Reviewed by Andre Dellamorte

Dre gets close to the Yin and Yang of Garry Shandling

Not the Best of Larry Sanders offers essentially two things. The former is The Larry Sanders show. The latter is Garry Shandling's personal demons and id as he talks with, confronts, and wrestles with the people in his life who he may have screwed over, or had relationships with or is best friends with. It’s a grueling experience that strikes as a borderline leg pull, but proves to be emotionally draining and nothing less than fascinating.

The show stars Shandling as Sanders, a neurotic talk show host who is dripping in passive aggression. His right hand is Artie (Rip Torn), his producer and the guy who can get angry for him and say no. The other hand is Hank Kingsley (Jeffery Tambor), whose catchphrase is "Hey now!" and is something of a buffoon. The support staff includes Larrys personal assistant/secretary Beverly Barnes (Penny Johnson), writers Phil (Wallace Langham) and Jerry (Jeremy Piven), Hanks PA's Darlene (Linda Doucett) and Brian (Scott Thompson), talent wranglers Paula (Janeane Garofalo) and Mary Lou (Mary Lynn Raskub), and Larry's agent Stevie Grant (Bob Odenkirk).

This is a powerhouse cast, though most episodes offer guest stars. Including Alec Baldwin, who has slept with Sander's ex (Kathryn Harrod), David Duchovny who nurses a strange crush on Larry, Sharon Stone who Larry wants to have a relationship with until he realizes she's more famous than him, Dave Chappelle who ruins Langham's pilot script when he's brought in to be in it, and John Stewart, who eventually takes over Sanders show.

The collection features 23 episodes throughout the run. Hopefully the entire series 89 episode run will hit DVD in the future. But every episode on here is a winner, with a extra special prize going to the deeply meta episode where Larry looks for a talent to follow his show. He talks to Letterman, who wants Tom Snyder, and tells him as much, to which Larry hires him away, or so he thinks. As anyone familiar with the situation at the time, the joke was played out in the public as a non-joke when Letterman revealed he did pick Snyder as his follow up.

Even without mentioning the presence of Judd Apatow, this is a behemoth of a TV show, something that helped spawn The Office, Curb Your Enthusiasms, Enthusiasms, Enthusiasms, and the one camera, behind the scenes edict that makes 30 Rock a stunner. Every episode included is a keeper, every episode offers stunning bits of business that are both insightful and hilarious, though - like its offspring – are sometimes hard to watch.

And this set is a keeper. But wait until you see Shandling sit down with Sharon Stone. They obviously have a past, and for 18 minutes you get to see them dance around each other, trying to get close while still having wounds. It's mesmerizing. Or watching Shandling talk with peer Jeryr Seinfeld, or ex-girlfriend Linda Doucett, or even Carol Burnett or Tom Petty. These interviews are so voyeuristic that it's hard not to feel kind of dirty watching them. Shandling, who seems to have gotten into Buddhism from the supplements (and the tattoo he got), is trying to find peace, and it looks like he left some wreckage that this set is partly a therapy session to deal with. As such the results of these candidly naked interviews are a tough emotional struggle to get through. Having watched everything over the course ofa weekend, I felt messed up. There's a lot of baggage here.

Twenty three episodes of the show are presented over four discs. Three episodes come with commentary, while each disc offers deleted scenes and interviews, most running about twenty minutes. The major players of the cast (all listed above) are talked to, as are Sarah Silverman, Ellen Degreneres, and almost everyone of the people mentioned above (sans Chappelle and Harrod). All of which runs eight hours. This is already the front runner for the best DVD of the year.