June 28th, 2009 9:31 am

‘Everwood’ The Complete Second Season

‘Everwood’ is a rare example of a family drama which is smart and topical, all the while being cool and entertaining.

‘Everwood’ is one of my favourite shows ever. Like many others, I fell in love the small town of Everwood, Colorado back when it aired on The WB and subsequently on the Nine Network in Australia.

The Complete First Season was released by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment back in September 2004. It was a number of new teen dramas headed to DVD, including Josh Schwartz’s ‘The OC’.

A few years went by and there had been no word on the second season of ‘Everwood’. Despite ‘The OC’ seeing several later season hit shevles.

The initial response from Warner Bros. was that they had no plans to release future seasons of ‘Everwood’ because of poor sales on the first season.

So naturally, when it became apparent that the second season would never come out on DVD, I was absolutely devastated.

Then in July last year, there were a couple rumblings of a release, with music artist Will Derryberry stating on his blog that some of his songs would be featured in episodes of ‘Everwood’ headed for TheWB.com video portal and on DVD.

At this point it became apparent that Warner Bros. were working on acquiring licences for the music featured in the series, plus a number of additional music replacements.

Finally in September last year, the news was confirmed by Warner Bros. Vice President of TV marketing during the online Home Theatre Forum chat. Finally!

So here we are, five years later and ‘Everwood’ The Complete Second Season is finally out on DVD and boy was is worth the wait.

The second season picks up exactly where the first season left off, where we were let wondering many questions, including: Did Colin survive the surgery? Will Amy and Ephram finally get together?

The answer to one of these questions becomes apparent within the first five minutes, but not before a convincing daydream sequence, which leads us to believe otherwise.

We see how these characters, which we’ve grown to love, deal with the loss of such a pivotal character during the show’s first season. We see them through their ups and downs and ultimately how their small town universe is suddenly altered.

Existing relationships are tested with the reversal two key relationships. We also see new relationships develop out of all the chaos of last season.

Season two also introduces a number of new characters, including Dr. Linda Abbott, a new love interest for Dr. Andy Brown (Treat Williams), played by the incomparable Marcia Cross (‘Desperate Housewives’).

Deliah’s new baby-sitter Madison (Sarah Lancaster, ‘Chuck’), who becomes an interesting influence on the adolescent Ephram (Gregory Smith).

Finally, bad boy Tommy (Paul Wesley, ‘The Vampire Diaries’), who leads Amy (Emily Vancamp) down a dark path as she struggles to deal with her loss.

Here we have 22 brilliantly crafted episodes, dealing with such topical social issues including adolescent sex, depression and AIDS;  all though the microcosm of a small mountain town.

‘Everwood’ is poetic, eye opening and makes for an unbeatable television experience.

The images are sharp and presented in a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio, preserving the original broadcast presentation. Some music has been replaced for this home entertainment version, but nothing too detrimental to the overall experience. Fortunately the series features a lot of original music composed by Blake Neely, including the series theme song, all of which is still intact.

Bonus features are pretty sparse. There’s just a batch of deleted scenes, some of which are great additions, others not so much.

I guess that’s what happens when you wait five years to release a series on DVD. Hopefully for future releases, Warner Bros. will make more effort in producing cast and crew interviews, commentaries and behind the scenes featurettes.

It’d be of particular interest to hear from series creator Greg Berlanti, whose since gone off to produce ‘Brothers and Sisters’, ‘Dirty Sexy Money’, ‘Eli Stone’ and co-write the upcoming blockbuster ‘The Green Lantern’.

“Everwood’ The Complete Second Season is a rare example of a family drama which is smart and topical, all the while being cool and entertaining.

Let’s hope Warner Bros. fast track the release of the final two seasons of this outstanding series.