Shameless: The Complete Series

I’m not one to bail on a show unless it gets really bad. If I’m enjoying something, I like to see it through to the end. Even if I'm not fully enjoying it, I have a compulsory need to see how it ends. I'm someone who collected and read the entire interminable Spider-Man Clone Saga because I had to see where it went (spoiler alert,  it ultimately went nowhere). While there’s a sense of accomplishment in doing that, it’s mostly because if you spend enough time with a set of characters, you want to find out what happens to them. Imagine reading six of the Little House on the Prairie books but not reading the last three. I only read the first novel, but I hope you get my point here between novels and comic book storylines. With Shameless I was a fan of the first few seasons…and then it kept going, and going, and then going some more. I initially fell off the series before Season Six started, came back, fell off again, and now that I’ve tried to dig through the series again, I’m remembering why I ducked out. 

For those who somehow missed Shameless when it aired, our little family dramedy is about the Chicago-based Gallagher family. Living on the South Side of the city, Frank (A terrific William H. Macy) is father to six children. A single father, in fact, now that his wife has left the family due to her mental health issues. So now Frank is stuck raising Fiona (Emmy Rossum), Lip (that Jeremy Allen White guy), Carl (Ethan Cutkowsky), Debbie (Emma Kenney), Ian (Cameron Monaghan), and young Liam (Christian Isaiah). While Frank, Fiona, and Lip try to hold the household together, they keep finding themselves stuck in a series of high-risk, low-reward schemes. But whoever said raising a family is easy? Especially in this economy! 

I’ll freely admit, I started watching Shameless not because of the premise, but because I love William H. Macy as an actor and thought Emmy Rossum was damned attractive. That was enough for me to give the show a try. It didn’t take long for me to move past initial motivations and get hooked on this heartfelt and often hilarious family comedy/drama series. From one episode to the next, I wanted to see what kind of hole the family could dig itself into and how they’d pull themselves out of it. I didn’t have Showtime, so I was left to find episodes via legally questionable means as they aired. And the show was great. For a while, anyway.

If I had to pin the series down, I’d say Season Four was its peak. Something about that run of episodes, everything just clicked. The actors were comfortable with their characters. The production had a sense of direction. Plot points were resolving while other avenues for storytelling were opening up. It was around the middle of Season Five that I started feeling like the series wasn’t building toward any kind of resolution. Plotlines weren’t resolving, but expanding. That’s around when I subtly stopped watching and let it drift. I’d eventually come back to the series here and there, but it never hooked me again like those first seasons.

It’s not that I didn’t like the characters, but the series lacked a sense of direction and momentum for anyone, and it was straying into soap opera territory. Plotlines were just washed ashore to keep the series going, regardless of whether they made sense. It was still charming and funny, but just when you felt like the series might be building towards an ending, it’d just find another way to keep going. And going… and going some more for eleven seasons. 

In all truth, Shameless isn’t the only series I’ve felt this way about. I had a similar moment with Sons of Anarchy, where I just got to a point where I didn’t really care what happened anymore. The series had pushed past an obvious ending and just kept going. Shameless might not have had quite the same obvious end spot, but it was the same feeling. As I’ve slowly worked through the final seasons I missed out on, I can say I’m glad I finally finished the series, but I’m also firmer in my belief that the show went too long. It especially got awkward when a key player like Emmy Rossum’s Fiona left the series. By the time we get to the final season, there were too many dangling story threads left behind to knit together into a satisfying finale. It’s an okay end, but it feels more like a production executive saying "it's over" rather than delivering a conclusion. Where I’d rank the first four seasons as respectable 4.5/5 to even 5/5 for Season Four, Season Five begins the drift down from 4/5 to 3.5/5 and the very lean 3/5 last couple of years. 

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray 
After years of waiting, fans of Shameless finally have what they’ve clamored for, Seasons 10 and 11 on standalone Blu-ray sets, or for those who waited to buy, this Shameless: The Complete Series box set. All 11 seasons are spread over 27 BD50 discs. Since I was one of those who didn’t buy each previous season, I gather the first 9 seasons are repackages of the existing discs, while Seasons 10 and 11 are the brand new entries. All of the discs are housed in two loathsome oversized Epik Pak cases. Seasons 1-7 in one case, 8-11 in the other. The first case, thankfully, includes an episode guide (not disc-specific, but at least season-specific) that lists extra features by season and episode.

Generally speaking, each season of Shameless featured a strong 1.78:1 1080p transfer. As the series kept going and became a bigger, lasting production, I’d argue that the visual punch of each episode improved. Production design and costumes became a little more elaborate. Some more on-location shooting in Chicago (the series was largely shot in Los Angeles) spiced up the visuals. Throughout the series (I mostly watched the last four seasons to “finish” it, but sampled episodes from the earlier seasons), fine details and clarity remained consistent and appreciable. Fine facial features, hair styles, and clothing textures are all apparent. Colors are bright and appealing with healthy primary saturation and healthy skin tones. There are a few odd moments where the image could look a tad flat, but those looked more like pickup reshot scenes in front of a nondescript backdrop or greenscreen than an issue with the transfer. Overall, a good-looking series on Blu-ray.

Each episode of Shameless comes packed with a healthy DTS-HD MA 5.1 track. Rather than going for bombastic wall-to-wall immersion, I’d say the mixes for each episode aim for a more intimate and personal vibe for surround activity. While the Front/Center channels feel like they get the most engagement, there’s enough movement and events to keep the surround channels engaged. The dialog is clean and clear throughout, without issue. Music cues are on point without overpowering anything (unless intended). Obviously the bigger more active locations the more impactful the surround experience becomes, but as it stands, each episode is served nicely in 5.1.

Someone once pointed out to me that you can track the importance of bonus features to a studio’s production docket by watching a TV series like this. In the first seasons, when physical media releases had a bigger impact on the bottom line, bonus features were robust and lengthy, with several featurettes and numerous commentaries. As the seasons go along, those featurettes get shorter and fewer, the commentaries wither, to the point where the last half of the series was mostly made up of deleted scenes, and maybe one small featurette. Thankfully, the final season has the Last Call with the cast and crew - it’s a Zoom-style segment, but at over an hour, it’s a nice catch-up with the various personalities to reflect on the run of the show. They could have gone with the basic on-set EPK nonsense that traditionally passes as an “extra” these days. But even through the herky-jerkiness of a video call, there’s some real meat on the bones that's worth watching.

Season One:

• Pilot Audio Commentary
• Episode 7: Frank Gallagher: Loving Husband, Devoted Father Audio Commentary
• Unaired Scenes
• Bringing Shameless to America
• Shameless: Bringing the FUN to Dysfunctional
• A Shameless Discussion about Sex
• Shameless Season 2 Sneak Peek

Season Two:

• Unaired Scenes
• The Complicated Life of Fiona Gallagher
• The Art of Acting Drunk
• Writing the Shameless Version
• Shameless Actor Discussions
• The Shameless Christmas Carol Music Video
• A Shameless Look at Season 3

Season Three:

• Unaired Scenes
• Where the Streets Have No Shame
• An Officer and a Gallagher
• The Many Sides of Sheila
• A Lip Off the Old Block
• Being Mandy & Mickey Milkovich
• A Messy Triangle: Lip, Karen, & Mandy

Season Four:

• Unaired Scenes
• Being Gallagher
• Shameless Neighbors

Season Five:

• Unaired Scenes
• Shameless sex Love 
• Gentrify This!!!

Season Six:

• Unaired Scenes
• Shamelessly Shanola
• Running the Table: A Shameless Conversation

Season Seven:

• Unaired Scenes
• Growing Up Shameless
• The Shameless Politics of Frank

Season Eight:

• Unaired Scenes
• My Shameless Sister
• My Shameless Mentors

Season Nine:

• Unaired Scenes

Season Ten:

• Unaired Scenes

Season Eleven:

• Unaired Scenes
• Shameless Last Call

I’m glad I finally finished Shameless. I certainly don’t regret it, but I can’t deny that Season 4-5 were the peak episodes, and everything after just doesn't measure up. There was a time where it was a never-miss favorite show. I just wish it wrapped itself up a little more neatly. After a few seasons, the storylines felt tacked on just to keep it going rather than an organic evolution of the Gallagher clan and their plight in the Windy City’s south side. I never caught the British original, but since it also ran for 11 seasons (or series), I guess our Americanized version was just following along.

On Blu-ray, we’ve had a something of a rocky run with this show. Like many, I decided against grabbing individual seasons in favor of the eventual series box set. The show ended in 2021. It’s taken most of five years for the last two seasons to get their own solo sets, let alone this box set. Truthfully, I’d kinda forgotten about the show in that time, so when this series set was announced, it was something of a miracle for collectors who had been stuck with Seasons 1-9 sitting on their shelves, and I had a reason to finally finish a show I started long ago.

The A/V for the series as a whole is solid work. Each episode looks good in 1080p with an impressive surround mix to complement. As with any long-running series, bonus features are strong and plentiful in the early years, and dwindle as the seasons go on. I will say, though, kudos for that final Last Call segment; it’s a great reconnect with the cast and crew and more than many final seasons get these days. Really, my only quibble for this set (beyond not loving the last few seasons) is the packaging. If it’s cost-effective, those single-season sets might be more attractive and fit better on a shelf. As it stands, I have to call Shameless: The Complete Series as a For Fans Only release - especially if you’ve already bought previous seasons. Newcomers might want to stream a few seasons before jumping all in.