Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Watching Weeds Television

By Dan Levine

Weeds is an American comedy-drama television program developed for the Showtime network by Lionsgate Television. The woman responsible for the creation of the series is Jenji Kohan.

The plot of Weeds involves your typical American housewife whose life is fairly simple until her husband dies suddenly while jogging. In order to continue her suburban lifestyle, she needs to find a way to make ends meet which results in her entering the marijuana trade.

The TV series name, Weeds, seems to refer both to the plant that the protagonist sells (marijuana) as well as widow's weeds which is what one would wear when one's husband dies and becomes a widow. Additionally, it may refer to American suburbs which grow quickly like weeds and contain many people who are indistinguishable; just like weeds.

Weeds' opening theme song is called "Little Boxes" which is played along with images of many small houses in a typical American suburban neighborhood. This is to further enforce the weed like mentality that was spoken about in the preceding paragraph.

Weeds is now in its fifth season and made its start in 2005. It was Showtime's series that received its highest rating during its first year playing and is a definite success for the channel. This season attracted about 962,000 viewers on average.

1.2 million viewers and an additional 500,000 for the rerun later that night meant that the season 5 premier was a definite success and with a total viewership of 1.7 million, it is safe to say that the Showtime channel was probably quite happy.

Much of the scenery and exterior shots on the show are shot in California in places like Santa Clarita Valley and Calabasas, California.

Nancy Botwin is the protagonist who is the housewife whose husband dies. She lives the typical affluent suburban life style in a very nice neighborhood where one wouldn't think much about drugs or other seedy type activity. However, after her husband's quick death while out jogging, she must find a way to make ends meet which leads her to begin selling marijuana to her neighbors and friends. Later on, she must continue to expand her customer base which brings on more challenges and obstacles.

Celia is Nancy's best enemy and friend. She is in a marriage that is particularly unhappy which may explain why she is so attracted to various vices like alcohol and trying to take others down in order to "teach them a lesson". However, her friend/enemy status is interesting in contrast to Nancy.

Weeds' Season 1 begins with Nancy's husband dying which is the catalyst for the basis of the show which involves Nancy entering the marijuana dealings to keep her affluent suburban life alive.

Both of Nancy's children attend public school but for Nancy to live and keep going on in her upper middle class lifestyle, she has to make ends meet and this involves her entrance to the marijuana market when she begins to sell to her friends and neighbors.

Later on, some of Nancy's customers begin to go to a medical marijuana dispensary because its quality of weed is far superior to that of Nancy's. Nancy is forced to employ her cooking skills to make baked goods and thus find a way to continue to sell her inferior weed to her customers. She later opens a bakery in order to cover this baking up while putting Costco products on her shelves to further her cover.

Weeds is a very good television program that has been doing quite well for some time now. If the characters and plot seem interesting to you, it would be worth checking out on the Showtime network. You may also view clips and other videos from the show online if you search around a bit for the "Weeds" television title. - 23815

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