| Plot |
| As the second season aired, the decline in TV ratings and the tepid sales of Kelly Osbourne's album indicated that the Osbourne family's 15 minutes were just about up. But this two-disc set is an indispensable time-capsule keepsake of that brief and shining moment when Ozzy and his family put their indelible stamp on pop culture as the stars of the first reality sitcom. For addled heavy-metal pioneer Ozzy, his fiercely devoted wife and manager Sharon, and two (of three) of their children--petulant misfit Jack and the more flamboyant pink-haired Kelly--it was a very good year. They were MTV's top-rated series ever. They graced magazine covers. They were championed by no less a moral arbiter than Dan Quayle. Even President George W. Bush got into the act, toasting Ozzy at the annual Washington Press Club soiree: "Ozzy, mom loves your stuff." The Osbournes is the kind of series for which the phrase "instantly addictive" was coined. The idea seemed positively batty: Chronicle the lives of the Osbournes as they settle in to their new Beverly Hills home. They ain't the Clampetts, as the crates marked "Dead Things" indicates. Persistent use of the F word and other obscenities (not bleeped on the uncensored DVD) aside, the Osbournes at heart are a close-knit, loving family. Or, as Ozzy so tenderly puts it, "I love you more than life itself, but you're all f------ mad." Episode 4 bears him out, as Sharon and Jack declare war on their noisy next-door neighbors with airborne foodstuffs. These 10 endlessly repeatable episodes are enhanced by this features-heavy DVD; among its most inspired extras is an "Ozzy translator." The first season of The Osbournes was a lightning-in-a- bottle phenomenon whose success has yet to be duplicated, not by the shameless Anna Nicole, not by clueless Liza, not even by the Osbournes themselves. --Donald Liebenson |
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