The
Dakotas: The Complete Series
(1962 - 1963/Warner Archive DVD Set)/Little
House On The Prairie: Season Five
(1978 - 1979/NBC/Lionsgate Blu-rays)/The
Mentalist: The Seventh & Final Season
(2014 - 2015/Warner DVD Set)
Picture:
C+/B-/C+ Sound: C/C+/C+ Extras: D/C-/C Episodes: C+/C-/C
PLEASE
NOTE:
The
Dakotas
DVD set is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Here's
our latest TV coverage...
The
Dakotas: The Complete Series
(1962 - 1963) is one of the more serious dramatic Westerns Warner TV
tried back in the day before they found their niche with Maverick
by adding some comedy to the drama and action. Not able to compete
with Gunsmoke
and Bonanza,
the show only lasted a season, but it is an ambitious show with Chad
Everette, Larry Ward, Mike Greene and one of THE actors known for the
genre, Jack Elam. Issued by Warner Archive as an exclusive DVD set,
the show has never looked better outside of film prints.
With
only 16 hours made, we get some decent writing, but indistinct
situations, though Telly Savalas, DeForest Kelley, Richard Jaeckel,
Werner Klemperer, Natalie Trundy, Russell Johnson, Lee Van Cleef,
Jeanne Cooper, Norman Alden, Dennis Hopper, Mercedes McCambridge,
Warren Stevens, Elisha Cook Jr., Dick Foran, Karl Swenson, Arch
Johnson, Herb Vigran, Lew Gallo, Ed Prentiss, George Savalas, Whit
Bissell, Royal Dano, Bert Freed and Claude Akins are among the great
guest cast. A well-produced show, anyone who is curious needs to
check it out.
There
are sadly no extras.
I
wanted to look at Little
House On The Prairie: Season Five
(1978 - 1979) not because I was a fan of the show, but to see if the
look of the show improved from the Season Two set I covered a while
ago (elsewhere on this site) and while the show has become as bad or
worse in its writing, the look of the show has stayed the same,
rustic, a little soft and down-styled. You would think they stocked
up on the same film stocks to keep things boring. The 5-Blu-ray set
has all 24 hours of the season and the transfers are a little better,
actually confirming what I thought about the look of the show.
Alternate thoughts on the show are from other writers covering other
seasons.
Extras
include Part Five of an ongoing Phenomenon
featurette on the show and Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC
portable and iTunes capable devices.
The
Mentalist: The Seventh & Final Season
(2014 - 2015) is the final season of a show that looked like it could
have been cancelled, but Warner (and CBS) kept the faith with fans
who did and the show got to complete its story arcs. It is Simon
Baker's appeal and star power that is the reason the show got and
deserved to continue, even if non-fans like myself were not as
impressed. Baker has more hits in him, big or small screen, though
the serial killer thing is pretty played out. We've covered most of
the seasons, so we will not get into details on this season, as that
equals spoilers, which also means you should start at the beginning
of you are going to take the show on. For me, they just about quit
while they were ahead.
Extras
include a paper episode guide inside the DVD case, plus the discs add
Unaired Scenes and featurette Patrick
Jane: An Uncommon Man.
The
1.33 X 1 black & white image on Dakotas
is can show the age of materials used, but these look like newer
transfers and there are plenty of surprisingly sharp, clear shots
throughout each show. That will make fans of the show and genre
happy. The 1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on
House
can also show the age of the materials used, but never have as many
nice, sharp shots despite being in a superior video format. The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Mentalist
can be soft, more noticeable now since we covered episodes on Blu-ray
looking pretty good. It ties Dakotas,
but House
is the visual winner by default and by a narrow margin.
The
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Dakotas
is the oldest audio here, but the shows are a little compressed and
even a tad brittle at times. It is passable, but they could sound a
bit better. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix on
House
is a little weaker this time out than the older seasons we covered
for some reason, maybe due to sloppiness, not spending money on new
equipment or the episodes being not stored as well. Hope no one
messed up on the transfers, but the overall volume is a bit low
overall.
The
lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on the Mentalist
DVDs can have some active moments, but the lossy codec holds back its
dynamic range, reminding me again how good the Blu-ray versions of
the show were. Still, this cannot totally clear the troubled House
Blu-ray sound as the sonic champ, but obviously would if it were the
Blu-ray version of the show.
To
order The
Dakotas
Warner Archive DVD set, go to this link for it and many more great
web-exclusive releases at:
https://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
