Shameless: The Complete Seventh Season [Blu-Ray]

Cast: William H. Macy, Emmy Rossum, Jeremy Allen White

Release Date: September 26, 2017

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Disc Rating: 7/10

 

Synopsis:

As the seventh season of Shameless kicks off, Frank (William H. Macy) wakes from a month long coma after having been tossed into the Chicago River, only to realize that no one came looking for him at the hospital. Fiona (Emmy Rossum), who still works at Patsy’s Pies as the manager, is faced with making major executive decisions in order to keep the business afloat. Lip (Jeremy Allen White) is out of rehab but struggles with his sobriety. Ian (Cameron Monaghan) and Caleb (Jeff Pierre) hit a major snag in their relationship after Caleb is caught cheating. Debbie (Emma Kenney), now a single teen mom, begins stealing high-end strollers in order to pay a nanny to care for her baby. Carl (Ethan Cutkosky) chooses to get circumcised. Kevin, Veronica and Svetlana consider opening a topless maid service.

Please Note: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Post. The opinions I share are my own.

The seventh season of the long-running Showtime series ‘Shameless’ (which is based upon the long running UK series of the same name) picks up a short while after the conclusion of season six which saw Frank dumped over the bridge after his loved one’s had finally been pushed too far. After awakening from the resulting coma only to discover no one has come to visit, once some more facts are revealed Frank decides to abandon his family once and for all and quickly replaces them with “new versions” as he simultaneously works to create a new homeless shelter down the street for his own sinister means (as always). Meanwhile, the rest of the Gallagher family are each dealing with their own set of problems including a new set of issues for Fiona when she decides to give the Laundromat business a whirl and for Debbie when she resorts to some horrid measures in order to support her new baby, along with plenty more; but in the Gallagher household it’s just another day.

Season Seven of ‘Shameless’ brings back everyone’s favorite rude, troubled and unapologetic family as the Gallagher clan tackles a new bundle of issues in their own unique manner. The seventh season takes some of our favorite characters in some mildly surprising new directions, while following a somewhat more predictable path with many others and once again serves up another season brimming with terribly dark humor and some painfully hilarious twists and turns that are equally terrible and laughter inducing as only ‘Shameless’ is capable of pulling off in such a dastardly manner. It has a few moments that seem unnecessarily lengthy and some other over the top elements that can occasionally seem a bit too much, but as fans of this show are well aware it’s never been one to pull punches and the seventh season is certainly as demented and wildly offensive as ever. Fellow fans of this delightfully twisted series who haven’t yet had the pleasure of season seven will definitely want to make a point of catching up as soon as possible, and preferably before the show returns with its eighth season on Showtime this November. The seventh season may not be the show’s finest, but it still delivers all of the offensive, hilarious and often quite dramatic mayhem that fans have come to love and as a whole it should have no issue whatsoever proving well worth your time. I definitely wouldn’t suggest writing this series off just yet, it hasn’t quite run out of steam by any means.

Overall, the seventh season of ‘Shameless’ offers up another helping of raunchy, pitch black humor and heart that fans of the show who haven’t yet had the chance to catch the latest season surely won’t want to miss out on. While by no means the finest season to date, it’s also far from lacking and should have no trouble keeping you glued to the screen and regularly busting up with laughter at the most inappropriate of times. Hardcore fans of the series that have been collecting each of the previous season releases on BD will definitely want to make a point of picking up ‘Shameless: The Complete Seventh Season’ on Blu-ray to add to your collection as well. The latest season’s Blu-ray release offers impressive high definition video and audio presentations on all twelve episodes along with a few fun bonus goodies fans will surely enjoy.

VIDEO:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Shameless: The Complete Seventh Season’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation utilizing the show’s original 1.78:1 Aspect Ratio on all of the seventh season’s episodes. The video presentations look fantastic as a whole and even with somewhat unimpressive bitrates to offer they still manage to look outstanding and deliver sharp, detailed and nearly flawless presentations on every episode. They hold up remarkably well even during the darkly lit and fast moving sequences, never causing anything occurring on screen to become negatively affected or rendered indiscernible. Overall, these are wonderful high definition video presentations that should have no trouble satisfying fans of the series.

AUDIO:

The Blu-ray release features a lossless 5.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on all 12 Season Seven episodes. These lossless multichannel soundtracks provide crisp, clean at times somewhat aggressive audio presentations on each and every episode. They occasionally take advantage of all five available channels in order to send music, crowd chatter and other natural auditory elements throughout the various speakers when appropriate, and never allowing any dialogue that might be occurring simultaneously to become distorted or rendered inaudible. Overall, these are highly competent 5.1 channel DTS-HD MA soundtracks that sound great and deliver in every way required of them.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Shameless: The Complete Seventh Season’ includes a few enjoyable extras that fans should appreciate. Included on the release are ‘Deleted Scene(s)’ from 11 of the season’s 12 episodes (running just shy of 30 minutes altogether), in addition to a couple behind the scenes Featurettes that include interviews/comments with the cast and crew, plus more. The included Featurettes are: ‘Growing up Shameless’ (running approximately 14 minutes) and ‘The Shameless Politics of Frank’ (approximately 2 minutes).

*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They additionally will suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.

Disc Rating: 7/10

‘Shameless: The Complete Seventh Season’ is Now Available to Own on Blu-ray & DVD from Showtime & Warner Bros Home Entertainment

You can purchase ‘Shameless: Season 7’ by clicking on the Amazon Cart Icon immediately below!