Cheyenne – The Complete Sixth Season (1961 – 1962)/Hunted – The Complete First Season (2013/Warner Archive DVDs)/Southland – The Complete Fifth & Final Season (2013/Warner DVDs)

 

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

 

 

PLEASE NOTE: Cheyenne and Hunted are only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.

 

 

Now for some more interesting TV of note on DVD you should know about…

 

 

Cheyenne – The Complete Sixth Season (1961 – 1962) has us picking up later on with the next to last season of the hit Western series that alternated with Sugarfoot (reviewed elsewhere on this site, also on DVD from Warner Archive) with Clint Walker on the title role of a man just trying to make his way in The West when injustice, deception and greed keep getting in the way.  It made him a big star in the genre at the time and led to a long career, but this show really put him on the map and he carries it well.

 

We get only 13 hour-long shows over 4 DVDs because Warner did not need to make as many thanks to Sugarfoot and they are a little better as a result, including appearances by Ellen Burstyn, Lee Van Cleef, James Coburn, James Hong, Cole Younger and John Anderson that make the show even more interesting to see now.  Writing is decent too (future producer Cy Chermak (Kolchak: The Night Stalker, CHiPs, The Barbary Coast) wrote the first episode of this season and the show is worth revisiting for Western fans and the curious.

 

There are no extras.

 

 

To match the interest in Strike Back (see the Blu-rays reviewed elsewhere on this site), Cinemax has teamed Frank Spotnitz (of X-Files fame) with the BBC to give us yet another Middle east-based terrorism thriller series in Hunted – The Complete First Season (2013), but the British voices and faces do not mean it will be fresher than the formula used throughout the show, it is no Strike Back and far more predictable than expected, the show just does not work.

 

Since Spotnitz’s horrid Night Stalker remake back in 2006, he has not really recovered creatively and it could be argued that the Australian angel on Strike Back has helped that show immensely despite it even having its own issues now.  In this case, Melissa George is not bad as the lead antagonist, but unlike Strike Back, the six episodes here are just everything we have seen before in the Spy genre, too much War Porn for our own good and talent that is on the screen not being used to best effect.  Though others have to take some responsibility, I blame Spotnitz the most and the DVD case does not even identify this as a first season, so even Cinemax and Warner were not sure where this one was going.  For the very curious only.

 

There are no extras.

 

 

Finally we have Southland – The Complete Fifth & Final Season (2013), a show I was very happy with in its debut season, but then the show started drifting away a bit and that may have thrown off audiences from an otherwise top rate show with one of the best casts in a police series we have seen in ages and here are the links to my coverage of the previous seasons on DVD:

 

One

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/9505/Southland+%E2%80%93+The+Comple

 

Two – Four

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12021/The+Hour+2+(2012/BBC+Blu-ray)/So

 

This one deserves a Blu-ray release, no matter my complains and feel this final set of 10 episodes was actually a comeback for a show that should have been a cable TV phenomenon, far better than any of the CSI, NCIS or the other shows that have become too cookie cutter for their own good.  I want to take a moment to thank everyone for the amazing work on the show and celebrate the actors who gave some of the bets work of their career here including Regina King, C. Thomas Howell, a brave Michael Cudlitz, Shawn Hatosy, Ben MacKenzie, Anja Bareikis, Jamie McShane, Michael McGrady and Dorian Missick.  They are among the names to keep looking out for because they are some of our best actors today n an age were we don’t see enough such talent.

 

Start at this show form the beginning to enjoy the conclusion the most.  Though this is marked as “Uncensored” on the case, this is more about language than images, which are still censored, so you know.  Also, I had some issues with the last episode, but that will have to wait for another time.

 

Extras include Unaired Scenes and a too-brief Behind The Scenes piece entitled Shooting In Progress.

 

 

The 1.33 X 1 black and white image on Cheyenne comes from prints that are real black and white stocks with proper silver content, but they can show their age, be muddy and lack definition at times, but oddly, in the same episode print and even same scene.  The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Hunter and Southland are styled down newer HD shoots, but somehow Hunter looks a little sharper and clearer, making it the best-looking of all the sets here, though all of these releases deserve Blu-ray editions.

 

The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Cheyenne is a generation down and lighter throughout than expected, so though clean, it can also be distorted and be careful of high volume playback and volume switching.  The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Hunter and Southland should both sound better, but Hunter has some major mixing issues where the center channel has too much of the sound too often and the mix even tends to push the soundfield too much inward (down a generation or transferred improperly?) making Southland the sonic champ here.

 

 

 

To order Cheyenne and Hunted, go to this link for it and many more great web-exclusive releases at:

 

http://www.warnerarchive.com/

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo