It doesn't take much inactivity for an entertainer's stock to drop. It's been two and a half years since Comedy Central cancelled Sarah Silverman's self-titled television series. And yet, the controversial comedienne, whose career began twenty years ago as a writer and featured player on "Saturday Night Live", has managed to avoid plunging into obscurity. Earlier this month, she secured cinematic immortality as the voice of Vanellope von Schweetz, the young deuteragonist of Disney's animated hit Wreck-It Ralph. Silverman has also managed to remain visible with guest appearances on popular TV Series ("Childrens Hospital", "Louie", "The League") and audible with vocal guest spots ("The Simpsons", "Bob's Burgers"). There have also been supporting roles in independent films (Sarah Polley's Take This Waltz) and cameos in mainstream films (The Muppets).

Still, NBC recently passed on picking up Silverman's autobiographical pilot "Susan 313" for the fall 2012 season, suggesting it may be difficult for the 41-year-old to find another outlet as creatively liberating and personal as "The Sarah Silverman Program", a half-hour comedy she created, executive produced, and starred in for three seasons.

Running from 2007 to 2010, the Comedy Central show was tailor-made for the leading lady by "Community" creator Dan Harmon, his Monster House co-writer Rob Schrab, and Silverman herself. The stand-up/actress' film career had been picking up with turns in School of Rock and Rent as well as her 2005 concert film Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic. Without expectations to draw network-type audiences or fiercely compete with basic cable's variety of niche programming and documentary-style reality television, "The Sarah Silverman Program" allowed its star, her friends, and others who shared her sense of humor to indulge their instincts and make a show that made themselves laugh. Inevitably, enough people tuning into Comedy Central right before the potent hour-long block of "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" would also laugh.

At least for a while. Ratings dropped enough in the winter of 2010 to turn the ten-episode third season into the show's final one. That was still an impressive run by Comedy Central standards, a network that has allowed few series to run more than a couple of seasons.

Not only did the cable channel pull the plug on the show, but it also withheld Season 3 from home video, as DVD sales had begun slipping. Two years after signing off, the final season of "Silverman Program" came to DVD over the summer in Shout! Factory's seven-disc The Complete Series collection full of bonus features. Now, fans who already owned the first two seasons through Comedy Central's three DVD releases and were reluctant to rebuy them in Shout!'s box set can pick up Season 3 on its own in a 2-disc set available on December 18th.

The show finds Silverman playing an immature, insensitive, self-centered slacker version of herself who lives in an apartment in Valley Village, a Los Angeles neighborhood that resembles a kind of twisted version of Sesame Street for this childish adult. Sarah doesn't work, nor need to, because her saintly nurse sister Laura (real-life older sister Laura Silverman) pays her rent and looks after her. Laura lives with her mustachioed cop boyfriend Jay (Jay Johnston), who is kidlike in his own way but fairly reasonable. Rounding out the cast (and episodes with B storylines) are Sarah's two portly, geeky gay couple of homebody neighbors, gamers/stoners Brian (Brian Posehn) and Steve (Steve Agee).

The show honors its star's tastes for wordplay, bathroom humor, and silly original songs, making time for all three of those in virtually every episode. In addition, the show is big on the hot button topics of Silverman's edgy stand-up act: race, drugs, religion, homelessness, abortion, homosexuality, etc. Like Silverman's stand-up, the material is clearly meant to provoke and if you don't agree with her liberal views or see the humor in her ironic bigotry and ignorance, you may find it difficult to warm to. Still, if you aren't easily offended or disturbed, you'll find some pretty funny material here, especially once you acclimate to the tone and characters.

Season 3 changes the opening title sequence, but not much else. At first it seems to reduce the role of Sarah's Chihuahua-pug dog Doug, but he mostly hangs onto his role as the nonresponsive audience at the end of every episode to Sarah recapping what she learned that week. While there are a couple of weak episodes near the end, enough humorous material remains for the show not to have worn out its welcome. There are a lot of callbacks and returning guest stars from the first two seasons.

Disc 1

1. The Proof Is in the Penis (21:38) (Originally aired February 4, 2010)
Trying to imbue Sarah with a work ethic and fiscal responsibility, Laura reveals that Sarah was born with both sets of genitalia, prompting Sarah to embrace her inner man. Steve and Brian are haunted by the ghost of a man their television's remote control killed.

2. The Silverman and the Pillows (21:38) (Originally aired February 11, 2010)
When an author of a children's book ruins her pancake brunch plans, Sarah complains and gets her own controversial children's television show. Troubled by their loss of cable and Internet, Steve and Brian join the show's cast.

3. A Slip Slope (21:38) (Originally aired February 18, 2010)
After her practical joke accidentally kills a prankster, Sarah sues Home Alone on television court, only to be put in charge of Valley View's censorship and then all television programming. Brian wages war with a pigeon.

4. Nightmayor (21:39) (Originally aired February 25, 2010)
Sarah and Brian mount a campaign to defeat a mayoral candidate with a strange name, but their write-in vote winner, May Kadoody, proves to be a real person and one opposed to gay marriage.

5. Smellin' of Troy (21:39) (Originally aired March 11, 2010)
After Laura and Jay elope, Sarah begins seeing her now grown-up childhood imaginary friend (Andy Samberg) and partying with his friends. Steve gets a hit song out of replacing an injured Brian in his band.

6. A Fairly Attractive Mind (21:38) (Originally aired March 18, 2010)
Mistaken for being mentally disabled, Sarah accepts that she is and tries to inspire as a grocery store bagger. A dragon telephone from Chinatown causes Brian and Steve to switch bodies before Brian's father visits.

7. Songs in the Key of Yuck (21:38) (Originally aired March 25, 2010)
Sarah reluctantly joins Steve for a concert by his favorite jam band, only to use the outing as a chance to expose attendees' fandom as the product of drug use. Laura uses Jay's "laughmares" to stage a nighttime talk show in their bedroom. Brian doesn't have enough milk for his cereal.

Disc 2

8. Just Breve (21:38) (Originally aired April 1, 2010)
Steve makes a robot son for him and Brian, but their family plans have consequences. Laura and Jay reveal their secret turn-ons to one another. Mostly absent from this episode, Sarah serves as blind storyteller.

9. A Good Van Is Hard to Find (21:39) (Originally aired April 8, 2010)
After twice being endangered by accepting rides from strangers, Sarah sets out to repair the van's reputation, by driving a fun one around town and giving free entertainment to children. Steve and Brian find creative ways to avoid doing laundry. Laura's clumsiness invites spousal abuse suspicions around Jay.

10. Wowschwitz (21:38) (Originally aired April 15, 2010)
Sarah and Laura plan competing Holocaust memorials. To get them out of their rut, Brian urges Steve to rediscover his playful side. Doug travels through time to historic events.

VIDEO and AUDIO

As one of the newest television series licensed to Shout! Factory, "The Sarah Silverman Program" is presented in the present-day standards for TV DVDs: 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen picture and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. Lacking any major surprises or concerns, both are just fine, allowing the show to look and sound just like you'd expect a single-camera 21st century comedy series to in standard definition. Also, though unadvertised as such, the show is evidently presented uncensored. While it's often racy and politically incorrect, nothing seems to be unbroadcastable until some surprising profanity casually dropped in at the end of the fifth episode. One disappointment is that the DVD lacks subtitles. It does, however, include closed captioning, a tactic Comedy Central has often taken for its own DVDs.

BONUS FEATURES, MENUS, PACKAGING and DESIGN

Shout! Factory maintains and even exceeds the high volume of bonus features that Comedy Central provided their Season One and Season Two DVDs.

The extras begin with group audio commentaries attached to four episodes. Sarah Silverman, Steve Agee, Jay Johnston, co-creator/director Rob Schrab, and writer/executive producer/director Dan Sterling share their thoughts on "The Silverman and the Pillows" and "A Slip Slope." Johnston bows out after those two, leaving the other four to speak over "Nightmayor" and "Just Breve."

These tracks aren't a great deal more than the group having their memories jogged and laughing at their two-year-old episodes, but plenty of fun facts emerge in the warm, profane reflection regarding guest stars, Comedy Central discomfort, and production specifics. For fans, they're well worth a listen.

All video extras appear on Disc 2. They begin with a 2012 discussion (29:11) featuring Sarah Silverman, her real dog Duck (who played Doug), Rob Schrab, and six of their fellow writers and/or producers. Their rambling reunion tackles the show's origins, characters, casting, and battles with Comedy Central's Standards & Practices, before devolving into real-life bathroom humor reflecting that found on the show. There are clips from episodes, other bonus features, and even a deleted scene, as well as reflections on the Writer's Strike and series' cancellation, before the piece closes with a Season 3 highlight reel.

A short 2010 cast and creators Q & A session at Largo at the Coronet (5:38) in Los Angeles follows. Both Silvermans, Agee, Johnston, Schrab and Sterling answer audience questions with plenty of sarcasm.

Seemingly made for the web back when the episodes aired, "Odds 'n Ends" (29:53) give us making-of shorts for all ten Season 3 episodes. Behind-the-scenes footage and uncensored reflections from cast (everyone but Brian Posehn) and crew lend insight to each episode's stories and scenes.

A "Breve" animatic (2:07) plots out an ambitious but dumb action sequence from arguably the series' worst episode.

"Stay Away from Bad Stuff!!" (2:03) has Sarah's children's show host persona Sarah St. Clair(e) dispense wildly inappropriate safety tips to crude illustrations of the characters.

Next comes the original pilot episode (21:39), which is very close to the Season 1 finale "Batteries", though it carries a 2005 copyright date and slightly different opening credits. In it, Sarah needs to replace the batteries to her television's remote control and has to cross a wheelchair race to get to the store. She winds up meeting God and having a one-night stand with him. This episode can also be viewed with audio commentary by Silverman and her co-creators Schrab and Dan Harmon, which runs nine minutes longer than the pilot itself and offers one final reflection on the show.

Finally, we get two audition videos. Jay Johnston (2:19) performs across from the Silverman sisters. A much slimmer Steve Agee than we're used to, meanwhile, apparently got the job through two shorts (3:02), one documenting a litterbox change and the other a phone call reflecting on a day of vampirism.

The main menus uphold the titles' design by playing pictures and the new theme music for under a minute.

The discs are packaged, like most new Shout! Factory DVDs, in a clear keepcase which allows the inside of the double-sided artwork to feature more imagery and episode synopses.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

If you've been wanting to complete your "Sarah Silverman Program" DVD collection without picking up Shout! Factory's Complete Series set, then this Season 3 release is just for you. A perfect reflection of Silverman's brand of comedy, this show entertains more often than it doesn't, though there is a good chance you'll be offended or disgusted, as intended, by some of the crude content.

Reasonably priced and pretty full of good bonus features, this two-disc set is easy to recommend to anyone fond of the show, especially if they already own the first two seasons.

Buy The Sarah Silverman Program on DVD from Amazon.com: Season 3 • The Complete Series