Plot: What’s it about?
Alyson was a White House intern with an excellent academic record. Vanessa was an actress who found success with a role on a popular television show. Travis was a musician who was on the road to fame, with a bright future ahead. These are intelligent, bright people, all with the potential to find immense success, but all found a dead end in their road to that success. Alyson has such a dependence on alcohol and narcotics, that she steals her father’s morphine medication. The pills that help keep her own father alive are used by Alyson to feed her addiction. Vanessa’s compulsive shopping has driven her to bankruptcy and derailed her career. A young man named Gabe has lost over half a million dollars to his gambling addiction, not to mention his family’s home. Intervention takes us inside the world of these addicts and others, as those around them prepare to intervene. But will these interventions be able to save these once promising lives?
If you’ve ever been close to someone with an addiction, Intervention is hard to watch. To watch as drugs, alcohol, and other addictions destroy not only the lives of the addicts, but everyone around them, can be devastating. Intervention lets us watch as the addicts give in to their addictions, which makes the experience so raw and brutal. We hear from the addicts and those around them, to help understand how these people ended up in this dark situation, as well as their lives before addiction. In other words, the show presents the addicts as real people, with good traits and bad traits. We see them as people with an addiction and while their actions have caused damage to their loved ones, the show never vilifies the addicts, just the addictions. This release has four episodes from the first season, all of which prove to be memorable. I do wish a complete first season release was done instead, but Intervention: Then and Now is still worth a look.
Video: How does it look?
The episodes are presented in full frame, as intended. Some scenes are non anamorphic widescreen, but for the most part, the visuals are in a full frame format. These episodes were shot on video and look rough, but this is a documentary series, so it more than makes sense. The image looks like video usually does, soft and handheld. If you’ve watch this show on television, then you know what to expect. The visuals won’t bowl you over, but given the format involved, this is as good as Intervention is going to look, which is what matters.
Audio: How does it sound?
The audio has a live, in the moment presence, which is both good and bad. The good is that the audio puts you right in the middle of things, but the audio does have a rough texture. Even so, I couldn’t find any real issues here and while volume fluctuates a little, no vocals are lost. The interviews sound good and the other footage has a raw sound, but still comes across well. Not memorable, but it gets the job done.
Supplements: What are the extras?
This disc includes video updates, which are quite welcome. To see how these people are doing long term adds a lot of value to this release, and the show itself.
