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Category:    Home > Reviews > TV Situation Comedy > Action > Mystery > Drama > Medical > Western > Adventures Of Ozzie and Harriet: The Complete Season Nine + Ten (1960 - 1962/MPI Sets)/Magnum P.I.: Season Four (2021/revival*)/New Amsterdam: Season Four (2021*)/The Virginian: Seasons 4 - 6 (1965 -

Adventures Of Ozzie and Harriet: The Complete Season Nine + Ten (1960 - 1962/MPI Sets)/Magnum P.I.: Season Four (2021/revival*)/New Amsterdam: Season Four (2021*)/The Virginian: Seasons 4 - 6 (1965 - 1968/*all ViaVision PAL Region Free Imports/all DVDs)



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



PLEASE NOTE: All DVD sets, save the Ozzie and Harriet sets, are now only available from our friends at ViaVision Entertainment in Australia, can play on all DVD, 4K and Blu-ray players that can handle the PAL DVD format and can be ordered from the links below



Now for a mix of classic TV and some newer shows...



The restoration releases continue as we now have The Adventures Of Ozzie and Harriet: The Complete Season Nine and Ten (1960 - 1962) with the couple's sons definitely much older in a show that continued to be a big hit and had the boys grow up before our eyes like few in TV history before or since. For more on the show itself, you can read about it starting at this link of the first two season on DVD from the same series of remastered and restored DVDs...

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/16149/Adventures+Of+Ozzie+&+Harriett:+The+Complete


Since it has been eons that I have seen most of these shows, rerun heavily when I was very little, I was shocked I had seen most of them and started remembering when rewatching them, holding up better and being more consistent than I would have guessed. The family had more chemistry than they are often given credit for (not all families have chemistry) and Ozzie himself knew from instinct what would work best for the show. At 33 and 25 half-hour shows respectively, it had not grown as thin as many fo its sitcom counterparts of the time and I have never seen these look so good. Nice the original camera materials, et al, were taken care of as much as they were.


If you are interested in the show, I would still start from the early seasons and try to watch chronologically, but the show was designed to be watched in no particular order because of the expected reruns and syndication far more common back then. Needless to say it was a huge hit there too. Some of these 1950s sitcoms get a bad rap for being fake or ignoring social issues, but the show has some heart and a real moral center that cannot be ignored and it is refreshing to see them again, especially because they do not come across as phony as some of its competitors (I Married Joan, for instance) that seemed to try too hard. Definitely, its worth a look and you have likely not seen older TV look this good, so that's a treat and plus for these sets.



Magnum P.I.: Season Four (2021) is only the second time I have seen the revival of the hit Tom Selleck series, which we reviewed on DVD at these links:


Season Three

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/3302/Magnum,+P.I


Seasons Four to Eight/The Final Season

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6674/Magnum,+P.I


The original show has since been issued in a Complete Series Blu-ray box set that is supposed to look and sound really good, so get that set over any DVDs if you can.


As for this new version, it was always weird to me that they revived the show while former lead star Selleck was still alive, around, popular (including in telefilms) and in a hit police drama on the same U.S. network (CBS, who made this show) so go figure, though it survived cancellation by moving to rival NBC.


Jay Hernandez is the new Magnum and he is not bad, but the show is too slap-dash and predictable throughout, even not always ringing true when it is trying to be 'for real' and at least is shot on location. The only plus is the supporting cast is a plus and has some energy here, so I can see why it was a moderate hit. It just pales in comparison to the original show, especially its early seasons. In the end, it is only for the most curious.



When it comes to medical dramas, many are repetitive going back to the 1950s, with some having the doctor-as-good and doctor-as-god thing going for it, even when featuring good actors (Robert Young) and in that, I tend to like St. Elsewhere more than E.R., Quincy, M.E. more than Dr. Quinn, Grey's Anatomy early more than later seasons. New Amsterdam: Season Four (2021) is a hit show that falls somewhere in the middle, with a mostly unknown cast (until now we gather) with Ryan Eggold as Dr. Max Goodwin for starters.


The show is more laid back and goes out of its way for naturalism, character development and getting as far away form the traditional medical drama as possible and these 22 hours are not bad, well produced, written, directed and by people who seem to be taking their time to make it work. That is why it is a hit and has struck a chord with the audience it has. The title is even an in joke (as the old Four Lads song ''Istanbul'' reminded us, ''Even old New York, was once New Amsterdam'') and that gives you an idea of the subtle intelligence the show has.


Unfortunately, it just did not stick with me and also felt a little generic by trying too hard to be easy-going and subtle. Now you can see for yourself.


Finally, we have a hit western that lasted nine seasons and was always in color. The Virginian: Seasons 4 - 6 (1965 - 1968) holds up better than most such series of the period and looks decent considering its budget limits. A long while ago, we reviewed the Season One U.S. set and I had this to say about the show at this link:


http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/9937/The+Virginian


The show held up better than most of the longer running westerns (at least as good as Gunsmoke and Bonanza, which I only liked so much, but not as good as Have Gun Will Travel) and as was the case back then, each story was self-contained in a single show. I.Q. Jones, Clu Gulager, Randy Boone, James Drury, Charles Bickford, John McIntyre and Jeanette Nolan joined the regular cast in these seasons and sometimes replaced other regulars in new roles with the same occupation or even the same role.


The guest casts continued to be a who's who of the industry including Charles Bronson, Strother Martin, John Cassavetes, Leslie Nielsen in his pre-comedy days, Ed Begley, John Mitchum, Warren Oates, Angie Dickinson, Myrna Loy, Dan Duryea, Andy Devine, Pernell Roberts, Susan Strasberg, Mel Torme, James Whitmore, Susan Oliver, Robert Lansing and of course, the great Darren McGavin. That's as strong as any western guest cast list as you'll find, so you can see why people still talk about the show, respect it and its time with shows like Yellowstone doing so well for The Virginian to be rediscovered. A high quality set like this can only help.



Now for playback performance. The 1.33 X 1 black & white transfers on Ozzie can show the age of the materials used, but this is far superior a transfer to all previous releases of the show and you can see how the show was using higher speed light sensitivity black and white film at this point versus the first seasons.


The 1.33 X 1 color transfers on Virginian can also show the age of the materials used, but the shows look good for their age and are likely the same solid transfers that we encountered in its debut season years ago on U.S. NTSC DVD.


That leaves the anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Amsterdam and the new Magnum series looking just fine for new HD shoots, though (like the new Hawaii Five-O) the slicker, more quickly edited Magnum just does not do as good a job of capturing the locales in Hawaii as well as its 35mm predecessor. We'll see if a future Blu-ray version changes that, but that means these sets are on par with each other visually.


As for sound, Ozzie and Virginian are in lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono, while Amsterdam and Magnum are presented in lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 and Amsterdam adds a second, lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track. Magnum seems to have had room for a stereo track, but it is not here, though the mastering suggests otherwise. Though the newer shows can sound clearer ans a little more detailed, they do not have the warmth, bass at times and even clarity of the older shows with their simpler soundtracks. Of course, none of this is lossless, but they sound on par with each other and are fine for what we get here.


There are no extras on any of these sets, sadly.



To order any of the ViaVision import TV on DVD sets, go to these links for them and much more:


Magnum P.I.: Season Four (revival)

https://viavision.com.au/shop/magnum-p-i-season-four/


New Amsterdam: Season Four
https://viavision.com.au/shop/new-amsterdam-season-four/


The Virginian: Seasons 4, 5 & 6

https://viavision.com.au/shop/the-virginian-collection-2-seasons-4-6/



- Nicholas Sheffo


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