Again, a slow week. Obviously a big slew of prime stuff will wait until everyone has those Christmas bills paid off.
The TV news this week is all in the sci-fi, baby. The big gun is the set for Doctor Who Series 2. This marks the beginning of the David Tennent era.
Also from Britain is the sitcom My Hero about a doofy alien superhero guy who tries to live life as a normal human.
Finally, ’70s TV schlock fans will rejoice to hear that Space Academy is out on DVD, starring Jonathon “Dr. Smith” Harris. Personally, I’m more of an Ark II guy, but tomato, tomahto. All 15 episodes on four discs, plus commentraks, featurettes, scripts and more.
In a lame movie week, we’ll stick mostly with box sets. The brings together all five of the flicks in which ’80s schlock icon Tim Thomerson played the time travelling zombie fighter Jack Deth. The first two also star a pre- Helen Hunt, who had the class to do a cameo in the third film, after she had hit it big, to say goodbye to the series. I’m sure the transfers all suck, but if you want quantity over quality, try the Nightmare Worlds set, which offers 50 (!) films for under $20: Alien Contamination, Alien Species, All the Kind Strangers, The Alpha Incident, Atomic Rulers of the World, Attack From Space, Beast of the Yellow Night, Counterblast, Day the Sky Exploded, Death Warmed Up, Disappearance of Flight 412, The Doomsday Machine, Embryo, End of the World, Eternal Evil, Evil Brain from Outer Space, Frozen Alive, Fury of the Wolf Man, Good Against Evil, House of the Dead, House of the Living Dead, How Awful About Alan, Idaho Transfer, The Lost City (Part 1 and Part 2), The Lost World, Maciste in Hell, The Manster, The Mistress of Atlantis, Night Fright, The Nightmare Never Ends, Panic, The Phantom Creeps, Piranha Piranha, Prisoners of the Lost Universe, Purple Death from Outer Space, Radio Ranch, Return of Dr. Mabuse, Ring of Terror, Robot Pilot, Rocky Jones Space Ranger: Menace from Outer Space, Shadow of Chinatown, Star Odyssey, Terror at the Red Wolf Inn, They, This is Not a Test, UFO: Target Earth, Unknown World, Warriors of the Wasteland and Werewolf Woman.
You may have noticed the cool packaging of the Tales of Voodoo DVDs, which appear to offer Eastern horror films. Now the entire line is available in one set, offering Jungle Virgin Force, Hell Hole, Ghost Ninja, Primitives, Rapist, Devil’s Express, Cannibal Curse, Temple of Hell, Dog Called Vengeance and Scorpion Thunderbolt. The entire thing will run you about $15.
Meanwhile, let’s mention these props for sheer, derivative balls:
The Grim Reaper: “The survivor of a car accident finds that Death doesn’t like being cheated.” Hmm, that plot sounds vaguely familiar.
Have you wondered what Mariel Hemingway has been doing since starring in some of Woody Allen’s better movies back in the day? She’s apparently making stuff like In Her Line of Fire. Usually you have to make a porn film to see a rip-off title that obvious. “When the Vice President’s plane goes down near a remote South American island and he is kidnapped by rebel forces, it is up to his female Secret Service agent and a press secretary to infiltrate the camp and save him.” So it’s really more like Escape from New York than In the Line of Fire.
