Roald Dahl’s Tales Of The Unexpected – Set Three:

Season Six & Most Of Seven and Eight

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: C-     Episodes: C+

 

 

Acorn Media has decided to continue releasing Tales Of The Unexpected as Roald Dahl’s Tales Of The Unexpected, as Set Three arrives with a new look, new artwork and slender cases replacing the full-sized cases.  The first problem is that the remaining episodes form Season Five are not here in this new set.  What happened to them?  The other reason to keep Dahl’s name, though Dahl wrote none of these shows, is in case the Quinn Martin show of the same name from 1978 ever is issued on DVD.  At this time, remarkably, none of his hit series have made it to DVD.

 

Skipping shows with the likes of Tony Franciosa, Shirley Knight, Gary Burghoff, Joanna Pettet, Dick Smothers, Sharon Gless, Fritz Weaver and Carol Lynley, one asks if it was a matter of rights or have these shows been lost? 

 

Produced on PAL-format analog videotape, the show wanted to continue its commercial success it had established early on.  It did, but the show was starting to run into troubles simply from the grind of weekly TV, even if it was an anthology show.  The clever twists began to become repetitious at this point and the show was going into decline, something that can be said despite the missing shows.  The episodes here are:

 

Season Six/DVD One

1)     Blue Marigold (April 25, 1982) – Amusing send-up of perfume ad that imitates Spy/Detective genre with title heroine being name of perfume.  Too bad the woman playing her may be replaced.

2)     The Eavesdropper (May 2, 1982) – A married woman keeps convincing herself a friend has seduced her husband.  She talks to herself throughout until she decides to do something about it.

3)     Operation Safecracker (May 9, 1982) – Old safecracker tries to break safe to use money to safe home for kids run by daughter, but the old pro has other ideas.

4)     Run, Rabbit, Run. (May 16, 1982) – Leslie Caron is a mixed tale of Nazi occupation’s past in France.

5)     Stranger In A Town (May 23, 1982) – Derek Jacobi is stranger who does magic tricks and may have a pied piper-like ability.

6)     The Moles (June 6, 1982) – What will one man do to stop bankruptcy?

Season Seven/DVD One

7)     Decoy (August 23, 1982) – A policewoman is used as bait to get a killer, but will it get her killed?  She is beginning to suspect her male workers could care less.

Season Seven/DVD Two

8)     Pattern Of Guilt (September 5, 1982) – A salesman is really a murder who kills female victims as soon as he gets their money.  A deadly triangle of love and deceit will throw a big twist into the situation.

9)     A Harmless Vanity (September 12, 1982) – Confronting “the other woman” become more trouble that its worth.

10)  Death Can Add (September 29, 1982) – Ian Holm is an evil financial auditor who tries to strip the wealth from a group of friendly investors.  Will he succeed or pay a high price?

11)  Death in The Morning (October 31, 1982) – Is a newlywed wife in a house that will be a home or a death trap?  She beings to fear the latter.

12)  What Have You Been Up To Lately? (November 14, 1982) – Can returning to the stage and the past at the same time be fatal?

13)  The Absence Of Emily (November 21, 1982) – Is Emily missing or is she just bait to get revenge on Bob?

14)  A Man With A Fortune (December 5, 1982) – Shame Rimmer is a rich American looking for a new “family” in England, but is that such a good idea?

Season Seven/DVD Three

15)  Who’s Got The Lady? (December 12, 1982) – Is security at a museum strong enough to keep a painting from being stolen?  The answer lies in a final twist.

16)  Skeleton Key (January 24, 1983) – Two men vie for Emily, but should they have stayed at home?

Season Eight/DVD Three

17)  Passing Opportunity (April 9, 1983) – Can getting revenge on an old classmate a decades later work out, or is it a bad idea?

18)  The Memory Man (April 16, 1983) – Colin Blakely and Judy Geeson co-star in this tale about one man’s extraordinary metal skills, money and murder.

19)  A Sad Loss (April 23, 1983) – Haley Mills and Stuart Whitman co-star in this show about whether the lady can fain wealth while trying to get more as she barely hangs on living in a hotel.  What can she do to avoid homelessness and humiliation?  She will get put to the test.

20)  Clerical Error (April 30, 1983) – Hugh Frazier plays the son of a dead man whose debts may keep him alive in ways no one expected.

21)  The Vorpal Bride (May 28, 1983) – Peter Cushing is a German with a disturbing past, all built on a duel from decades ago.

 

 

That excludes more key guest star turns from Edward Albert, Tom Bosley, Janet Leigh, Van Johnson, David Cassidy and Darren McGavin.  Also, any introduction John Houseman did are missing form this set, though they have to be somewhere.  Though Acorn Media distributes the show on DVD, it is Granada International who does the licensing and why they are not sending them over key shows is very puzzling.  Hopefully, these will show up later, but it sure breaks up the broadcast and production order. 

 

The 1.33 x 1 full frame, color, PAL image on these NTSC discs are usually fine for its age, though some later shows have some minor resolution problems.  Otherwise, these look good and certainly better than when originally broadcast.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 is sometimes warped or compressed more that it should be on some of the shows, while the original monophonic sound has again been nicely boosted into a simple stereo.  Extras again include paragraph-long descriptions on each episode before you decide to play them and biographies of many of the actors on each DVD their episode appears on.  DVD 1 has more trivia and text on composer Ron Grainer, whose eerie theme to the show has to be considered a classic by now.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo