The Chair: The Complete First Season

Indie film producer Chris Moore oversaw this Starz channel reality show about two young filmmakers vying for a $250,000 prize (which comes across as a resurrection of Project Greenlight, also created by Moore to uncover nascent filmmaking talent via direct competition). The contestants here are YouTube virtuoso Shane Dawson and NYU film school grad Anna Martemucci, both of whom started with the same script and were tasked with fostering the filmmaking process through development, financing, production, marketing, and distribution. Along the way, both face setbacks and achieve successes as they each turn the screenplay into something personal, although not necessarily unique. Observing personality squabbles and the ways that Dawson and Martemucci approach various tasks is often interesting, but this is only slightly more compelling than a season of Celebrity Apprentice. For aspiring filmmakers The Chair might prove to be a kind of how-to tool, but most won't consider it to be gripping TV. As a bonus, the set include both wildly different finished films: Hollidaysburg (Martemucci) and Not Cool (Dawson), which received limited theatrical releases (box office appeal was part of the contest). One of them is actually quite good, although quality rarely translates as success in show business. Compiling all 10 episodes from the 2014 debut season, this is a strong optional purchase. (T. Fry)