Lincoln Heights – The Complete First Season (2007/Shout! Factory DVD Set)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C- Episodes: C+
Lincoln Heights is a TV show that tries to do
something interesting that just will not work.
It wants to combine a teen drama with a cutting edge police show and the
two never quite mesh. Made for ABC
Family, it should have gone the side of police drama and it could have been a
breakthrough show, but wants to have it both ways and that hold sit back from
really working.
Russell
Hornsby is a married cop with a great wife (Nicki Micheaux) and three great
kids. He wants to move back to his old
neighborhood and restore a great house they would be getting on the cheap, but
like the streets he works, the neighborhood has become tougher and worse. Still, the place is nice, though it needs a
serious overhaul and the price is very good.
They take it and as this moves along comes the drama and comedy that has
lasted four seasons without most noticing.
The Suttons are an African American family and more realistic (despite
narrative issues of the show) than most was have seen on TV to date and to the
show’s credit.
However,
the 13 hour-long shows go back and fourth trying to accommodate realism and a
teen show that does not fit here.
However, I liked the show for what did work and others might find it
more interesting. Yet I still knew this
could be better and was a little disappointed, but that was better than it
being an outright dud.
The 1.33
X 1 image is not bad, but this show may have been in 1.78 X 1 (at least at some
point) so it is hard to tell if flaws (aliasing, softness) are from chopping an
image of just that it is an older final mastering of the material. It works, but sometimes does look and fell
odd and awkward. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
is simple with some good moments, but is nothing beyond sufficient for a drama
like this. There are no extras on the
DVD, but a booklet inside the case includes an episode guide and some notes.
- Nicholas Sheffo
