The Shield may be lamentably gone from TV, but prominent alumnus Kurt Sutter seems to have taken it upon himself to carry on its legacy with Sons of Anarchy, and if the show's first season is any indication he's more than up to the task. Anyone who enjoyed The Shield's combination of intelligence and testosterone will certainly find a lot to like here, as SoA quickly established itself as among TV's most unique and consistently compelling shows and only got better from there. Striking a near-perfect balance between grit and sensationalism, it takes viewers through a world marked by violence, double-dealing, and racial division, with an emphasis on the ambiguous morality and personal and familial baggage that come with a life lived between the straight world and the criminal one. The machinations of the characters and the twists of the plot are almost operatic, but the show remains rooted in the harsh realities of gangland.

The premise is sort of Hamlet-meets-the-Sopranos: youthful biker and new dad Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam) finds himself trying to balance work with personal life as the Vice President of the Sons of Anarchy Motorcylcle Club Redwood Original (aka SAMCRO), a gun-running biker gang co-founded by his late father and now run by his stepfather Clay Morrow (the ever-swaggering Ron Perlman), who's married to Clay's widowed mother Gemma (Katey Sagal, in pretty much the biggest departure possible from her Married With Children days). From the somewhat hippie-ish beginnings envisioned by Jax's father, SAMCRO has evolved into a criminal powerhouse, especially in their central California base of Charming, where they're practically a small-town Mafia. These guys may not be as bad as the Hell's Angels, but the show makes it clear that they're far from harmless nonconformists, as we see them running guns, committing murders and (in one particularly stunning scene) burning off the tattoo of a perfidious former member. Single-episode plots focusing on the gang's efforts to turn a profit and stay out of trouble are expertly mixed with longer arcs dealing with the constant conflicts of gangland life and the mounting tensions within the club. As the season progresses, it increasingly develops into a battle of viewpoints between Clay's world-weary cynicism and Jax's (relatively) idealistic leanings and pangs of conscience, which leads inexorably to a conclusion that already has me drooling in anticpation of season two.

In another welcome parallel with The Shield, the show's writing gets progressively more complex and nuanced as the season goes on, giving the cast, a nice assemblage of recognizable (but not household) names, a lot of room to work. Further cementing his status as Hollywood's leading Jewish tough-guy actor, Perlman is impossible not to watch as Clay, the club leader who walks a fine line between toughness and ruthlessness. Clay's a classic antihero in the Tony Soprano-Vic Mackey mold, whose occasional moments of decency don't quite compensate for his myriad of bad acts, but he's practically a softie compared to his wife. Taking the concept of standing by her men very seriously, Gemma's the very picture of steely determination, willing to say and do anything to safeguard her family, and she shares both Clay's ability to perceive all the angles and his lack of reservations in doing what needs to be done.

For his part, Jax is certainly no saint, but he hasn't quite been won over to the Machiavellian value system championed by his mother and stepfather. Constantly tugging at his conscience are the newly-discovered writings of his late father John, a somewhat intellectual type who didn't necessarily intend for the club to become a crime syndicate. The voice-over narration of John's journal is a bit of a contrived device in a show largely devoid of them, but it does nicely frame the struggles that come to define the season. This season also sees a succession of great supporting turns from recognizable faces--Jay Karnes as a twisted ATF agent with a thing for Jax's ex, Mitch Pileggi as a vicious Nazi meth lord, Ally Walker as an enjoyably amoral Fed who vows to take the Sons down--that only serve to up the entertainment quotient. Even the law-enforcement officers--the shady, compromised Chief Unser and the more principled, by-the-book Deputy Chief Hale--eventually emerge as multi-dimensional characters in their own right.

Overall, it's extremely difficult to find fault with this season. SoA seems to have flown under the radar a bit while shows like Mad Men and Breaking Bad get all the acclaim, and while those are both great shows I think SoA easily holds its own as one of the best on TV right now. If it maintains its level of quality in season two, we viewers could have yet another all-time great on our hands.

The timing of Sons is obviously gauged to take advantage of the latest mid-life crisis which requires men my age to buy Harleys and spend their weekends pretending to be outlaw bikers.

Sons of Anarchy shows real potential as a worthy successor to The Sopranos - The Complete Series episodic brand of voyeurism. Sons offers to take us into the lives of those who live outside the social contracts (or constraints) most of us take for granted. However, unlike The Sopranos, the Sons are not a criminal version of royalty (a status bestowed by endless viewings of The Godfather DVD Collection .) Instead they are, (as described by another reviewer) "relatable." These are, for the most part, average joes, who've chosen to live outside the requirement to be a part of the herd or to "go along to get along."

Whether we actually practice it or not, the American ideal (or myth) is that of the rugged individualists, who band together to oppose the bureaucracy that wants to force these square pegs into round holes. Think of Rooster Cogburn in True Grit.

And that's the legend that Sons of Anarchy is based on. The basic concept is that the SAMCRO's (Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club - Redwood Originals) are latter-day Knights Errant. Following in the footsteps of Jesse James and John Dillinger (if you believe that they were only stealing from the villainous landlord or grasping banker and not the hard-working farmer) these outlaw bikers exist to protect their community from the evils of dope-dealing white supremacists and the rival Mayan motorcycle club. And that's where they lost me, at least a little bit.

I grew up in Fontana, California, with a family full of 1 %'ers (the one-percenter nom de plume arose after the 1947 Hollister riots, when the America Motorcycle Association famously proclaimed that "99% of motorcycle riders were decent citizens" and "1%" were outlaws.) The brotherhood is undeniable - every member was loyal to the patch and would do anything and everything he could to help another brother.

But the loyalty was entirely to the club - if you weren't patched you were just strangers, worthy of no more consideration than the bug that slammed into your teeth as you roared your Harley down Route 66. The idea of them banding together to protect their city, or even their block, just left me a little incredulous. However, I'm nit-picking - this is fiction and I need to be more forgiving.

So now that I've aired my petty grievances, let me tell you what I loved.

This is probably the finest cast on the small screen I've seen in a long, long time. Even though the story is theoretically about Jackson "Jax" Teller (played by Charlie Hunnam), it was Rob Perlman (of Hellboy fame) and Katey Sagal (finally escaping from Married with Children) that were the most realistic characters and really made the show. While Jax is an interesting character and was obviously designed drive the main themes of the show, I couldn't help but wonder how this brooding prince (think Hamlet) was able to rise to the level of vice-prez without committing some horrific act of violence, which the show promises to have a lot of.

Sons was created by Kurt Sutter, a writer and executive producer on The Shield so you know he's going to keep this series gritty and as realistic as possible.

Sons promises a lot and I'm looking forward to the next episode. Now if only I could convince my wife to let me buy a Harley...

Had not watched this show during the first season run, but I had customers asking about it for months now, so in seeing the Blu option I took a chance. The demand has been huge and the feedback has been excellent. A well produced show, a great cast, a gritty yet flowing soundtrack (Primal Scream, Lions, Bob Thiele, Curtis Stigers) all put together onto a solid Blu package.

The picture quality through all 13 episodes maintained decently, with only a few failures here and there depending on the night footage. The DTS is mixed just well enough to hear such gems as a cigarette burning while the Harley floods the outer channels, or a dog barking out a rear channel that makes you jump, or one of the few bass scenes (thumping music) when they enter the Niners Club in Oakland. The music was actually done just right in each episode as to not drown out any peripheral chatter or relevant goings-on. The supplements are placed entirely on disc 3 and include:
* Making of - 9 minutes which initially I thought was way too short but it gets made up for with everything else.
* Ink - 4:45 clip on everything tatoo. Unfortunately none of them were real.
* Bikes - 7 minute blurb on everything one needs to know about each character's mc. Caters to the enthusiasts wondering about the specs.
* Casting - 15 minutes of audition tapes mixed in with interviews for each primary and secondary character. I liked Pileggi's take on showing people he can be bad ("not Skinner").
* Deleted scenes - 35 minutes, half of which should have been left in, especially with such gems (plot holes) as how those panties kept getting flushed, Segal's chest scar, the clothing optional bathroom scene, Prospect feeling the wrath for beating Elvis, Pine being more aware of Clay's feel on his kid, and more.
* Gag reel - 7 minutes that actually contained more highlights than gags, including every single kill of the season crammed into one minute, every single breast, butt and kiss shot montaged together, and the answer to that nagging question of what Tig really did in the morgue (he is just not right at all).
* Commentary on the last episode by a ton of cast and crew.

The 3 disc set is a worthwhile owner for any fan of the series, and even though there are plenty of clarity fades and intermittent grain, the Blu package filled out nicely. Plenty of heated debates out there about the authenticity of the show, but Kurt Sutter was very honest about the research and stated no one would give him a single iota of material - he had to imagine all of this up. Congrats on making a competent brotherhood motorcycle club family drama.