Unsurprisingly, most companies wanted their DVDs out before Christmas, so this is a *very* slow time of the year. Almost nothing in films seemed interesting, although there’s some good classic TV.
The big release in that regard is the first season of Torchwood, the spin-off of the recently returned Doctor Who. Amazon has the best price, although it’s still a bit of cash at $55, even with free shipping. For that you get 7 discs offering a sparse 13 episodes, although there are a lot of extras, including commentaries for each show and making-off documentaries for each as well.
Personally, I’m more excited to see the second season release of Banacek, part of the NBC Mystery Movie wheel with shows like Columbo and McCloud. Banacek starred George Peppard as a posh-living, elegant he-man (sort of a James Bond type) who made his living solving high-ticket “impossible crimes” for insurance companies. When the crimes and the solutions lived up to the hype, the show really rocked. Even when they didn’t, watching Peppard’s now wince-inducing male chauvinist act is still pretty amusing. Sadly, this was the last season of Banacek, but this set also includes the original pilot show that was missing from the first season set. $20 gets you three discs and nine TV movie length episodes, which feature the great sort of guest casts you expect from ’70s TV.
Other shows this week include Barney Miller S2; ER S8; Hawaii Five-O S3; Hustle S4 (a fun conman/Ocean’s 11 sort of show); Make Room for Daddy S6; The Odd Couple S3; and, for camp fans, Swamp Thing S1.
In a slow week, you may want to check out the well-reviewed documentary Confessions of a Superhero, which features actors who make their living portraying Marvel and DC superheroes on Hollywood’s Walk of Stars for the tourists.
Meanwhile, those looking for the ur-representative example of Britain’s Kitchen Sink/Angry Young Man cinema period will want to check out the highly dingy and depressing This Sporting Life: The Criterion Collection. This is the film that made Richard Harris a star, which is good, because otherwise he never would have made Orca. As you’d expect from the folks at Criterion, this boasts a pretty decent amount of extras on the film, including a commentary, documentaries, and short films by the director of the movie.
