Californication – The Fourth Season (2010/Showtime/CBS DVD)/Kojak: The Complete Movie Collection (1973 – 1990/Shout! Factory DVD Set)/New Tricks – Season Six (2009/Acorn DVD Set)/thirtysomething… - Season One, Volume Two (1988/Mill Creek DVD)

 

Picture: C+/C+/C+/C     Sound: B-/C+/C+/C     Extras: C/C+/C/D     Episodes/Telefilms: C+/B/B-/C

 

 

Up next are four “quality television” releases for your consideration…

 

The David Duchovny cable hit Californication – The Fourth Season (2010) holds steady as a very watchable show as his character gets into more trouble than even he may have expected, making this cliffhanger somewhat like a nighttime soap opera, but amusing and more so if you have seen earlier seasons like the prior one we covered at this link:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10590/Californication+%E2%80%93+The+T

 

There are 12 half-hours again making up the season and he becomes the show’s de facto anti-hero, but the arc of his character makes perfect sense just the same and Duchovny does a fine job with his lead role and is more than capable of carrying a show as we already know.  It is best to start with the debut season and watch forward chronologically, but this is not bad on its old watching it cold.  Extras are six episodes from three other Showtime series: Gigolos, Episodes and The Borgias.

 

 

Though only the Third Season DVD set is just around the corner, Universal and Shout! Factory have decided to issue Kojak: The Complete Movie Collection (1973 – 1990) which begins with the still-amazing original TV movie The Marcus-Nelson Murders which remains a TV movie classic and then jumps to long after the original show was cancelled for seven more telefilms starting in 1987 that marked a successful revival of the character with Telly Savalas picking up where he left off with no problems at all.

 

Those later telefilms are The Belarus File (1985), The Price Of Justice (1987), Ariana (1988), Fatal Flaw (1989), Flowers For Matty (1990), It’s Always Something (1990) and None So Blind (1990), which are all amusing and watchable (holding up better than you might think), but they were never quite as gritty as the original show, but were professionally done (more so than much of the same kind of show we see today) and are at least entertaining.  This includes some new transfers of the films too, but more on that in a moment.  The telefilms have synopsis inside the cover sleeve and a nice extra in a cast/crew/family interviews featurette was a very pleasant surprise.

 

 

It has been a while since I viewed a season of the British TV hit New Tricks, a crime drama with some comedy, but Season Six (2009) is as good as Season Three and the cast has only improved on their chemistry.  For those unfamiliar with the show, here is our coverage of the last three seasons:

 

Three

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10795/Capture+Of+The+Green+River+Killer

 

Four

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11102/New+Tricks+-+Season+Four+(2007/A

 

Five

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11206/New+Tricks+-+Season+Five+(2008/A

 

 

This new set opens with one of the team going to rehab, but even there, trouble is not far away, but that is forgotten by the next show and the series resumes being the smart-and-pleasant-but-safe series I remembered.  However, I was surprised that it had not worn thin or become boring as I expected it might from the weekly TV grind, to the credit of the makers and cast.  We get eight nearly-hour-long shows on 3 DVDs and a 19-minutes-long behind-the-scenes featurette as our only extras.  Though you might want to start from the beginning, you can pick up here and still enjoy this one.

 

 

thirtysomething… - Season One, Volume Two (1988) is simply Mill Creek reissuing the other half of the Shout! Factory full Season One set we already covered at this link:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8927/thirtysomething+%E2%80%93+The+C

 

This one has no extras.

 

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Californication and Tricks look as good as anything here as they should for being the newest productions, but they are still a little softer than I would have liked and know these would look better on Blu-ray.  The 1.33 X 1 on thirtysomething is the weakest here as Mill Creek squeezes more episodes on each DVD than Shout! Factory did.

 

The Kojak set was expected to be 1.33 X 1 all the way, but as early as telefilm four, Ariana we get the rest of the TV movies in anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 presentations that are likely debuts for most of them and will surprise fans and no fans alike for looking so good.  No, they are not always perfect, but I hope more later TV movies get this kind of treatment where applicable.  Too bad the DVD case does not explain this clearly, only noting in general both aspect ratios exist, but some might expect this only to apply to the last two or three telefilms.

 

The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Californication is the only multi-channel presentation here and it is better than the other DVDs offered and above the also-lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo alternate option on the same shows.  The 5.1 soundfield is not bad ands well recorded.  Tricks has lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo that is nicely recorded, but limited at times, while the same on thirtysomething is the weakest sound here being barely stereo and its limited dynamic range is a generation down from the Shout! Factory DVD version.  The Kojak set starts with Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on the original TV movie and it sounds really good for its age, while the latter telefilms are Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo that sometimes have faint Pro Logic-type surrounds.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo