Boardwalk Empire – The Complete Third Season (2013/HBO Blu-ray w/DVD)/Enlightened – The Complete Second Season (2013/HBO DVDs)/Political Animals – The Complete Series
(2012/Warner DVDs)/Sugarfoot – The
Complete First Season (1957 – 1958/Warner Archive DVD)
Picture:
B & C/C/C/C Sound: B & C+/C+/C+/C+ Extras: B-/B-/B-/D Episodes: B-/B/B-/C+
PLEASE NOTE: Sugarfoot is only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Now for
some major TV releases of interest…
The
1920s-set gangster series Boardwalk
Empire – The Complete Third Season (2013) continues to be one of the best
shows on TV, as exemplified by our enthusiastic coverage of the previous
seasons at these links:
One
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11412/Boardwalk+Empire:+The+Complete+F
Two
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11763/Boardwalk+Empire:+The+Complete
However,
the storyline has changed so much that you really have to start from the very
first episode, let alone season, if you expect to really understand and get the
full impact of the writing and storylines.
This is not dumbed-down TV, but even with that said, there are a few
turns that have not worked for me since I began watching the show. I often applaud the makers for not imitating
The Coen Brothers’ underrated Miller’s
Crossing and coming up with new angles and ideas in each show.
Cheers to
Steve Buscemi for continuing to carry the lead so well and for a cast that
overall has really grown into their roles.
With that said, I cannot say too much about the storylines without ruining
anything, but this is still surviving the weekly TV grid and may have a few
more seasons left in it (only the historical time line can get in the way) and
though the first season is still my favorite, the whole series is worth your
time and attention.
Extras in
this solid slipcase packaging include the DVD versions of the episodes,
Ultraviolet Copy of all episodes for PC, PC portable and iTunes capable
devices, plus the Blu-rays only add audio commentary tracks on 6 of the ten
episodes.
Even a
little better is Enlightened – The
Complete Second Season (2013) which is sadly wrapping up earlier than it
should. This is my coverage of the
surprisingly solid Complete First Season
on Blu-ray:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11985/Dallas+(2012):+The+Complete+First
This
time, Amy (Laura Dern in a great role) continues to try to twist her generic,
mechanical corporation Abaddon to either do what she wants them to do or
destroy them, the latter of which is more likely when she continues to figure
out how badly things are really going.
With the help of her best co-employee Tyler (Mike White, also a
Co-Writer and Co-Producer who happens to be a fine comic actor), she is about
to get into secret parts of the company’s computer system to dig up
incriminating evidence on what is going on… if they do not get caught first.
Here too
I will not say much more, except that this season is the best of the bunch on
this list and it is a disaster that it did not become a phenomenal hit like it
deserves to be, but maybe it is just a little ahead of its time, reminding us
of how we were on the best road to a better country (et al) up until the 1980s
arrived. Dern never hits a bad note as
the character and what she observes and has to say is something we should all
be thinking about more often, whether we agree with her character or not. Watch both seasons back to back for best
impact.
Extras
include Inside The Episodes clips and
Audio Commentaries on all episodes.
Another
gem with a female lead that should have been a huge hit, but might be the
unfortunate victim of national political fatigue is Political Animals – The Complete Series (2012) with Sigourney
Weaver as a Secretary Of State who is could not beat her rival for President
(Adrian Pasdar) and now works for him, but they get along enough to get things
done, dodge trouble, but all have their issues.
She also has a loud husband (the great Ciaran Hinds) who was President,
an ambitious reporter (the underrated Carla Gugino) trying to get a story out
of her after stabbing her in the back and other twists and turns that makes
this more riveting than you could imagine.
Again
however, due to the wasteland of massive junk on TV, yet another fine series
gets the plug pulled before it can really take off, though I hope this DVD
release gets more people to see it because it is that good and they could
always do a sequel series. Ellen
Burstyn, Dylan Baker, Roger Bart and Sebastian Stan are among the fine
supporting cast. Go out of your way to
ser this one too!
Unaired
scenes are the only extras.
Finally
we have Sugarfoot – The Complete First
Season (1957 – 1958) which is one of Warner TV’s many hit Western series
from the late 1950s, early 1960s.
Maverick may be the most successful, but this one still ran four season
with Will Hutchins as the title character, a drifter good-guy seeking justice
and better living as the Old West rises.
There are 20 hour-long shows over 5 DVDs here and the show alternated
weekly with Warner’s hit Cheyenne
(reviewed elsewhere on this site), for which 11 crossover episodes were shot
for the Fifth Season of that show to
build audiences for both.
Decent,
but only so memorable, Dan Blocker, Don “Red” Barry, Pernell Roberts and
Charles Bronson are among the actors who turn up in various episodes and it is
a professionally made series that holds up on that level just fine. As an on-line exclusive, those curious of big
fans of Westerns can finally see how good they think the show is.
There are
no extras.
The 1080p
1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on the Empire Blu-ray episodes are easily the strongest, best visual
presentation on the list as expected form being the only HD on the list, but this
has always been a good-looking show and it is no surprise the quality
continues. Unfortunately, the
anamorphically enhanced DVD versions of the episodes are much softer and
weaker, sharing softness, detail and depth issues with the anamorphically enhanced
1.78 X 1 image quality on Enlightened,
Political Animals and 1.33 X 1 black
and white presentations on Sugarfoot
from solid black and white prints with real silver content which tend to be a
bit aged and muddy.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Empire is once again a sonically superior presentation on all
episodes with rich, warm, well-edited and well recorded sonics that make it as
good as any TV on Blu-ray today. The
lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 versions on the DVD presentations are fair, but lack
the soundfield more than expected, tying the same mixes on the Enlightened and Political Animals DVDs with the same soundfield issues, as well as
the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Sugarfoot, which has some distortion, but
fares better than its overall image quality.
To order Sugarfoot, go to this link for it and
many more great web-exclusive releases (and likely all of these
Warner-distributed releases) at:
http://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
