Perry Mason – Season Eight, Volume One (1964 – 1965/CBS DVD Set)/Upstairs, Downstairs (2011) – Season Two (2012/BBC DVDs)/Vera – Set 2 (2011/Acorn Media DVD)
Picture: C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D/C/D Episodes: B-/C+/C+
Now for
more quality TV on DVD…
Perry Mason – Season Eight, Volume
One (1964 – 1965)
has the show in good form, but from the early seasons, there are some
changes. For one thing, the black and
whiter film stocks the show is shot in are starting to get faster, so it was
starting to loose its safe Noir look. As
well, it became a little more naturalistic (finally!) in the performances and
increased uses of outdoor locations.
Still, it retained its look and feel enough to continue its winning ways
and this CBS DVD Set has 13 more hour-long episodes over four discs. You can find our coverage of previous sets
(plus the next ones if you wait long enough) elsewhere on this site, but this
set unfortunately has no extras.
The
remake of a British TV classic continues in Upstairs, Downstairs (2011) – Season Two retelling the famous story
of families and people rich and poor dealing with the arrival of WWII. If you missed the debut shows, you can read
more about the revived version of the show with its Season One set at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11085/The+Bretts+(1987+-+1988/Acorn+D
It is a
good show, but despite the good casting and efforts, it still doesn’t quite
eclipse my memories of the original series (on DVD, but we have not caught up
to it yet) but the new version has found an audience and that’s good for the
BBC. We get 6 hour-long episodes across
2 DVDs and I would only recommend you start form the beginning or these will
not work as well. Cast/Crew Interviews
are the only extra and for more on the spin-off of the original show called Thomas & Sarah, try this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11841/Crimson+Petal+&+The+White+(2011)
Finally
we have Vera – Set 2 (2011), an
unexpected continuation of the detective series of British telefilms starring
Brenda Blethyn in the title role of a detective who has an uncanny knack for
solving crimes. This began with the
initial telefilms that, before we knew it, would be a series. Here is the link to our coverage of the first
Vera DVD set:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11140/Detroit+1-8-7+(2011)/No+Ordinary
Though
Blethyn and company are good and the mysteries are not bad, but somehow, the
four telefilms here seem to become a little more routine whereas the first ones
had a sense of mystery and self-reflection that may be getting lost in the
“police procedural grid” as it were.
Again, I would start with the first set, though Blethyn is one of the
great actors and underrated at that.
This set has no extras.
The 1.33
X 1 black and white image on Mason
is pretty good across its episodes and detail can be nice because of the faster
stocks, so it is in line with previous sets we have looked at. The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on
Upstairs and Vera are shot on color HD and despite a 47 year difference, is
barley able to match the older 35mm shot detective mystery show. They are also sometimes downstyled to look
darker, yet still can’t always get as dark.
All in all, they all look good on DVD; though they would probably all
look better on Blu-ray.
The lossy
Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Mason and
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Upstairs
and Vera are also on par with each
other, all recorded very well and professionally. Only lossless presentations could bring out
more, but that would be for a later time.
- Nicholas Sheffo
