Queen Sugar: The Complete First Season – DVD Review

“Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the DVD I reviewed in this Blog Post. The opinions I share are my own.”

Oprah Winfrey (Greenleaf, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks) and Ava DuVernay (Selma, 13th) have joined forces to bring audiences the powerful and mesmerizing drama, Queen Sugar. This dynamic and engaging series explores the themes of family and race in America in a unique and compelling way that will have you glued to the screen from the first moments of the pilot until the frame of the season one finale. It’s a great series with great characters that never lets up on the drama, the tension, or the realism that is one of the hallmarks of Queen Sugar’s universe.

When the three siblings of the Bordelon family – Nova, Charley, and Ralph – have to cope with the death of their father, they discover that his life’s work, a sugar cane farm, is part of their inheritance. The three must work together, with tensions rising from all sides, to figure out what to do with the sugar cane farm while maintaining and balancing their current life situations.

It is through their common connection to the farm that these three siblings find deeper meaning in their lives, their relationships to one another, and the to the world as a whole. Will they be able to keep their father’s legacy alive while keeping their own world’s in tact?

The three actors who portray the siblings – Rutina Wesley, Dawn-Lyen Gardner, and Kofi Siriboe – have fantastic chemistry on-screen. Their trials and tribulations as brother and sisters are all brought to bare as the raw nerves of their pasts and presents bubble to the surface as they make decisions that could cause upheavals to their lives and their futures.

One of the unique things about Queen Sugar is that all the episodes are directed by a wide range of female directors. This diversity in directing definitely enhances the tone of the series and gives each episode a perspective that it may not have had had a male director been at the helm.

The Season One DVD includes the following special features:

Inside Queen Sugar: Origins

Extraordinary in the Ordinary: Making Queen Sugar

Oprah Winfrey and the Cast of Queen Sugar

Deleted Scenes

If you love family-based drama series, I highly recommend Queen Sugar: The Complete First Season.

Queen Sugar: The Complete First Season is available now on DVD.

What’s your favorite family-based drama series? Leave a comment and let us know!

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