Raising Hope Season One

Raising Hope The Complete First Season
Lucas Neff, Martha Plimpton, Garrett Dillahunt
22 Episodes 3 DVD
Originally aired FOX 2010-11
Fox Home Entertainment 2011

Jimmy Chance rescues a girl being chased by her angry boyfriend. They spend the night together in the van. Turns out the girl killed her last two boyfriends. She gets the death penalty and Jimmy gets the daughter they conceived that one night. That is the premise for the very original and funny FOX sitcom Raising Hope. Raising Hope The Complete First Season features 22 episodes on 3 DVD. This is one sitcom DVD set friends and family will be fighting over as to who watches next

Raising Hope not only has a good premise, it has an interesting setting. Jimmy lives with his mother, father, and cousin and everybody is pretty much squatting at Jimmy’s senile great grandmother’s house. The Chances are one step above the poverty line. Jimmy meets grocery store cashier Sabrina and they become a thing.

This situation comedy has a lot going for it. The writing is solid. It has a good sense of the visual gag combined with a darkish sense of humor. It is hard to resist that unless you are one of those politically correct people who have trouble making the difference between TV and real life.

The cast is also excellent. Martha Plimpton and Garret Dellahunt (Terminator, the TV series) play Jimmy’s parents and Cloris Leachman plays the senile Maw-Maw. Everybody is upstaged by the baby, Princess Beyonce aka Hope, who through the magic of television as superb comedic timing. Lucas Neff is decent as Jimmy but always looks a bit too eager and like Fred Figglehorn. Kate Micucci (Garfunkel and Oates) adds a Phoebe Buffay musical sensitivity.

It is fun to see a relatable bunch of people on TV; not since Roseanne has the lower middle class been depicted with some verisimilitude.

Listen for the reference to My Name Is Earl in the pilot.

Special features for Raising Hope Season One are the original pilot episode with some different cast members, commentary track for the pilot, Adorable Stars: Meet the Hopes; Moments with Mrs. Chance; Taking Chances: Shooting the Season Finale; Gag Reel; Deleted and Extended Scenes

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