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Saving Grace Season One Review

saving-grace-season-one Saving Grace Season One Review

Release Date: July 15th, 2008
Genre: Drama, Crime Drama
Price: $34.99 on Amazon
Run Time: 576 Minutes
Publisher: 20th Century Fox
Similar to: Pretty much every other crime drama out there

When I received Saving Grace in the mail I didn’t know what to expect. I really didn’t know much about what the show was about but I heard that quite a few people liked the show. After watching the first season I would say the show is pretty much comprised of two parts. One part I liked and the other I didn’t like at all.

Plot

The story of Saving Grace follows Grace Hanadarko. Grace is definitely not in a good spot in her life. He life is actually coming apart at the seems. She is sleeping with a married man. She has alcohol problems. Finally she has deep secrets that she just can’t get over. Grace is given a second chance when an angel named Earl shows up and offers to help her change her life around. While Grace tries to turn her life around she continues her job at the police station and tries to bring criminals to justice.

As I mentioned earlier saving Grace is pretty much a two part show. There is the crime drama aspect with the weekly cases and then there is the story about Grace trying to turn her life around. I actually like the part about Grace trying to turn her life around but I hate the crime drama aspect of the show. The crime drama aspects of the show are essentially nothing new whatsoever. Just like so many other crime dramas, Saving Grace essentially has the same cases that every other crime drama has. I seriously don’t know why crime dramas can’t try anything new. Every crime drama is essentially a rehash from the same formula with different characters and that is about it.

I am probably being a little harsh on the story. The parts of the story featuring Earl are actually pretty good. The problem is that there isn’t nearly enough of them. The story focusses way too much on the crimes and I am not going to talk about why that is bad anymore. The story is bad but don’t expect anything highly original or you will be disappointed by Saving Grace.

Acting

Overall the acting is pretty good in saving Grace. The acting is probably one of the strong points of the show. Holly Hunter does a good job as Grace Hanadarko even though I don’t think she was deserving of her Golden Globe nomination. The rest of the cast is also very solid. I thought the acting actually helped redeem the plot a little and get over the unoriginal storylines.

Visuals

Overall the visuals are nothing special. Just take your normal crime drama and add a couple angel affects and you can pretty much tell what Saving Grace looks like. It doesn’t look bad but when you have seen one cirme drama you have seen them all. Saving Grace doesn’t stand out at all visually so I would have to say it is only a little above average visually.

Special Features

Overall the special features in this DVD set were actually pretty surprising. You actually get quite a few special features on this DVD set. You get 5 behind the scenes featurettes with the cast and crew of Saving Grace. Fans of the show should enjoy these. You also get commentaries (what DVD set doesn’t provide commentaries) and a Everlast Music Video. Pretty much like every other DVD set, your enjoyment of the special features will depend on how much you like the show.

Parental Warning

Just to warn parents in case they didn’t know, Saving Grace is not a show for children. With the combination of swearing, sex, and other adult themes I would recommend that parents don’t let their children watch the show unless they are at least 14 to 15 years old. There are much worse shows out there but I want to bring this up so parents know what they would be exposing to their children before they decided on whether to let their kids watch the show.

Final Thoughts

Saving Grace is essentially a tale of two parts. I liked the aspect of the show involving Grace trying to turn her life around. I didn’t like the crime drama aspects though. When this occurs I can’t say the show is any better than average. If you don’t like crime dramas I would recommend that you stay away from saving Grace. If you like crime dramas though I would recommend that you look into picking up Saving Grace.

My Rating: