The fact that I even remember Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman being on the air back in the late 1970s should tell you that it's not an ordinary TV show. I didn't remember what the show was about. I only remembered the look of the braided, red-haired woman who played Mary Hartman, and the fact that the show was very, very slow-moving not to mention beyond my understanding, and of course I remembered the opening theme -- a sweeping, dramatic crescendo with Mary's mom shrieking "Mary Hartman! Mary Hartman!" over the titles.

A few years back I was at a really lame party whose only saving grace was that a couple of the cool people there were discussing MH2 and how awesome it was. "You've got to see it to believe it," was the consensus. However, at that time it was nearly impossible to see since it hadn't been released on DVD and the videocassette version was very difficult to find.

Now, however, the first 25 episodes of the show are out on DVD, and I've been watching them.

Essentially, MH2 is meant as a satirical soap opera, and as such it aired five nights a week. At the series' beginning, Mary is a disgruntled housewife who hasn't had sex in five weeks. In the very first scene, she stands in her kitchen with her sister, debating whether or not the floor has a "waxy, yellow buildup." Her sister insists that it does, but Mary denies it, using the claims on the can of floor cleaner as pure evidence. She wonders what all the sirens are about, and her sister jokes that a mass murder has taken place a block away. At the time, they don't realize that this is exactly what has happened.

As the series progresses, we meet the other people who inhabit Mary's life. There's Mary's impotent husband, who's kind of a jerk. The next-door neighbors -- a 44-year-old man named "Baby Boy" and his 22-year-old wife Loretta -- are constantly saying sweet and supportive things to each other. Mary's parents, who live two doors away, are the classic 70s sitcom couple: the grouch and the dingbat.

While the show is a comedy, it really doesn't feel like one. Like a soap opera, there's no studio audience and there's no laugh track. Instead, the show is full of long, pregnant pauses and tight close-ups. The characters frankly discuss everything from menstruation to masturbation, with a backdrop of mass murder and adultery. While some aspects of the show are definitely funny (such as the inflatable donut Mary's father always sits on, emblazoned with the words "Hooray! Daddy's Home!") others fall into a gray area. Instead of provoking laughter, a lot of scenes provoke strange expressions and vague feelings of discomfort.

I've probably seen about 15 episodes as of this post, and only 25 of the original 325 episodes are available. Already, the show's pace seems to be catching up with itself. Jokes are repeated, and even though the episodes are only 20 minutes long, often one episode will begin with the last five minutes of the previous episode. The writers found a great way to mask their laziness, however. They just add in a voiceover explaining, "Sometimes we repeat a scene for those who may have missed it." That's kind of genius. Lazy genius, but still.

I'm not sure whether I want them to release more episodes or not. Because right now, I can't stop watching.