{"id":4338,"date":"2012-02-24T11:31:25","date_gmt":"2012-02-24T16:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=4338"},"modified":"2012-02-24T11:31:25","modified_gmt":"2012-02-24T16:31:25","slug":"dvd-durham-county-season-3-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=4338","title":{"rendered":"DVD: Durham County, Season 3 (2009)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>D<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Excellent\/ DVD Transfer: Excellent\/ DVD Extras: Good<\/p>\n

Label: Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada \/ Muse International\/ Region: 1 (NTSC) \/\u00a0Released: February 21, 2012<\/p>\n

Genre: TV Series \/ Crime Drama \/ Suburban Malaise<\/p>\n

Synopsis: While investigating the killings of teen drug runners, Mike Sweeney’s new partner, war hero Ivan Sujic, holds many secrets that will also threaten the peace of the Sweeney family. No one is happy, many will die, but hey, that’s life for Canada’s most troubled cop.<\/p>\n

Special Features: Making-of Featurette (12:51) – English only \/ Dual English & French language menus<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

TV\u2019s most messed up characters return for what\u2019s likely the third and final season, and in place of vile Ray Prager, the writers have brought in one mother of a complicated character who\u2019s not wholly evil in spite of beating his wife to death in the premiere\u2019s first 5 minutes in a horrific fit of jealous rage.<\/p>\n

Ivan Sujic (Michael Nardone) is the end product of a conflict raging since the fall of Yugoslavia. He\u2019s a Serbian son who immigrated to Canada, became a soldier and served with distinction for the U.N. peacekeepers, but was emotionally blackmailed into killing a boy to prove his fidelity to his sadistic friend Miro (Andreas Aspergis, sporting the maddest hairstyle ever) and the latter\u2019s mercenary cousins. After marrying Miro\u2019s sister Katya, the newly minted couple moved back to Canada and attempted to start a new life, planning for a child, and Ivan quickly becoming a Toronto cop.<\/p>\n

Naturally, emotional baggage and family loyalties corrupted Ivan\u2019s plans, not to mention his fertility problems (which were aggravated by rumors of marital infidelity when Miro and his idiot cousins arrived in Canada as quasi-refugees to set up their own little crime syndicate).<\/p>\n

Conflict of interest for Ivan? You bet! And Miro\u2019s accusations of Katya\u2019s infidelity not only planted the murderous seed in Ivan, but guaranteed his loyalty would no longer be exclusive to Metro\u2019s Finest.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s essentially the villain\u2019s primary background, and it\u2019s impossible to fully regard him as evil because he\u2019s also a good cop: he supports Mike Sweeney (Hugh Dillon) as the new partner, and the two must set aside rising mutual distrust when Ivan\u2019s missing wife becomes a nagging issue, and a hottie named Eva (Heartbeats<\/strong>\u2019 bodacious B\u00e9n\u00e9dicte D\u00e9cary) is endangered by Miro and his goons when she takes an interest in Mike.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, back at the Sweeney homestead, Audrey (H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Joy) is expecting a child, and daughter Sadie (Laurence Laboeuf) is carrying her own child that may owe more of its DNA mix to Ray Prager than boyfriend \/ potential fianc\u00e9 Ray Junior (Greyston Holt). Audrey\u2019s pregnancy eventually becomes unstable, and Ivan\u2019s involvement causes a major rift within the Sweeney family, with youngest daughter Maddie (Cicely Austin) regarding Ivan as trustable uncle.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like emotional incest, pricked by an unreal thickness of stressors that ultimately push not only Mike but Ivan far off into realms each had prayed they would never return, yet the pair must remain professional to solve a local gang war, and a series of drug runner killing where the youths were skinned and dismembered.<\/p>\n

Season 3 is described by its makers as larger in characters, scope and scale, and although the first five episodes brilliantly crest to an insane Grand Guignol saga of absolute social impropriety (a homoerotic drunken hugging scene between Ivan and Mike is brilliant bathos), the final episode reveals a few major problems that were never ironed out during the season. The amount of characters isn\u2019t a problem, but their usefulness is sometimes lessened, causing some to stand at the margins and step forward only when they\u2019re necessary for a new plot point. Among the weakest characters is Maddie who frankly should\u2019ve been written out the show and sent to a private school or college, returning only for the finale to chastise her father during a grim family situation.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also too many shock revelations that are packed into the finale, all of which create a bit of a blur among character motivations, their \u2018true\u2019 interrelationships, and their usefulness in the finale (of which one or two could and should\u2019ve easily been killed off to make things a bit neater).<\/p>\n

Still, for fans of Durham<\/strong> County<\/strong>, there\u2019s no disappointment in having numerous scenes that display the grey areas of inner and outer torment, of emotional consequences, and characters who initially seem begin vile, transfer to grey terrain, and remain sympathetic even when culpability in criminal activities extends to outright butchery. Season 3 is also much gorier and emotionally horrific, and fans may be wise to replay the prior Seasons 1<\/a> [M<\/a>] and 2<\/a> [M<\/a>] because the lengthy 1-2 years gaps between airings and \/ or video releases mandates a refresher course on exactly what small details have been carried over to the new season by the writers.<\/p>\n

The cast is uniformly good, but the real standout is Shannon Kook as a Chinese drug lieutenant David Cho. Kook gives his fairly flat character multiple levels of menace and normalcy, and he validates the soft compassion that compels Sadie to remain in contact with David when her duties as police trainee go beyond the day shift hours.<\/p>\n

Anchor Bay\u2019s 2-disc DVD set features crisp transfers of this gorgeously shot HD series (cinematographer Eri Cayla\u2019s a lighting magician), and while there are low light moments that reveal the video camera\u2019s limitations, they also give scenes a docu-drama feel. Pity the series hasn\u2019t been repackaged on Blu-ray, but perhaps that\u2019s being saved for the next installment, if the writers still have plans for a fourth season, or a feature-length film.<\/p>\n

The only bonus is a basic making-of featurette, but the interviews with cast and longer interviews with co-producer Michael Prupas, writers Laurie Finstad-Knizhik & Janice Lundman and directors Adrienne Mitchell & Charles Binam\u00e9 cover all the basics of the season\u2019s whys, hows, and new cast additions, including Michael Nardone (Rome<\/strong>), whose Scottish accent never wavers. Montreal looks nothing like Toronto (and neither do the silver commuter trains), but the creative team pull off some good camouflage to maintain the illusion.<\/p>\n

As for further adventures in distinct Canuck weirdness, Ray Prager is still out there\u2026 probably waiting to reclaim Sadie\u2026 so the question is whether the series\u2019 creative team are able to wrap up his loose storyline or let fans concoct their own happy \/ miserable ending for the Sweeneys.<\/p>\n

Also available: interviews with series producers\u00a0Adrienne Mitchell and Janis Lundman<\/a>, and Season 2 and 3 composer\u00a0Peter Chapman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2012 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Official Website<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Amazon Links & KQEK.com’s Media Store:<\/em><\/p>\n

Amazon.ca<\/a> —– Amazon.com<\/a> —– Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0D<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ D . Film: Excellent\/ DVD Transfer: Excellent\/ DVD Extras: Good Label: Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada \/ Muse International\/ Region: 1 (NTSC) \/\u00a0Released: February 21, 2012 Genre: TV Series \/ Crime Drama \/ Suburban Malaise Synopsis: While investigating the killings of teen drug runners, Mike Sweeney’s new partner, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[111],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-17Y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4338"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4338"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4341,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4338\/revisions\/4341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}