Nashville Season 1

DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:

Makes Country Music relatable to everyone by focusing on the ups and downs of all kinds of artists and the people in their support systems. The 2 female leads are perfectly cast and bring depth and richness to their roles. Love the show and was surprised by how good it was. It hooks you fast even if you never listened to much country music and you will end up enjoying the music too. Hope this goes several seasons.- Amber

Plots are soapy, but lots of great musical performances make it worth it. The actors are all pretty good even with the turgid plot lines. Clare Bowen and Sam Palladio are Australian and English respectively, but their country music accents are just right and their duets are stunning. Check out “If I Didn’t Know Better”. Loveable Connie Britton as long-time country music queen “Rayna James”, looks and acts the part, but her voice is barely up to the hype attributed to Rayna. Shoulda dubbed her. “Rayna” loves “Deacon”, played by Chip Esten, but they’ve been unable to hook up since their early careers, even though Deacon fathered Rayna’s daughter, now 14. And he doesn’t even know! They just keep circling each other and we just keep rooting for them get on with it. They have beaucoup chemistry.
Hayden Panettierre is a little over-the-top, spoiled diva-wannabe, hoping to assume Rayna’s crown. However, she’s a hot mess and a little goes a long way with Hayden’s acting….but her voice and sexy delivery is fine. Johnathan Jackson as writer/singer “Avery Barkley” needs more performance time….he has real acting chops and a compelling voice. The writing won’t improve your mind, but you’ll enjoy the music, you’ll like the characters, and you’ll hang around for the next season.

– Birder Girl

This is basically a soap opera set in the Nashville country and political music scene. The main story involves Connie Britton (best known for her role in Spin City) stars as an aging country music star who is trying to keep her career going, and Hayden Panettiere (best known from Heroes) is the young diva…kind of the country version of Britney Spears when she hit the pop scene years ago, who is immensely popular but thought of as a joke by the “real” musicians. They are both trying to reinvent themselves to appeal to a wider audience.

There are also several ancillary stories involving affairs, love triangles, illegitimate children, screwed up family members, drugs etc. Basically everything you would expect from a show of this type. It is not so complex that it is hard to keep it all straight, and the show does a very good job of developing and occasionally interweaving the various story lines. Some of it does certainly get a little silly, but none is so over the top that it is totally stupid.

The good thing about the show is that you do not really need to be a country fan to enjoy it. You may or may not like the music a little more if you are a fan of contemporary country, but I think the music they include have a wide enough appeal that even if you are not a huge fan you can sit through it without wanting to turn it off. Which is essential given how much of a key role the music plays in the show. Pretty much every show has a pretty long musical number (usually to end the episode) and lots of smaller numbers throughout the show. Another good thing about the show is that the actors actually sing the songs, and do a good job doing so.

The acting and the writing of the stories are very good. I liked the stories involving the mayoral race, election and fallout (mainly because Powers Boothe plays such a great bad guy) and Juliette’s mother’s substance abuse more (at times) than the main music rivalry stories. One comes to a conclusion (mostly) by the end of the season, and one is left pretty much open ended. There are couple cliffhangers going into the second season that will work prominently into the story.

For those who get the DVDs, there is a lot of bonus material included. A few short making of and behind the scenes features, some deleted scenes and a couple song specific features on how a couple of the more prominent songs were worked into the show. All in all, enough to make those who like going through that material happy.

Whether you like a show like this or not will be pretty subjective. It is much in the genre of shows that are part drama, part soap opera. So if you do not tend to like those kinds of shows anyway then you will not like this. If you do tend to like those kinds of shows, then this is definitely worth giving a chance.

– Mike S.

DVD Wholesale Main Features:

Format: AC-3, Box set, Color, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
Subtitles: French, Spanish, English
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only.)
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Number of discs: 5
Studio: Buena Vista Home Entertainment
DVD Release Date: September 17, 2013
Run Time: 903 minutes

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