Dragnet 1969 (Shout! Factory DVD Set) + Hoarders
– Season Two, Part One (A&E DVD) + Luther
(BBC DVD)
Picture:
B-/C+/C+ Sound: B-/C+/C+ Extras: C+/D/C Episodes: B-/D/B-
TV has
had its ups and downs. Some shows that
might not have seemed as good a long time ago seem outright ambitious as
compared to others, while some new shows occasionally try to take risks and
sometimes work. Three recent TV on DVD sets
show how more channels do not mean more choice and the changing way in which TV
tries to reproduce reality.
Dragnet 1969 continued the successful revival
in color of the classic TV show that was originally a big hit radio show as
Jack Webb’s Joe Friday and Harry Morgan’s Bill Gannon continue to enforce the
law in Los Angeles
as two of the best the LAPD have to offer.
This four-DVD set has 27 half-hour shows is as good as the last one and
the ways the show deals with the counterculture and Civil Right Era is
amusing. Sometimes, it is very
unintentionally funny, but one of the episodes actually deals with how they
handle their work after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This is a well-done show and the kind that
helped to build Universal Television into a powerhouse.
Hoarders – Season Two, Part One is a strange reality TV series
dealing with people who must keep everything they get. Seven hour-long shows feature seven people
who have put themselves in terrible situations, but this show is more
exploitive than I realized from passive viewing. Not a great show, it is also a show that just
invades the privacy of people who need real help and putting them on national
TV and beyond does more harm than good, especially for those who need serious
professional help. Maybe if there was a
different approach, it would not be as bad, but it shows everything that is
wrong with TV today and especially “reality TV” which shows that nobody
deserves private space or help. It is
just too much and despite the dire situations, never feels that real.
That
leaves Luther, a BBC TV show with
Idris Elba (The Wire, Oz) as the title character, a very
talented, emotionally complex detective with issues, but this is what helps him
track down the worst psychotic killers and predators. However, a new killer named Alice (Ruth
Wilson) has surfaced and they take each other on head on in a decent
program. However, this was the same
premise as Thomas Harris’ novel Red Dragon, especially when Michael
Mann made it as the 1986 film Manhunter. This is a quality six-episode mini-series,
but it just does not break much new ground, yet Elba
is a great actor and he makes this more watchable than it otherwise would
be. The supporting cast is good too, so
see it if you are curious.
The 1.33
X 1 image on Dragnet looks pretty
good from show to show, originating in 35mm film and despite the age of the
prints, tends to look better than the anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on
Luther (styled down to be dark) and
even more on Hoarders. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Dragnet sounds somehow cleaner and
clearer than the audio-dropout plagued Hoarders
and sometimes oddly mixed Luther,
both presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo.
Luther sounds the newest, yet
misses some of the clarity of the 41 year old show.
Extras are
not available on Hoarders, but Luther has the featurette Luther
– The World Of A True Maverick and Dragnet
adds Vintage Promos and a classic black and white episode of the show from its
original 1950s run called The Big Smoke. Seem the original archive may not be complete
on the original series, but it might be worth it for all involved to try and
save it.
- Nicholas Sheffo
