The saga of Dog the Bounty Hunter is nothing if not interesting. Unlike arguably the vast majority of camera-ready, shrink-wrapped reality television personalities, Dog’s life actually has a fair amount of unscripted drama to it, and it’s really not a bad idea to have cameras following him 24 hours a day (provided he’s willing, which he always seems to be). Unfortunately, a lot of that drama seems to track him down precisely because he’s a reality television star, and the show that made his name so famous already has a well-established format that struggles to keep up with the capricious nature of his celebrity. While it’s nice to have so much of the series collected here to remind us why he’s famous in the first place, it feels like an incomplete portrait of a man we all know to be considerably more multi-faceted and volatile than this show is able to portray him as.
Duane “Dog” Chapman is a bounty hunter with Da Kine bail bonds in Honolulu, Hawaii. For any one who might be unfamiliar with the nature of the business, he (along with common law wife and business partner Beth) provides a loan at interest for those wishing to post bail, then either collects or chases them down if they try to run before trial. Since this would be a pretty lousy show (and industry) if people never ran, you can count on them running a lot. When this does happen, ‘Dog’ gathers up his team to go catch them, his team consisting entirely of his himself and his sons Leland Chapman and Duane Lee Chapman, II and his daughter “Baby” Lyssa Chapman-Galanti. Throughout it all, ‘Dog’ is portrayed as a reformed sinner motivated by his profound relationship with God, prefacing his hunts with group prayer and frequently looking to send his charges back on the straight and narrow.
The run (still ongoing) of Dog The Bounty Hunter has been largely marked by two off-camera events: Dog’s arrest by Mexican authorities for unlawfully detaining convicted serial rapist Andrew Luster, and the release of a taped conversation between Dog and his son Tucker in which he repeatedly used racial epithets to describe his son's African-American girlfriend. One of these events is covered at length by a documentary featured in this set, and the other, unsurprisingly, is not. But to go back and watch Dog from the beginning, it’s hard to place him as the same man who said all those terrible things; for all the leads’s pontificating about how they’re not a normal family, they never do anything all that repellant, tasteless, or offensive. Sure, the juxtaposition of the family prayer circle and pursuits after fugitives is amusing, but it’s more innocuous than edgy. After knowing something of the real man hiding behind those dark shades, you can’t help but feel that the show could stand to show a little more complexity to a lead character who was, at least at one point, capable of some pretty dark stuff. It would hardly be fitting with the posture that the series seems to be attempting to build for him, but considering the kind of behavior that audiences have come to tolerate from their protagonists (particularly on cable), it would hardly be out of the safety zone of what people might want to see. And considering the fact that the show is still ongoing, it's not more than audiences are willing to forgive.
This ‘megaset’ contains the best of the first four seasons (previously released), the best of the last several seasons (up to and including season 7), as well as the wedding special (in which he finally legally marries Beth, who had previously been only been common law) and a special in which he and the family open up about his arrest in Mexico. For anyone interested in the show, it’ll certainly more than tide you over until they release a complete series set (the episode count of which currently stands at 188). But for those just being introduced to the series, it may seem that the show serves better as a cheerleader for the out-sized reality of Dog’s life, rather than a vessel for relating it to those who spend less time with wanted fugitives.
DVD Bonus Features
In addition to more episodes than have ever been gathered in one place before, this megaset also contains the full-length special 'Year of the Dog', the featurettes The Drama of Dog's Wedding Ring, Shopping with Beth, The Bow Wow Vow, A Tribute To Dog and Beth, and the "Catch 'Em If You Can" episode from A & E's Take This Job... series, starring Duane "Dog Chapman. There are also cast biographies, on-air promos, Dog's Bounty Hunting Pop Quiz, and a photo gallery.
"Dog The Bounty Hunter: The Wild Ride Megaset" is on sale October 26, 2010 and is not rated. Reality. Directed by Alan Deutsch, Andrew Dunn, David Houts, Jayson Haedrich. Starring Baby Lyssa Chapman Galanti, Beth Smith, Duane Dog Chapman, Duane Lee Chapman Jr, Leland Chapman, Tim Chapman.
