Back in the late sixties, while North Americans were enjoying William F. Dozier’s inspired camp version of Batman, Japan was enjoying the exploits of a much bigger superhero – Ultraman – in a show modestly entitled Ultraman – A Special Effects Fantasy Series! Though it was, basically, a man-in-a-rubber-suit monster series, it was fast-paced science […]
Category: DVD
DVD REVIEW: Monty Python: The Other British Invasion – How a Bunch of Silly Brits Changed American TV Comedy Forever!
Monty Python: The Other British Invasion is a collection of two documentaries and two short featurettes that deal with how the famous comedy troupe came together and their effect on American TV comedy. The first doc, the [appropriately] black & white Before the Flying Circus, looks at how the members of the group came together […]
DVD REVIEW: Trial & Retribution, Set 3 – Linda La Plante’s Other Great Series!
It comes to me as no surprise that Linda La Plante’s Trail & retribution is a quality series. After all, this is the woman who created Prime Suspect. This collection of six episodes of Trail & Retribution feature David Haymer as Detective Chief Superintendent Mike Walker, Victoria Smurfit as Detective Inspector Roisin Conner, and Dorian […]
DVD REVIEW: Murphy’s Law: Series 1 – An Undercover Cop of a Different Kind!
With all the attention being given to police and military undercover series [NCIS: Los Angeles and Dark blue among them], it’s refreshing to see the British series Murphy’s Law getting a DVD release in North America. It’s plain from the opening moments of the first series’ [season’s] first ep, Murphy’s Law, that transplanted Irish cop […]
TV ON DVD: Marvel DVD Comic Collection X-Men: Volume 3 and 4
As a long time comic book fan and collector I never purchased X-Men comics their world was too dense with too many characters, to rich a history and way too many comics that I would have had to purchase. Luckily in the early 90s Marvel created one of the greatest Superhero Cartoon Series of all […]
New On DVD: Fringe – The Complete First Season
Available on DVD as of September 8, 2008 Synopsis: Teleportation. Mind control. Invisibility. Astral projection. Mutation. Reanimation. Phenomena that exist on the Fringe of science unleash their strange powers in this thrilling series, co-created by J.J. Abrams (Lost, Alias), combining the grit of the police procedural with the excitement of the unknown. The story revolves […]
DVD REVIEW: Traffik: Remastered 20th Anniversary Edition – Masterful Mini-Series is as Relevant as Ever!
When the British mini-series Traffik first aired, it was a revelation. It shook governments and individuals alike with its depiction of how simple it was to manufacture heroin – and how all-pervasive the drug was becoming. It was so well done that it also won an International Emmy and three BAFTA Awards. Eleven years later, […]
DVD: The Mentalist- The Complete First Season
Available on DVD as of September 22, 2009 The Mentalist Season One was one of CBS Networks most successful series of the 2008-2009 television season with the pilot episode garnering a 15.6 million rating on its premiere and and 7.8 million for its encore airing three days later. It is also one of CBS’s more […]
DVD REVIEW: Midsommer Murders, Set 13 – Barnaby & Jones Continue To Intrigue!
Midsommer Murders is one of those British mystery series that fall into a sub-genre called “the village mystery” – though, thanks to Caroline Graham, the writer on whose books the series is based, the setting is an entire county so there’s no one village that’s setting records for enduring enough murders to depopulate it. Also […]
DVD REVIEW: One Step Beyond – Cult Paranormal Series Celebrates 50th Anniversary!
Ten weeks before Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone first appeared, One Step Beyond premiered. It was a series that presented tales of the paranormal: telepathy, possession, communication from the dead – all these and more were covered over the course of the series. One thing, however, made OSB different and guaranteed it a unique place in […]
DVD REVIEW: Mill Creek Reissue of Wiseguy: The Complete First Season Makes Its Bones
Sometimes, when you watch a show you loved years ago, you wonder why you loved it so much in the first place. Wiseguy is not one of those shows. The Stephen J. Cannell series revolved around Vincenzo Terranova [Ken Wahl], an undercover member of the Organized Crime Bureau. Terranova had just come out of eighteen-months […]