Third Season
- Drama
- 2004
- Buy the DVD
Reviewed by Will Harris
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hen Season Two of “Everwood� hit DVD, I didn’t have any overwhelming desire to review it for Bullz-Eye, but when a copy showed up at our offices, I decided to take a shot at watching it. I didn’t expect to come away from the experience a fan of the series, but damned if that wasn’t what happened. Still, when I heard a few months ago that Season Three was being released, I didn’t request a copy. Why? Well, you know how it is with TV-DVD these days: it’s already hard enough to keep up with the current series that are coming out, let alone to tackle the later seasons of shows that are long gone. My attempts at being responsible apparently didn’t matter to Warner Brothers, however, as they went ahead and set Bullz-Eye a copy, anyway.
What was I supposed to do, just let it sit there? Of course I agreed to review it, and, as you can see from the star rating which accompanies this review, I enjoyed “Everwood: The Complete Third Season�at least as much as I enjoyed the season that preceded it. Indeed, as a parent, it’s possible that I enjoyed Season Three even more than Season Two, as there was a great deal of focus on the struggles of parents who desperately want to do right by their children even as they know that their actions may well be perceived as a betrayal of trust.
At the end of Season Two, Dr. Andy Brown (Treat Williams) did something that no doubt left viewers reeling at the time, and it still surprised the heck out of me even when I watched it last year. Andy’s son, Ephram (Gregory Smith), got his girlfriend Madison (Sarah Lancaster) pregnant, but when Madison �now no longer seeing Ephram �confided in Andy first about her condition, he told her that he would pay for all of her expenses if she agreed to keep the pregnancy a secret. Why? Because he thought that Ephram’s sense of decency would leave him feeling obliged to stay with her, and he believed that Ephram deserved the chance to find his own future. Although Andy had already expressed his dissatisfaction with the relationship between his son and his much-older girlfriend, and somewhat reasonably placed much of the blame on the situation on Madison’s shoulders (the premise being that she’s older and should’ve known better), it seemed like a pretty harsh way to handle the situation. Still, you can’t say it didn’t feel real. Lots of parents make ill-conceived decisions while attempting to do the right thing, and Season Three �which kicked off with Madison cutting all ties with Andy while refusing to acknowledge whether she kept the baby or not �showed Andy dealing with the repercussions of keeping this secret from his son, one of which was an ulcer that kicked his ass about midway through the season.
Meanwhile, Ephram has returned from his summer at Juilliard and, having learned that his work wasn’t up to snuff, is uncertain what the future will hold for him. This causes a rift between him and his girlfriend, Amy Abbott (Emily VanCamp), who finds it hard to be supportive when all Ephram wants to do is sulk. Their coupling is prominent throughout the season, featuring a great deal of soul searching over when they’re going to have sex and, after they’ve done so, whether or not they’re trying to force a friendship into being a relationship. Amy’s father, Dr. Harold Abbott (Tom Amandes), has his own share of troubles during the season. It’s already an interesting dynamic between Harold and Andy when the two of them begin practicing medicine together, but things get really fascinating when Andy brings Harold into his confidence on the matter of Madison. In addition to Amy, Harold has plenty more of his own problems to deal with, including a slacker son (Chris Pratt), a disgruntled mother (Debra Mooney), and a wife (Merrilyn Gann) who’s battling cancer by season’s end.
What else is going on in Season Three? Andy begins to fall in love with Amanda Hayes (Anne Heche) while trying to help her husband recover from a stroke, and when he does, that’s pretty much the end of what they had going on. Everwood gets a new doctor in the form of Jake Hartman (Scott Wolf), and when Nina (Stephanie Niznik) and Jake hit it off, Andy begins to realize what might’ve been between him and Nina. The town gets a new teen in the form of Hannah Rogers (Sarah Drew), who ends up being Amy’s best friend. And, oh yes, Delia (Vivien Cardone) begins the process of flowering into womanhood. Good times.
Yep, “Everwood: The Complete Third Season�is another fine year from a very underrated drama. Here’s hoping we don’t have to wait long for the fourth and final season to earn a release.
Special Features: The only bonus material is a collection of what are described as “selected outtakes,�which immediately struck me as a strange choice of phrasing. I found myself wondering, “Are there more such outtakes in the Warner Brothers vault? And if so, then why were these selected over those? Why not just include them all? I smell a conspiracy…�Having now watched them, I’m even more confused: only a handful of outtakes are included, one of which is clearly from Season Two. I guess we should be pleased that Warner Brothers bothered to include any bonus material at all, but is this really all they could scrounge up?