Enemy At The Door – Series 2 (1978/Acorn Media DVD)
Picture:
C Sound: C+ Extras: C Episodes: B-
Acorn
Media continues the reissue of the 1978 British TV mini-series Enemy At The Door with their Series 2
DVD set. We started with the first set
at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8219/Enemy+At+The+Door+%E2%80%93
It is a
reissue of a DVD set Goldhil issued years ago (you’ll find a link to the
original coverage at the link above) and will repeat my text (with updates)
from that review so you get an idea of the entire series…
The
German Nazi’s never got England, but they came as close as invading the Channel
Islands in 1942, which is the subject of the British TV series Enemy At The Door (1978), which is
spilt into two seasons from Granada Television and Acorn DVD. This comes from the last golden age of
British TV which was at the same time as the last such period for American TV,
though the Big Three Networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) rarely supported programming as
ambitious and smart, so most of these shows went to PBS.
The most
amusing thing was seeing Anthony Head as Clive Martel, the actor who became
best known in the U.S.
for the man in the “seductive” Taster’s Choice commercials. Otherwise, the only actor you are likely to
recognize is the perennial British character actor Bernard Horsfall, but
outside of him, even a very seasoned viewer of British TV and cinema like
myself did not recognize the rest of the cast.
They were good though.
Like
other such British series of the time, it is on the quiet side, slowly building
it storyline, but that always runs the danger of boring the audience. Here, it feels like an old Saturday Morning
movie serial without much action. All
the Nazi’s happen to speak English and have British accents for the most part,
which dates it a bit more. The writers
and directors never fall into the “filler-zone”, though, so there will be those
who will still find it engaging if they can get involved with the
characters. It never degenerates into a
soap opera either, which is a plus.
For the
latter half of the series, I just thought it went on a little longer than it
should have with what they were doing.
The 1.33
X 1 image remains soft despite being shot on film (wow, could this use an
upgrade) and is likely the same digital master as the previous releases with
analog videotape flaws including video noise, video banding, telecine flicker,
tape scratching, PAL cross color, faded color and tape damage, but the Dolby
Digital 2.0 Mono sounds better and is passable for now, but an updated mono
track would be nice too.
The last
sets had no extras, but Acorn has included Historical
Background on the Channel Islands, though there is more to say on this
series and I hope we see it down the line.
- Nicholas Sheffo
