The Capture Of Grizzly Adams (1981/CBS DVD)/The Carol Burnett Show: Christmas With Carol (StarVista/Time Life DVD)/Family Tree: The Complete First Season (2013/HBO DVDs)/Mad Men: Season 6 (2013/Lionsgate Blu-ray Set)/Magic City: The Complete Second Season (2013/Starz/Anchor Bay Blu-ray Set)/Once Upon A Time: Behind The Magic (2013/Large Softcover/Titan Books)

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

Our latest round of TV releases revisit old favorites, but the telefilm The Capture Of Grizzly Adams (1981) is actually our first time covering the inexplicably popular TV show that ran for two solid seasons on NBC and was produced by the infamous silly phenomenon exploitation company Sunn Classics, who gave us bad movies on subjects like Noah's Ark, Jesus and anything that got people to line up pre-Internet in what was like ...in search of (see elsewhere on this site) with a lobotomy. This was the second of three telefilms with original lead Dan Haggerty and the title tells you everything you need to know. The good guy is being framed and imprisoned.

For non-fans or those who felt their time had been wasted watching the show, that seems like justice, but this at least has a fine guest cast including Kim Darby, Keenan Wynn, Noah Berry Jr., June Lockhart and Chuck Connors. However, everything about the teleplay is weak, predictable, tired and quickly forgotten, so to say this is for fans only is an understatement.

There are no extras.

Much better is The Carol Burnett Show: Christmas With Carol which takes two of her Christmas episodes and brings them together on one DVD. The 1974 episode features Alan Alda and includes a Family skit where Mama and Eunice ruin another holiday and relative visit, while the Christmas 1977 episode has Ken Barry and singer Helen Reddy in prime form and a great Ms. Wiggins/Mr. Tudball skit. A really funny set, it is easily the best holiday DVD we've seen for 2013 and we have al;ready been swamped (and it is not Halloween yet!) but we expect this will hold its own all season long and for many many more.

Extras include a paper pullout episode guide, while the DVD adds four bonus sketches, three of which include Jonathan Winters & Sid Caesar from the Christmas 1967 episode and The 12 Days Of After Christmas piece from the Christmas 1969 episode.

For more Burnett on DVD, try these links:

Carol's Favorites

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11868/The+Carol+Burnett+Show:+Carol%E2%80%99s+F

This Time Together

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12105/Best+Of+Latino+Laugh+Festival+(1996/CBS+DVD)

Mama's Family: The Complete Series

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12399/Mam

Christopher Guest and Jim Piddock try a comic TV series with variation in Family Tree: The Complete First Season (2013), as Tom Chadwick (the great Chris O'Dowd of The IT Crowd among others) as a younger man in England staring to trace his family roots and finding out all kinds of wacky things, including that he has some relatives in the U.S. and specifically Los Angeles, California. Running 8 episodes, the first four take place in the U.K. And are not bad, then the remaining four are in L.A. and the show gets slowly funnier. The mix of Guest's laid back documentary satire style and passive Brit humor mesh well enough, but produced nothing new.

The British parts gets more dulled down than they needed to be despite an amusing send up of bad British TV in several faux shows, while the supporting cast is solid enough and the show has its share of comic talent from both sides of the Atlantic. Too bad this is simply not as all out fresh or funny as it could have been. The funny characters and funny names get too cartoonish too early and I wished for more. Maybe the next season will pick up, but that is a long road indeed. O'Dowd is a big plus however, so I will see the next season just for him and hope this show increases his audience permanently.

Extras include four clips (two a piece respectively) from the two fake British sitcoms shown in the background of the show, Bonus Scenes and Music From The Show.

Now for Mad Men: Season 6 (2013), long past its 1950s period, such a well done show that even I am impressed by how long it has gone on and endured. Without getting into spoilers and to give you an idea of our thoughts on the show, here are link to our coverage of all the previous seasons:

One

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7208/Mad+Men+%E2%80%93+Season+One+(Blu-Ray++

Two

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8795/Mad+Men+%E2%80%93+Season+2+(Lionsgate+Bl

Three

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10143/Mad+Men+%E2%80%93+Season+Three+(2009/Li

Four

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10853/Dalziel+&+Pascoe+%E2%80%93+Season+Three

Five

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11884/Mad+Men+%E2%80%93+Season+Five+(2012/Lio

At this point, the new counterculture rising subplot is moving in and the characters we see here play as the last vestiges of the older world slowly eclipsed by a new world of art and ideas. We get 13 episodes and they are all good, but this time out, I think the weekly TV grind is finally catching up with the show, despite its excellent writers. Start at the beginning for best results, but the show is still strong enough on its own to still be one of the best series on TV.

Extras include the Summer Of Love interactive gallery and two Making Of featurettes: Recreating An Era and Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out on Timothy Leary, who becomes a factor in this season's story arc.

Magic City: The Complete Second Season (2013) on the other hand is a bit better than its very mixed Season One, which did not stay with me and you can read all about in my Blu-ray set coverage at this link:

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11834/Magic+City+%E2%80%93+The+Complete+First+S

It just seems the show took forever to get started, the Miami style is not badly done, but is missing something authentic that would take too long to go into for this review. However, after that debut season and eight episodes of this season, we finally get some action and some payoff moments in the final show that includes James Caan showing up and stealing every scene he is in despite this good cast. It is just their working from scripts that can be, for a better word, sleepy. Again, start at the beginning and see for yourself. At least this show is somewhat ambitious versus most dramatic narrative TV of late.

Extras are all on one bonus Blu-ray, but strangely run no more than 25 minutes, so why there are not more is very unfortunate. The five mini-featurettes that apparently are promos to promote the series include: The Gamble For Havana, The Criminal Element, Tales From The Underbelly, Magic City Style and The Music That Makes Magic. Try for more next time guys!!!

Finally we have a book in softcover in coffee table size in Once Upon A Time: Behind The Magic (2013), the Disney/ABC dramatic fantasy series that we finally looked at with the Season Two Blu-ray set at this link:

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12304/The+Captains+Close+Up+with+William+Shatner

Not impressed with the show, I can say the book at least is well written with massive amounts of stills (though they have digital color limits like the show) on high quality paper and an episode guide for the first two seasons, but it is obviously made for fans. After reading it, I did ask, where is the better show that goes with this book?

The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on the two Blu-ray shows both recreate almost the same time period, but Men is just a little warmer, sharper and richer making for better playback as the style is not as overdone as that of City. The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Tree is not bad and consistent, but it is a bit soft and is slightly styled that way so the 1.33 X 1 color image on the Burnett DVD can more than match it and has better color. That leaves the 1.33 X 1 image on Grizzly looking soft and weak throughout, looking like it comes from an older NTSC analog master transfer despite being shot in what looks like 35mm film. Sad.

Though it is close, the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on the Men episodes just surpass the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mixes on the City episodes, with better soundfields throughout. City still has its sonic moments, but not as many as it should. The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Tree is also on the quiet side and as a result, this lacks a soundfield being joke and dialogue-driven. That leaves lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono sound on Burnett and Grizzly, but while Burnett sounds good for its age and can match Tree for the most part, Grizzly is down a generation or two like its image and is so poor, be careful of volume switching and high playback levels.

- Nicholas Sheffo