The Comedy Central show casts Silverman as a mean-spirited narcissist happy to live off the largesse of her kindly nurse sister Laura (played by Silverman’s real-life sister Laura) in lieu of finding a job or any real purpose in life beyond ruining the happiness of others and coaxing strangers into paying attention to her. And she’ll do it by any means necessary, like suing the film Home Alone (not the makers of the film, the physical film itself) after accidentally killing a neighbor in a Home Alone-like stunt or entering a child beauty pageant as an adult. The star-creator-producer’s toxic self-absorption is undercut by the underlying sweetness of the two couples that make up the show’s ace supporting cast: Laura and her dorky, adoring cop boyfriend Jay Johnson (one of a number of Mr. Show alums involved with the show), and Sarah’s next-door neighbors Brian Posehn and Steve Agee, giant weed-smoking videogame junkies and the least stereotypical gay couple in the history of television.
Silverman’s eponymous vehicle—which she co-created with Rob Schrab and Dan Harmon, who was fired early on—might be the most casually surreal American sitcom since Get A Life. A typically absurd arc finds Silverman having a hard time shaking a distinguished-looking Morgan Freeman-like figure in a white suit she hooked up with for a one-night stand, because He’s, well, God. Later, she cynically exploits God’s lingering infatuation with her by taking Him to a high-school reunion solely so He can impress her former schoolmates after she learns that one of them is bringing the “O face” guy from Office Space. The situation is patently absurd, if not downright blasphemous, but the emotions become uncomfortably real when the God figure gets progressively drunker and more choked with jealousy and bitterness once He suspects Silverman is blowing him off and may have had sex with a former classmate.
In its three seasons, The Sarah Silverman Program seemed to be working its way through a checklist of politically loaded subjects—race, abortion, AIDS, homosexuality, gay marriage, bestiality, pot, terrorism, racial profiling, rape—but it was never shocking for the sake of being shocking. The show’s enduring fascination with scatology can be off-putting, mining the comic possibilities posed by poop, farts, butts, and dicks, but at least it does so with a connoisseur’s sense of craftsmanship. The simultaneously sly and juvenile, Sarah Silverman Program has the mixed legacy of being a smart, self-aware, playful, and post-modern show about some seriously stupid shit, literally and metaphorically.
Key features: Audio commentaries on many episodes and the series’ original pilot highlight a generous package of special features.
