Beginning in 1948 and boasting a nine year run – and over four hundred and fifty episodes – Studio One was the premiere anthology series in a time when live television drama was brand new. Every week, brought a new story – and the multitude of other anthology series that followed were equally productive. To stay the best, a network had to have an imaginative writing and production staff producing its shows – and they had to let them work with an absolute minimum of interference. The series accumulated eighteen Emmy Award nominations and five wins during its run.

The Studio One Anthology DVD set features seventeen of the series best and most influential episodes – beginning with an opera called The Medium and an adaptation of Wuthering Heights. In between are works by writers like Gore Vidal and Rod Serling, and performances by stars like Art Carney, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Charlton Heston, Jack Lemmon and Sal Mineo.

The Medium is the tale of a phoney medium who comes unravelled when a real spirit appears at one of her séances – a spirit that we actually see, as well. Although I’ve never enjoyed the opera, this one is pretty involving.

Several episodes included here went on to becomes award-winning movies: 12 Angry Men [here starring Robert Cummings and Franchot Tone], Julius Caesar [here starring Theodore Bikel as the ill-fated emperor], and Dino [starring Sal Mineo as the title character]. Each of these productions stand out as quality entertainment, especially when you consider that each had a mere two weeks of prep time – and that included writing the scripts! The four episodes mentioned are among my personal favorites, along with: The Death and Life of Larry Benson [a soldier seemingly returns home to his family and featuring one of Lee Remick’s earliest appearances]; June Moon [an adaptation of the Ring Lardner satire, starring Jack Lemmon and Eva Marie Saint], and Wuthering Heights [starring Charlton Heston and Lloyd Bochner].

Because these dramas were broadcast live, with no chance of a rerun, they were filmed from an actual TV screen to be broadcast to the west later the same day. This produced what are called kinescopes, and it is from those kinescopes that this anthology was produced. Needless to say, the quality isn’t as high as it could be. The episodes are still among the best and most memorable work ever produced for television.

Features include: Paley Center Panel Discussion [1987]; Studio One Historical Overview; Paul Nickell Interview Excerpts, Voices from the Archive: Studio One, and a fifty-two page booklet with production details, casts and synopses.

Grade: Studio One: Anthology – A

Grade: Features – B-

Final Grade: A-

Walt Disney’s Bolt is a thoroughly enjoyable bit of fluff with just the right amount of darkness and danger to give kids [and their parents] a bit of a scare before everything works out. In terms of animation, it’s almost to the level of PIXAR, though the storytelling isn’t as fluid. The 3D, however, works really well, and the film has more of a feeling of solidity than I expected – and the number of showy 3D sequences is much lower than I would have expected [and none that don’t actually serve the story].

The movie’s conceit is that Bolt [agreeably voiced by John Travolta], a German Shepherd pup who was rescued from an animal shelter, and became the lead in a hit TV show – but since he’s never been off the set, he thinks his TV superpowers are real. When he accidentally gets mailed across the country, he has to get home to save Penny [Miley Cyrus], whom he believes to have been kidnapped by the show’s villain, The Green-Eyed Man [Malcolm McDowell]. He is aided by a streetwise cat called Mittens [Susie Essman] and a hilariously overeager hamster in an exercise ball, named Rhino [Mark Walton].

The second film from the Disney Animation Studios since Disney bought PIXAR, Bolt also went through a creative disembowelment at the hands of John Lasseter and seems to be the better for it. It’s much better than Meet The Robinsons on every level. The animation is first-rate [Dreamworks quality, if not yet PIXAR level]; the script is genial and genuinely amusing, and the voice cast works like a dream. If Bolt feels like a weird hybrid of Inspector Gadget, Super Friends and Homeward Bound, that isn’t really a bad thing.

Something to note: some of the scarier moments might be too much for really young kids. There were a few outbursts of tears and crying at the screening I attended. In a way, that’s a reinforcement of Bolt’s effectiveness as an entertainment – it does secure the emotional reactions it seeks. There are also more than a few laugh out loud moments [a few more than the scary darker moments] and, overall, the film does provide a number of giggles, chuckles and grins. Bolt is light entertainment, but it’s good light entertainment.

Final Grade: B+

When Gene Roddenberry pitched Star Trek to NBC, he described it as “Wagon Train in space.” Without Wagon Train, there might well have been no Star Trek – or any of its sequel [and prequel] series. But Wagon Train influenced Star Trek in more ways than simply trekking through space. The series, which had a nine-year run – of which, only the eighth was filmed in color – was, along with Half Gun, Will Travel and a handful of other westerns a series that featured high quality writing and productions values. Combined with a talented cast, the series often featured stories that delved deeply into its characters – both regular and, especially, guest cast. This DVD set includes all thirty-two ninety-minute episodes from season eight and sixteen classic eps from the series’ black white sixty-minute format. I’ll use two specific episodes that have similar basic situations, but totally different points, to illustrate.

From the eighth season, I choose the season’s second episode, The Fort Pierce Story, and from the black and white classic eps, I’ll choose The Clara Beauchamps Story – in both of which an officer’s wife has a drinking problem.

In The Fort Pierce Story, Captain Paul Winter’s [Ronald Reagan] wife, Nancy [Ann Blyth], drinks because she’s the only woman in the fort and can’t cope with the thought that her husband might not come back from patrol one day. The situation is compounded by the arrival of Chris Hale’s [John McIntire] wagon train – and orders from Washington that the garrison is to maintain a purely defensive presence that means the army won’t be able to give the wagon train an escort through Indian territory. Only the cleverness [and hidden compassion] of the garrison’s commander, Col. Wayne Lathrop [John Doucette], manages to work things out for everyone.

In The Clara Beauchamps Story, from the show’s first season, Clara [Nina Foch] drinks because of frustrated ambition. All of her friends’ husbands have been promoted while her husband, Col. Beauchamps [Shepperd Strudwick] commands a fort in the middle of nowhere. Their situation is complicated both by the death of an Indian by arriving reinforcements and the arrival of Major Seth Adams’ [Ward Bond] wagon train. Clara’s actions nearly unravel a delicate balance the colonel has maintained with the Indians, and the episode ends in both tragedy and triumph.

Wagon Train was always about people, though each episode had to have a certain amount of adventure to keep people interested. Like the Trek series it influenced, though, these stories were about character and issues, however outwardly camouflaged. Another classic first season episode, A Man Called Horse, is more about a man’s search for identity – an identity that might be found when he is captured by the Crow Indians. The idea here is that sometimes a man can literally make a name for himself, and in so doing, find a home.

While the series always looked good – and drew top flight guest stars – the color season showed its location work to great effect. Some of the panoramic vistas wouldn’t be out of place in a John Ford film. In any event, the DVD release of Wagon Train: The Full Color Season is cause for celebration. After decades of knowing, anecdotally, that the show influenced so many others [and especially Gene Roddenberry], there are now forty-eight episodes of the classic series available.

Because of the age of the series, and the varying condition of the archived episodes, there are some episodes that aren’t in pristine condition, but the quality of the series shines through.

The only features are half-hour interviews with two of the series’ most memorable stars – Robert Fuller [scout Cooper Smith] and Denny Scott Miller [Duke Shannon].

Grade: Wagon Train – The Complete Color Season – A

Grade: Features – C

Final Grade: A-

In last week’s episode of Ghost Whisperer [CBS, Fridays, 8/7C], the unthinkable happened: Jim Clancy [David Conrad] was killed, accidentally, when a police detective shot him thinking he was someone else. The episode concluded with Jim’s ghost appearing to his widow in his hospital room.

Tonight’s episode, Threshold, finds Melinda [Jennifer Love Hewitt] unable to see Jim’s ghost because her grief is so strong that it’s interfering with her ability. When the ghost of a teenage girl begins to haunt her – breaking and throwing things – she thinks it’s Jim. Only Jim knows that it isn’t, so he approaches Eli [Jamie Kennedy] to help him figure out why the girl is haunting his widow. Things are complicated by Jim’s brother, who has been waiting for him so that the two of them can crossover together and rejoin their father.

Written and directed by John Gray, Threshold walks a fine line between genuine sentiment and being maudlin. For the most part – and largely due to the cast’s performances – it succeeds. Especially good is Conrad’s work as the increasingly frustrated Jim, though Hewitt gives one of her best performances here. I also have to give full marks to Camryn Manheim, whose work on Whisperer hasn’t really worked for me. Delia finally works as Melinda’s supportive friend and employee.

Naturally, with the complications that arise in Threshold, there are loose ends that will be left for next week’s ep, Heart & Soul – in which Melinda has to deal with a step-in, a man with amnesia and a very angry ghost who seems connected to her life in a genuinely unexpected way. I can’t say anything more than that – except to say that this ep concludes a storyline for Melinda and Jim even as it signals the beginning of an intriguing new direction for her.

Heart & Soul has a bit more trouble avoiding being maudlin, but long time fans of the series will find it to be both and unsettling [in a good way] and satisfying conclusion to the three-episode arc.

Final Grade: B

With the announcement that Sanctuary [Sci-Fi, Fridays, 10/9C] has been renewed for a second season, perhaps those who those who don’t like to commit to a new series for fear it’ll be cancelled will now give TV’s first green screen series a chance. Two upcoming episodes are good examples of the kind of quirky quality that series is developing.

Quick refresher courser: Dr. Helen Magnus [Amanda Tapping], a one hundred fifty-seven-year old scientist has established Sanctuary – a home for “abnormals” [creatures benign and otherwise that are not of the perceived normalcy – mermaids, a missing link, children with unusual fear reflexes]. She provides homes – or cages if necessary – for these beings. She is aided by her daughter, Ashley [Emilie Ullerup], forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Will Zimmerman [Robin Dunne] and tech wizard, Henry Foss [Ryan Robins] .

In this week’s ep, The Five, Magnus’ lecture to an underground group in Rome, on abnormals, leads to a meeting with Nikola Tesla [Jonathon Young] who warns her of an impending assassination attempt. Tesla has a few secrets, himself – the only one I can telegraph is that he sleeps during the day.

The episode is fast paced and smart, but has its moments of emotional truth that support the action. We get to see Magnus’ ability to improvise – and the rest of her team show initiative in the way they aid her from their home base. The CG sets and effects are improving and now have much more weight than early on. Even Tapping’s wobbly English accent is much more consistent.

On December 5th, Drs. Magnus and Zimmerman take a mini-sub to investigate the slaughter of a clan of mer-people and find an abnormal unlike any they’ve ever seen. Requiem is a bottle show – a one-set episode – and as such, relies on tour de force acting by Tapping and Zimmerman. Both actors are called on to run through a gamut of emotions in a situation where an unseen menace seems to be influencing their behavior.

Based on these two episodes, Sanctuary is deserving of its renewal and an even larger audience.

Final Grade: B+

The story of how Po [Jack Black] becomes the Dragon Warrior – despite the skepticism of the Furious Five Masters, Crane [David Cross], Mantis [Seth Rogen], Monkey [Jackie Chan], Tigress [Angelina Jolie] and Viper [Lucy Liu] – is one of the year’s surprise hits, critically as well as at the box office.

The film’s DVD release is full of bonus features and, in a special two DVD package, includes The Secrets of the Furious Five. This twenty-five minute tale finds Po facing his greatest challenge – teaching a class of easily distracted young bunnies the art of king fu [Master Shifu, still voiced by Dustin Hoffman, seems particularly tickled by the situation]. To get the class’ attention, Po relates stories of how each of the Five – Crane [David Cross], Monkey [Jaycee Chan], Mantis [Max Koch], Tigress [Tara Strong], and Viper [Jessica Di Ciccio] – had to overcome such flaws as impatience [Mantis], Compassion [Monkey], control [Tigress], and so forth. Even Master Oogway [Randall Duk Kim] puts in an appearance.

Most of Secrets is filmed in the beautiful 2D style seen in the prologue to Kung Fu Panda, with CG used for scenes that feature Po and his class – and the clever cover art from the two DVDs is designed to be one larger picture when placed side by side.

There is a wealth of features on each DVD.

Kung Fu Panda: Audio Commentary by Co-Directors John Stevenson and Mark Osborne; Meet the Cast; Pushing the Boundaries [improvements in CGI]; Sound Design; Kung fu Fighting Music Video by Cee-Lo; Mr. Ping’s Noodle House [watch a master make noodles from a simple ball of dough]; How to Use Chopsticks [this time for sure!]; Conservation International: Help Save Wild Panda; Dragon Warrior Training Academy; Printables and Weblinks [DVD-ROM], and Dreamworks Animation Jukebox.

Secrets of the Furious Five: Po’s Power Play: Learn to Draw [Character animators show how to draw their respective characters]; Dumpling Shuffle [which bowl is the dumpling under]; Pandamonium Activity Kit [DVD-ROM]; The Land of Panda: Learn the Panda Dance; Do You Kung Fu [demonstrations of basic kung fu forms]; Inside the Chinese Zodiac; Animals of Kung Fu Panda [and how they relate to their namesake forms of kung fu], and What Fighting Style Are You?

Grade: Kung Fu Panda – A

Grade: Secrets of the Furious Five – B+

Grade: Features: Kung Fu Panda – A+

Grade: Features: Secrets of the Furious Five – B+

Final Grade: A

It’s been several hours since I walked out of the theater and I’m still wondering whutinthehighholyhellwuzzat?!? If you’ve seen any of the films that Kaufman wrote previously [Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind], then you know that is the usual state of mind that follows a screening his work. It’s just that Synecdoche, New York takes things to a whole other level.

Kaufman lulls us into a state of false comprehension by opening with the family of small time theatre director Caden Cotard [Philip Seymour Hoffman] as they go about a depressing day – a day that seems to last forever and ends with his artist wife, Adele Lack [Catherine Keener] and daughter, Olive [Sadie Goldstein] leaving for a show in Berlin. The two-week separation becomes seventeen years.

In the meantime, Caden, following on the heels of a Broadway success with Death of a salesman, wins a genius grant of quite possibly billions and mounts a play that he hopes will bold and true and a bunch of other artistic stuff. What he winds up with is a scale version of New York – peopled by actors playing all the people in his life [however slightly or parenthetically]. But that’s all window dressing.

Besides being a pun on Schenectady [the Cotards' hometown], synecdoche is a word that can mean “a part that represents the whole.” In terms of Kaufman’s film, this can mean any number of things – Kaufman himself says that it means what you take out of it. For me, the film is about Life. It grows and shifts in variations on a theme even as members of Caden’s cast quit and are replaced – even though the new actors are doing the same things as their predecessors, they are different because they are different people, much as we are different people at various stages of our lives.

Life, and Death, are both bigger than we are, and smaller. We can be replaced, though never exactly. We can be reproduced, though never exactly, in any number of media. In an odd way, Kaufman seems – to me at least – to be saying that life, the universe and everything is what it is. That can be both a comforting thought and a harrowing one.

Final Grade: A+

What Dragnet was to Los Angeles, and Naked City was to New York, that’s what M Squad was to Chicago. The hard-boiled cop show starred Lee Marvin, in his first major leading role, as Lt. Frank Ballinger of the so-called M Squad. In Ballinger’s words, M Squad “is a special detail of the Chicago Police; we work on cases when requested by other departments, and when there are special circumstances.” Most of the show’s one hundred and seventeen episodes dealt with homicides. The Timeless Media Group collection of the complete series marks the first time the series has been released on any form of home video.

Although Lt. Ballinger had occasional support from various fellow detectives, the only other series regular was his immediate superior, Captain Grey [Paul Newlan] – as hands-on a boss as any cop could hope for. Ballinger’s cases ranged from deaths caused during escape from a robbery [caused by a cleverly disguised sailor hoping to get away when his ship sailed], to the case of a married businessman killed in an apparent robbery after breaking up with his mistress [the dead man’s wife was a friend of Captain Grey’s wife].

The series ran for four seasons and, beginning with the second, featured a theme composed by Count Basie. For all four seasons, the episodes’ scores were composed by jazz greats like Benny Carter and John Williams [who went on to score Star Wars]. Coupled with the stark black & white, noir-ish cinematography, M Squad was an effective combination of sizzle and substance.

Marvin’s Ballinger could be as brusque as Jack Webb’s Joe Friday, but was a bit on the empathetic side when dealing the victims of the crimes he investigated. He could be fooled by a pretty face, but not for long – and he had a very Sam Spade-like attitude to female criminals. He was smart and intuitive, and as perfectly capable of taking down bad guys with his fists as with a gun.

I could bore you with a list of guest stars who went on to bigger - if not necessarily better - things [among the ones listed on the box are two future Star Trek stars, a vigilante and a policewoman-to-be] but I’ll leave the fun of spotting them to you.

As for the quality of the set, it varies. Originally, Timeless planned a best-of set because they didn’t have access to all one hundred and seventeen episodes. The missing episodes were supplied by fans, making this a unique achievement. The result is something rare – a complete set of episodes from a groundbreaking, fifty-year old series that led the way in writing, direction, performance, production values and scoring.

There are no features included with the set – other than the liner notes that are duplicated on the back on of the slipcase and the interior foldout box, and a CD of Count Basie’s theme and jazz selections from the show’s score.

The variable quality of the episodes keeps the set from getting an A+ for content, but, as all episodes are definitely watchable, it doesn’t lose much.

Final Grade: A

Call it a hunch, but I suspect that NBC’s My Own Worst Enemy [Mondays, 10/9C] will be greeted by a lot of critics with cries of “It’s silly,” and “What the heck was that?” – which is kind of a shame. The series, which stars Christian Slater as super-spy/sociopath Edward Albright and nice guy husband/father/efficiency expert, Henry Spivey, is a hybrid of the Bourne movies and the latest British mini-series take on Jekyll & Hyde, Jekyll.

When Spivey begins to remember being in places like Paris – where’s he’s never been, it leads to a bleeding of two distinct identities into each other. He soon learns that other employees of his consultants firm also have two identities and that he has been manufactured to give espionage superstar Edward Albright a completely effective cover for his downtime between assignments.

This causes problems for both personalities – Spivey suddenly awakens during one of Albright’s assignments and Albright wakes up in Spivey’s life. The results cause havoc for their boss/handler, Mavis Heller [Alfre Woodard], who might have to erase Spivey – but the two personalities figure out how to communicate with each other [in the same way that Tom Jackman and Hyde communicated in the Jekyll mini-series] and things begin to take even stranger turns.

I’m not saying that My Own Worst Enemy isn’t far-fetched. I’m not even saying that it doesn’t get silly in spots. What I am saying is that, like the BBC with Jekyll, NBC is taking a risk with a series that tries to do something fresh and different. I’m saying that My Own Worst Enemy is an entertaining hour of dark and light; a series that combines family drama and spy show with some genuine imagination. It blends Robert Louis Stevenson and Robert Ludlum in a way that shoots for the fence – and might just pull it off, in time.

Slater does some decent work with both characters – and their lives. Besides Woodard, the excellent cast includes Madchen Amick [Mrs. Angelica Spivey], Saffron Burrows [Dr. Norah Skinner, the psychiatrist who monitors Spivey for problems associated with Edward], Mike O’Malley [Henry’s best friend, Tom/Edward’s fellow spy, Raymond], and Bella Thorne and Taylor Lautner [Henry’s children, Ruth and Jack].

The series creator, Jason Smilovic [Karen Sisco, Lucky Number Slevin, Kidnapped, Bionic Woman], may be onto something here. His pilot script, Breakdown, may be more than a little overstuffed, but director David Semel keeps it moving and hits some prime beats from the get-go. Simply put, there’s more here to like than not.

Final Grade: B-

Although the Sleeping Beauty fairytale has been around for much longer, Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty was inspired by the Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky ballet – some of Tchaikovsky’s music is even quoted in the score.

Sleeping Beauty is remarkable for a number of reasons: it was the first Disney film to be done in an angular, more medieval style in which every aspect of every scene was detailed and in focus; it was the first Disney film which Disney didn’t work on from beginning to end; it was the last Disney animation to use hand-inked final art. From the opening sequences, the film is more vibrant, more alive than any previous Disney animation – and it remains almost impossibly lovely to look at today.

As with previous Disney animations, the voice casting is superb: Mary Costa did both speaking and singing for Princess Aurora; Eleanor Audley’s Maleficent is pretty much the standard for evil females in animation, even now; and the Three Good Fairies – Flora [Verna Felton], Fauna [Barbara Jo Allen] and Merryweather [Barbara Luddy] – are quite possibly6 the best example of characters who not only provide comic relief, but are actually integral to the story.

The new restoration of Sleeping Beauty marks the first time since its original theatrical run that we can see the film in its original widescreen aspect ratio, with the additional edges of the film adding even more richness to the experience.

This 50^th Anniversary Platinum Edition of the Disney classic also comes with enough Bonus Features to please the most discerning film buff: disc One: Audio Commentary by PIXAR CEO John Lasseter, Film Critic/Historian Leonard Maltin and current Disney Animator Andreas Deja; Once Upon a Dream Music Video by Emily Osment [Hannah Montana]; Disney Song Selection [plays just the actual song sequences from the film]; Princess Fun Facts – Pop-Up Video-style track that provides some historical background both for the film and princesses in general; Grand Canyon – a beautiful half-hour film that explores the Grand Canyon, set to the Grand Canyon Suite by Ferde Grofe; The Peter Tchaikovsky Story – an episode of the Wonderful World of Disney that featured a biographical film of Tchaikovsky’s life, plus sneak peeks at Sleeping Beauty. Disc Two: Briar Rose’s Enchanted Dance Game; Sleeping Beauty Fun With Language Game; Picture Perfect – The Making of Sleeping Beauty; Eyvind Earle – The Man and His Art; Alternate Opening; Sequence 8 [Forest Scene; Deleted songs; It Happens I Have a Penny [Version 1]; It Happens I Have a Penny [Version 2]; Art Galleries; Original Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough Attraction; Publicity; Four Artists Paint One Tree; Storyboard Sequences.

Grade: Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty: 50^th Anniversary Platinum Edition – A+

Grade: Features – A+

Final Grade: A+