And they say that creative, bizarre shows don't make it on TV anymore...Meet Earl(Jason Lee). Earl is a petty criminal who one day won $100,000 on a scratch-off ticket. Celebrating his unexpected win, Earl is hit by a car, loses the ticket, and ends up in the hospital where he decides that he needs to balance out all the bad things he has done in his life. Finding the ticket and getting his money, Earl is convinced that karma has put him on this mission, much to the dismay of his brother Randy (Ethan Suplee), his ex-wife Joy(Jaime Pressley), and her new boyfriend Darnell the Crab Man(Eddie Steeples).

Since the airing of the pilot, both critics and audiences have been blown away by My Name is Earl. Besides a extremely talented cast whose comedic chops are perfectly timed, Earl has a solid cast of writers who create 22-minutes of laugh out loud comedy every week. Earl's guest stars in Season 1 rival only Scrubs, including Giovanni Ribisi, Johnny Galecki, Beau Bridges, Jon Favreau, Adam Goldberg, Christine Taylor, and Juliette Lewis.

Season 1 of My Name is Earl offered 24 solid episodes, including the pilot, and received the Director's Guild Award and the People's Choice Award for Best New Comedy, and was nominated for a half dozen other awards including 2 Golden Globes. This would be a 5-star show but it remains to be seen if the writers and producers can keep this level of energy up for several more seasons. As First Seasons go though, this is one of the best to come along since Scrubs.

The DVD set just released and it is jam packed with extras include 8 episode commentaries, a 15-minute mini-episode that incorporates the Family Guy into the show, deleted scenes from 6 episodes, some outtake reels that highlight the improvisational nature of Jason Lee, Jamie Pressly, and Ethan Supplee, and a Behind The Scenes look at the show. This is a solid and fun show, and it deserves a place in your collection. Highly Recommended.

A.G. Corwin
St.Louis, MO

If you've read the last 14 reviews, you already know the premise and story of the show. Here's what you won't read from anyone else: Under this show's veneer of blue collar humor lies a deeply spiritual and optimistic journey. The show is comedy in the classical sense--characters in a low place are raised up in the end by a series of events--but it is mainly about repentence, restitution and redemption. Earl decides to change his life for the better and stops doing the bad things he did before (repentence), he goes about seeking forgiveness from the people he has wronged and tries to restore what he has taken from them (restitution) and in the end he and the wronged people are better off for it (redemption). I believe the writers chose well in using the concept of instant karma as the vehicle--the driving force Earl has faith in--because that is a universal concept that all religions can identify and respect. Also, I love how intelligently subtle the change in Earl is portrayed. In every episode you will see a flashback of the "before" Earl along with "new" Earl; notice that there is no difference in clothing or hairstyle from before and after. The change is in his heart and behavior only, where it matters. TV writers usually smack you over the head with visual cues.

Anyone who has strived for spiritual improvement can readily identify with Earl. There are some aspects of that path that are easy and immediately rewarding, but that's not always true. Sometimes you have to suffer the misunderstanding, mocking or rejection of your friends and/or relatives or difficult, unforgiving souls. Later epsiodes have their difficult moments and Earl has to hold tight to his faith to get through it. The most significant of such situations is in the episode "Number One", when Earl gives all his money to the man who was supposed to win it. He ends up losing everything except his faith, hungry and homeless, but is finally restored. Lynard Skynard's "Simple Man" was the perfect music for that scene.

I am very happy to see this show put on DVD because NBC edited bits and pieces out when they reran the episodes to make more time for commercials. Some of those bits are important to comedic timing and storyline flow. I highly recommend you get this collection and try to view the episodes through its spiritual prism.

I didn't watch this show until I found it on DVD, but I was hooked from the first episode. I watched all episodes from Season 1 in a few day; this is a pretty good show. The show has a pretty clever concept--a small time crook named Earl (Jason Lee) is almost killed after he wins $100,000 from an instant lottery ticket. He believes that Karma is punishing him for all the bad things he's done. Therefore, he makes a list of all the people he has wronged in his life and tries to make it up to them one-by-one (or one episode at a time).

The show has great writing and a very good ensemble cast--highlighted by Jaime Pressly's dead-on performance as Earl's ex-wife. What makes the show really great is that it doesn't make fun of it characters. My Name is Earl could get many easy jokes out of the subject matter--lower class, uneducated rural folk--but instead it develops the characters. And the actors play it straight--they never wink at the camera; therefore, they form well-founded characters and not just chariactures.

The show features several recognizable faces in cameos including Dax Shepard, Giovanni Ribisi (hilarious in 2 episodes), Missi Pyle, Timothy Stack, Johnny Galecki, Beau Bridges, Jon Favreau, Adam Goldberg, Samm Levine, Christine Taylor, Malcolm David Kelley, Juliette Lewis, Clint Howard, Mike O'Malley, Max Perlich, and Lin Shaye. The DVD also includes delete scenes, which are better than the deleted scenes you usually find on a DVD.