The Bill Engvall Show – The Complete First Season

The Bill Engvall Show
The Complete First Season
Bill Engvall, Nancy Travis
8 episodes 2 DVDs
Warner Home Video 2008

Read on for an exclusive clip. The Bill Engvall Show The Complete First Season is a pretty good situation comedy. This is a bit odd because Blue Collar Comedy spin-offs are either just bad like the TV show, godawful like The Ron White show, all 1 episode of it, and beyond dreadful like Delta Farce.

This is not a groundbreaking sitcom but the writing is superior to most. How many situation comedies rely on the last line of James Joyce’s Ulysses as a plot element?

Also, Engvall is pretty good as a therapist and family man. He has the usual Hollywood smart alec kids, 3 of them though they are not as cloying or annoying as most television kids, and a TV pretty smart wife.

The episodes feature some pretty decent writing and original storylines. For example, the first episode has Bill being an overeager football dad when his fourth-string quarterback some becomes a first stringer. This is well played-out and features some pretty funny scenes.

Episode 2 of Bill Engvall The Complete First Season has the family decide between an operation for the family dog and a trip to Hawaii. The scheme the kids use to get money for the operation is pretty good.

Even the standard how dad and mom met episode has a pretty original twist though we really did not need to revisit the eighties’ bad hair styles.

The character the Blue Collar comic plays is pretty much himself, complete with a few lines from his stage act. Engvall as a therapist is a bit of a stretch. That the actors playing his patients are not stellar at all does not help the audience buy the comic as a therapist. Tim Meadows (Saturday Night Live) is also weak as Bill’s best friend. To the show’s credit the kids are pretty good actors.

Of course, everything gets solved in less that 24 minutes but that is TV life.

Special features are your run of the mill tour of the set and cast interviews. The Ask Bill segment where Engvall “answers” “fan” letters is beyond lame.

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