Roald Dahl’s Tales Of The Unexpected – Set Four:
Most Of Seasons Eight To Eleven
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C- Episodes: C+
Roald Dahl’s Tales Of The Unexpected
continues its way onto DVD with Set Four, which covers 20 episodes to
the last season, but the four sets in total still skip enough shows for one
more volumes worth of releases. Instead
of covering what is not here this time, we will look at what is included and
hope the rest of the series makes it out soon.
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.
At this point, the show actually disappeared for a year and then
returned. The episodes here are:
Season Eight/DVD One
1)
The Wrong ‘Un (June 11, 1983) – Is a
German businessman about to let himself be seduced by the wrong woman.
2)
The Luncheon (July 16, 1983) – Gayle
Hunnicutt stars in one of the best shows in this set, she plays a film director
that a screenplay writer (Bosco Hogan) takes to lunch to convince her to helm
his work with wacky results.
3)
The Tribute (June 25, 1983) – A servant of
three ex-colonel’s wives are as callous as they were towards a servant when she
dies, but she may have left them a very special surprise.
4)
Hit & Run (July 10, 1983) – A
doctor has his wife leave him, only to see her arrive nearly dead in his
hospital. Is she dead? Is it really her?
Season Nine/DVD One
5)
The Best Chess Player In The World (May
19, 1983) – An over-logical, cold man is obsessed with chess and uses it as a
prerequisite to deal with people and reality, even when it involves his
wife. Too bad this is about to
backfire.
6)
Have A Nice Death (June 2, 1983) – A man
who has written a bo0ok about women being the weaker sex gets an anonymous
threat expressed by the title of this show.
7)
The Last Of The Midnight Gardeners (June
16, 1983) – A publisher uses a murder contest to hatch a murder plot, but
things will not be as simple as he hopes.
Season Nine/DVD Two
8)
Accidental Death (August 19, 1984) –
Cyril Cusack plays a man with a big surprise for two traveling robbers.
9)
The Reconciliation
(September 16, 1984) – A married man wants out of his marriage because his wife
is boring and predicable, or so he thought!
Season Ten/DVD Two
10)
The Mugger (July
7, 1985) – Roy Marsden is a government man who gets a new position and may have
to do more to get his work done than he ever expected, especially when threats
arise. This one is totally shot on
film.
Season Eleven/DVD Two
11)
Skeleton In
The Cupboard (December 18, 1987) – Charles Dance plays a businessman
with something to hide. All is well
until a mysterious figure wants to expose him.
12)
The
Colonel’s Lady (January 8, 1988) – Joss Acklund and Pauline Collins
stare in this adaptation of the W. Somerset Maugham story about a woman’s
affair becoming a popular book, making all but her husband happy.
13)
The Surgeon
(January 15, 1988) – Robin Chapman adapts Roald Dahl’s story about a patient
saved who becomes a patient who keeps clinging on.
14)
The Verger
(January 22, 1988) – This adaptation of a W. Somerset Maugham story involves a
new church vicar arriving and possibly uncovering some doings of a couple who
have been there for 16 years.
Season Eleven/DVD Three
15)
The Facts
Of Life (January 29, 1988) – This adaptation of a W. Somerset
Maugham story involves a fencer who stumbles into a world he did not expect by
simply attending a major competition.
16)
Wink Three
Times (April 15, 1988) – Caroline Goodall and Peter Davidson
star in the story of a woman trying to meet the right man and the pitfalls that
result.
17)
The Dead
Don’t Steal (April 22, 1988) – Can a woman crook escape that life and
her air hostess job. Too bad her boss
has other plans.
18)
The Finger
Of Suspicion (April 29, 1988) – A former American safecracker and his
Arab wife are in for a big surprise when they go to The Middle East and he is
accused of a crime he did not commit.
19)
A Time To
Die (May 6, 1988) – David Suchet plays a cheating husband who
wants out of his marriage to be with his mistress and is about to choose a fateful
way to move on.
20)
Mr.
Know-It-All (May 13, 1988) – Topol stars in the final show of the
series, if not the last to come out on DVD, playing a womanizing professor who
may have just hit on the wrong woman in another adaptation of the W. Somerset
Maugham story.
Again, some of the later shows had twists that did not
have as much impact or edge, but as Anglia’s prime hit, they even revived it
for a few more seasons as the dates above will confirm. I did not think the later shows were as
good, but they were ambitious and had some good talent involved. Show #11 above was out on VHS at one point,
but is not one of the better shows here.
Add the shows with key stars still missing and this set is mixed at
best.
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. Hopefully, there will be a fifth and final
volume to wrap-up the show and we might even get that U.S. opening with the
bizarre carousel.
- Nicholas Sheffo
