Broadchurch:
The Complete First Season
(2013/E1 DVDs)/The Dick
Van Dyke Show: Classic Mary Tyler Moore Episodes
(1961 - 1966/Image DVDs)/Eight
Is Enough: The Complete Fifth Season
(1980 - 1981/Final Season/Warner Archive DVDs)/Mayberry
RFD: The Complete First Season
(1968 - 1969/Warner DVDs)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+/C+/C+/C Extras: C/C+/D/D Episodes:
C+/B-/C+/C
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Eight
Is Enough: The Complete Fifth Season
DVD set is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Here
are the latest TV releases...
Broadchurch:
The Complete First Season
(2013) is the latest TV show to focus on a murder, in this case, that
of a child, one that is always iffy and tricky without becoming
exploitive. David Tennant (the former Dr. Who managing a solid
post-series career) is one of two detectives assigned to the case and
to the show's credit, manages to not be another boring police
procedural or exploitive, yet it is a set-up that can only go so far
and the usually smart 8 episodes become restricted no matter what.
The
supporting cast and twists are not a problem, but I'll be very
curious to see how far the show can go after this season. It at
least tries to be a little different and the extension of more
character development is a big plus. See it if you can handle the
subject material
Extras
include Behind The Scenes and Deleted Scenes.
The
Dick Van Dyke Show: Classic Mary Tyler Moore Episodes
(1961 - 1966) arrives on DVD as a highlight set to the series, which
has had many DVDs at this point and the entire show is also out on
Blu-ray. The three DVD set here offer 20 half-hours of what tend to
be the shows that best show off Moore's best moments as Laura Petrie
and it is a very agreeable list. Some fans might not agree with the
list, but all are on Blu-ray, so you can just get that set.
The
set also reminds us what a natural Moore was on camera and why she
eventually became a big star in her own right. Still, for novices,
this is a nice introduction to the show.
Extras
include a clip called Oh
Rob,
three TV commercials for sponsors tied into the show and three audio
commentary tracks by Van Dyke and Rob Reiner on select episodes.
Eight
Is Enough: The Complete Fifth Season
(1980 - 1981) turned out to be the last season of the Bradford
household in action. By this time, one of the children was old
enough to either get married and/or have a baby and that's what we
get here in the last 22 hour-long shows over 6 DVDs. The show was
starting to repeat itself and they could not keep the cast together
forever, plus I think the show did everything they could with them by
this point.
Many
wondered or had hoped the younger cast might go onto more success and
there was as much good will as there was popularity with them, but
the future was sadly bleak for just about all of them and Betty
Buckley is the one who moved onto major success, launching major
Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals on broadway like Cats
and Sunset
Blvd.
It is a season for completists, for the curious and ended the show
before it got into major trouble. It still feels like a sad
conclusion for a show that began so great, but look what happened to
The
Brady Bunch
and Welcome
Back Kotter;
the kids have to grow up sometime.
There
are unfortunately no extras, but you can read about some of the prior
seasons here:
Three
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12200/Eight+Is+Enough+%E2%80%93+The+Complete
Four
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12329/DaVinci%E2%80%99s+Demons:+The+Complete+F
Finally
we have Mayberry
RFD: The Complete First Season
(1968 - 1969), a spin-off of The
Andy Griffith Show
(see elsewhere on this site) arrives as CBS plans on issuing the show
on Blu-ray. The premise here is that farmer Sam Jones (Ken Berry)
becomes part of local town politics and becomes the focus (after 8
seasons of the first show) continuing their story. Griffith, Don
Knotts and Ron Howard of show up in some shows, but Aunt Bee (Francis
Bavier) stayed as a regular.
The
show was a moderate hit, but not one people talk much about today,
though Berry was more than capable of holding his own. All 26
half-hours of the first season are here for those interested, but it
always played like a show for fans only of the first one and despite
looking and sounding as good as I have ever seen it, did not improve
or age well for me after all these years. At least it respects the
audience intended.
There
are no extras.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Broadchurch
is not a bad HD shoot, but the 35mm-shot older shows (the 1.33 X 1
black and white image on Van
Dyke,
plus the 1.33 X 1 color image on Enough
and Mayberry)
can more than compete, especially in solid transfers like we get
here.
The
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Broadchurch
is also good, but not spectacular, so the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0
Mono on the rest of the sets can compete save Mayberry,
which sounds more compressed throughout than expected.
You
can order the last and now all seasons of Eight Is Enough on
DVD from Warner Archive, so go to this link for them and many more
great web-exclusive releases at:
http://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
