brother. The parents are not the time tested fountains of wisdom espousing clean living and all the usual values that few people seem to care about these days; no, they are jaded, world worn types that mean well but basically find their kids to be a pain in the ass most of the time.

Dave being Jewish and Vicky being Catholic doesn't help matters any except for the fact that neither practices their faith, sharing stories of the troubles they faced as youth thanks to the tenants of their faith (and primarily their lack of observing them). Unlike some shows where the couple are at each other's throats the entire time, these two seem to genuinely like each other; be it for their sexual needs, their role in the family (mother tending her chores or father earning the money), and their main source of trouble comes from the kids or their reactions to the kids. Hillary, for example, makes everything a melodrama of epic proportions and loudly proclaims her life being ruined frequently at the drop of a hat, while Larry is so clearly homosexual that Dave takes it for granted despite his protests to the contrary. Larry's best friend Kenny is a regular fixture in the first half of the season, not out of the closet but always trying to drag Larry inside it with him to make out (yet oblivious Larry never catches on).

The main topic of humor for the show is sex in one form or another. While there is some religious banter and minor swipes at other topics, probably 90% or more of the rapid fire jokes are aimed at sexual situations, sexual conduct, or topics relating to sex in some way or another. For example, Larry is shown as clearly straight to the audience at every turn yet he likes Broadway musicals, speaks with a high pitched voice, and acts like a drama queen amplified to the nth degree. His father is ashamed of him because of this but tries to fight his own societal programming to accept "the little fruit" as best he can because he loves him. When he finally starts going out with a girl, a trollish little slug by any standard; Dave is almost relieved except for the fact that she is so ugly that she'd have to sneak up on a glass of water to get a drink. Still, he finds comfort in the fact that Larry is seeing a female and tells his son that it's okay to stay with her as a "starter" girlfriend until he trades up.

Hillary, on the other hand, is one of the vacuous hotties of TV. She's not as stupid as Kelly Bundy and her many making out sessions never lead to her having actual sex; though she tries hard enough, but she lies freely and takes advantage of all around her using her feminine wiles because she's as shallow as a puddle. Devious Mike, on the other hand, spies on the others and has no problem using the information gathered to get what he wants from anyone; including threatening to tell one parent about what he finds out on the other (netting him a BB gun, some cool sneakers, or keeping him from getting in trouble when caught stealing dad's ID and gambling online). Sadly, in the first season at least, Mike is often the most underutilized kid of the pack.

Most of the humor takes place in their two story home in the suburbs, with Dave as the focal point of the humor, involving situations he gets into. He's a schmuck that still drinks too much, uses drugs, and is about as hypocritical a father as you'll find; preaching the horrors of many things while partaking of them himself. This often leads to him getting into trouble, forcing him to unsuccessfully lie his way out of it or make things far worse instead. Vicky is no better, the two seeking solace in the garage with wine or pot when things get rough, but they have a truthful edge that the idealic parents of TV history would never come close too. They make lots of mistakes and have the kind of disbelieving attitude towards each other and the kids that makes the humor all the more believable as a result. Even some of the mean-spirited humor comes off as better than average thanks to the way it is handled. When Mike schemes up a plot to rake in the dough by having a bar mitzvah, the parents see right through it and require he take Hebrew and do it the old fashioned way, just as Hillary falls for Mike's student teacher and pretends she's into the religion as well (much to the chagrin of Vicky who had hopes of her embracing her Catholic heritage instead). Mike runs away since he couldn't go to the ice capades and Mom wishes him well; even as he calls from his bus ride hundreds of miles away. You get the idea.

In all, the comedy is lighthearted but searingly honest in how it approaches the topics of the day. I remember when this one first came out, the reviews trashed it all over the place but aside from an aggressive laugh track, the number of good one liners was far better than average and if some of the lines of humor got a bit old to me at times; keep in mind that I watched this show almost all at once instead of an episode a week as it was intended. The extras and lack of commercials alone made it a better choice for me to enjoy than I would have if I ever watched it on TV so I rated it as Recommended, a number of you probably thinking it was too high and just as many thinking the opposite. Part of how well you receive this one will depend on how much you care for the way in which the characters address the camera as though acknowledging it's presence just as those of you looking for the family dynamic of shows like The Waltons will find this a decidedly wicked alternative but creator Rob Lotterstein seemed quite familiar with gay, Jewish, and other forms of humor more intimately than many others on TV these days and his own episodes seemed to be the best of the bunch regularly. This was largely generic sexual humor as Fox tends to excel at but it was enough to make me laugh a whole lot compared to some of the worn out cliché driven blasts from the past so give it a look. Oh, and the episodes were shown here in the order the creators were intended rather than aired.

1) Pilot (9/11/2005)
2) I.M. What I.M. (9/18/2005)
3) Guess Who's Coming To Bar-B-Q (10/2/2005)
4) High Crimes (9/25/2005)
5) Dave Get Your Gun (12/11/2005)
6) The Bigger They Come (11/13/2005)
7) Like A Virgin (11/6/2005)
8) Cheers (11/20/2005)
9) The Empire Spanks Back (11/27/2005)
10) Breaking Up Is Hard To Do (12/18/2005)
11) It's A Living (1/8/2006)
12) Three's Company (2/26/2006)
13) Gimme A Break (1/29/2006)
14) How Do You Spell Relief? (2/28/2006)
15) Looney Tunes (3/12/2006)
16) Oh, Grow Up (3/19/2006)
17) The Seventeen Year Itch (3/26/2006)
18) 13 Going On 30000 (4/9/2006)
19) Snow Job (4/16/2006)
20) Drive Me Crazy (4/30/2006)
21) Runaways (4/23/2006)
22) The West Palm Beach Story (4/16/2006)

Picture: The War At Home: Complete First Season was presented in an anamorphic widescreen color as shot by director Andy Cadiff with an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. It looked like most current sitcoms with proper lighting, decent editing, and few visual problems. The fleshtones were accurate and the sets relatively simple, the show looking good as shot on video with a bitrate between 4.5 and 6.5 Mbps most of the time.

Sound: The audio was presented in a basic 2.0 Dolby Digital English. I never saw the show when it aired on TV so I can't say how it compared (here or with the video) but it was a crisp, clean sound with minimal separation but a fair dynamic range. The music punctuated the punch lines, there was a generic laugh track, and special effects from time to time.

Extras: There were some decent extras to talk about on the three disc set. One of the first things I noticed here were the four unaired scenes. Not having seen the original episodes, I couldn't say how long they were but episodes 6, 16, 18, and 20 all had longer running times and seemed to flow nicely. There was a short but cute gag reel with the characters having fun. Lastly, there was a funny Living Room Confessions feature that had the cast members hamming it up as though they were very much like their onscreen personas. It served as a nice way to introduce the cast and crew, lending some insight to them in the process. The three discs were in the thin pak cases with a cardboard case.

Final Thoughts: The War At Home: Complete First Season was not a great training guide for new parents to follow but it was funny more often than not. The cast had a lot of chemistry and great timing, Michael Rapaport proving to be the perfect foil for the events as written. If you are easily offended by sexual humor or the occasional religious joke (there was far less to offend than The Book of Daniel or Tolerate This for those wanting more comic insight into religion), you might want to pass this one up but it was far better than the press gave it credit for a couple years ago when the show debuted. I'm not sure if The War At Home will enjoy a third season but it was much like Grounded For Life so if you like that one but want a bit more edge, this will be a great show to enjoy. If the show isn't picked up, I hope Rapaport gets into something with a higher profile but even Barone proved to work really well here.