SoundStage! Network Home Theater & Sound -- Video Roundup

Video Roundup

August 2008

Rad in TV Land, Part 6

They just keep on popping up -- TV shows from all eras. At times, the flood of discs is so great that it seems as if the producers are bent on issuing on DVD every show ever broadcast. Here are some of the better ones I’ve encountered in the past two months.

Birds of Prey (Warner Home Video) ***1/2

Ashley Scott plays Helena Kyle, the Huntress, daughter of Batman and Catwoman, in this 2002-2003 show, inspired by the D.C. Comics series, that ran for only 13 episodes (the unaired pilot episode is also included). Batman has left Gotham City and the Huntress, along with Oracle (Dina Meyer), the woman Batman had been training as Batgirl. Oracle and Huntress take in Dinah Lance (Rachel Skarsten), a teenager who proves to have many gifts that come in handy in a pinch. The three form the Birds of Prey, who fight crime together to keep New Gotham a good place to live. The shows have plenty of zip and action, but are sometimes slowed down when the writers try to delve deeper into relationships. The special effects are quite good, and the sets and costumes are flashy, revealing exactly what kind of shape the three women are in. Shapely Scott is very sexy as she fights in leather and cloak -- an Emma Peel for the 2000s. The villains they fight are imaginative -- one can turn himself into water and drown people on dry land. All 13 episodes are available in this set of four DVDs. Oddly, Warner Home Video has letterboxed the series instead of making it anamorphic. This cuts down on the detail a bit, and is an odd choice that has displeased many fans. You might want to rent this one first, but give it a try.

The Dead Zone (Lions Gate Home Entertainment) ***1/2

Californication (Showtime) ***1/2

Showtime’s original new series Californication is about the sexual misadventures of Hank Moody (David Duchovny), a sardonic New York City novelist with flexible morals who is transplanted to Los Angeles, where his third book has been made into a very successful, very bad movie. Now suffering from writer’s block and estranged from Karen (Natasha McElhone), his longtime girlfriend and the mother of their daughter, Becca (Madeleine Martin), Hank seeks consolation through sex, drugs, and alcohol. Sabotaging his own success and always in conflict with others, Hank often finds himself using fists rather than words on those more obnoxious than himself. Supporting him and occasionally coming to his rescue is his long-suffering literary agent, Charlie Runkle (Evan Handler), who hopes Hank will soon write again and return to greatness. Irreverent, funny, dark, but never taking itself too seriously, Californication stretches the boundaries of night-time drama, continuing in the tradition of Showtime’s Weeds and The L Word. Season 2 will begin soon; Season 1 is now available on DVD.

. . . Mischa Hayek
mischah@hometheatersound.com

In the teen flicks he made two decades ago as a member of the "Brat Pack," Anthony Michael Hall always seemed to play a wimp or a nerd. That has changed. Now a viable adult actor, in The Dead Zone Hall proved himself capable of holding down the lead in a TV series. He plays Johnny Smith, a young man who had it all, then had it taken away by a near-fatal car crash that puts him in a coma. He awakens years later to find that his girlfriend has married another man, his mother has died, and his body has atrophied. Johnny undergoes physical therapy, and eventually is able to walk with the help of a cane. But it turns out that his injuries have made him a psychic. All Johnny needs is to physically touch someone, or an item belonging to that person -- or sometimes merely visit a location -- and he can see the past and future. This makes him very valuable to the local police, but Johnny’s relationship with them is delicate -- his former girlfriend is married to the head of the sheriff’s department. The Dead Zone is best when it sheds the backstory and emotional angst and gets on with a case, such as an episode in which Johnny serves on a jury, and is the only one of the 12 jurors who knows that the accused is innocent. The characters and situations are based on the novel by Stephen King, though this version hews closer to the book than did David Cronenberg’s 1983 film version, which starred Christopher Walken. All five seasons are now available on DVD, usually at a good bargain price from Amazon.com. The picture is bright and clear and the sound is generally robust, with occasional imaginative use of the surround channels. You won’t watch these DVDs for the quality of the transfers, but they’re adequate. Enough extras are scattered throughout that you can learn as much about the show as you want to. Season 1 also includes the feature-length pilot episode.

Heroes (Universal) ***1/2

One of the most promising new series of 2006, Heroes is about people living among us who have superpowers: the ability to regenerate, to fly, to hear other people’s thoughts, to generate fire, and so on. Because these gifted people are all over the world, the show flits back and forth between different story lines and locations. Sometimes, as in the successful conclusion of the first season, the characters and storylines merge into a bigger overall plot. There is a central agency that tracks the heroes, and this larger plotline flirts with the question of who these people might be. If Season 1 was cohesive, Season 2 was the opposite. Any common thread that might have been about to be revealed was sucked up in the writers’ strike that plagued television in the winter of 2007-2008. Season 3, which begins this fall, will determine Heroes’ long-range success, or lack of it. Season 1 is available now on DVD, Season 2 will be this fall, and both will debut on Blu-ray Disc. Season 1 was briefly available on HD DVD, on which format it looked crisp and clean, with very adequate surround sound. There’s no reason to believe that the Blu-ray edition won’t look as good, and will probably improve on the sound. One thing you can almost bet on with Heroes, on DVD or Blu-ray: It will contain more extras that you can possibly watch in a single evening.

Mad Men (Lions Gate Home Entertainment) ****

This brutally realistic show, set on Madison Avenue in 1960, is about advertising agencies and the men and women who work for them. It is not always a pretty sight -- the men are pigs who treat women like chattel, though some of the women manage to get what they want in indirect ways. Mesmerizing Jon Hamm plays Don Draper, a womanizer, liar, and ad-account salesman extraordinaire. His neurotic wife and two kids at home don’t stop him from bedding other women, most notably one of his best clients. Mad Men pulls no punches, nothing is glamorized, and these flawed characters are interesting enough to keep watching, episode after episode. The look of the period is just right. Everyone smokes and savors it, even the women, who all wear copious amounts of very red lipstick. Enough actual ad clients are mentioned to make the fictitious ones seem real, and one wonders to what lengths the admen will go to next to achieve success. Season 2 is still running, and Season 1 is now available on DVD and Blu-ray. The Blu-ray is the state of the art, looking every bit as crisp and clean as the benchmark TV series released on that format, The Sopranos. The sound is good Dolby 5.1 with the rear channels active much of the time.

Rough Diamond (Acorn Media) ***1/2

This British show was created as a vehicle for Sir David Jason, now in his mid-60s. Jason is best known for his role as Detective Inspector "Jack" Frost of the crime-investigation thriller A Touch of Frost, which ran for 14 years and became one of the most popular series in British history. In Rough Diamond (the UK title is Diamond Geezer), Jason plays Des, a retired master burglar. In the pilot episode, he manages an escape from prison by planning a jewel theft that boggles the minds of the authorities. In each of the three ensuing episodes, Des is called out of retirement to do "one more job," sometimes for the good guys, sometimes not. In each, a seemingly impossible situation is solved by the master thief. Everyone loves a good heist show, and that is what these are, right down to their somewhat old-fashioned style. In the first two episodes it looked as if Stephen Wright would be a regular as young Phil, Des’s son and a chip off the old burglar block, but Phil was absent from the last two episodes. The first four shows are out on DVD in a two-disc set that boasts good color, reasonably good focus, and a rather plain sound design that manages to do justice to the dialogue and to Ray Russell’s jazzy, suspenseful score. Those who love David Jason’s work or have a soft spot for heist films will like this show just fine. Others might want to rent it first.

Sliders (Universal) ***1/2

This intriguing science-fiction series -- the ultimate parallel-universe "what if" show -- debuted in 1995 and has since become a cult favorite. Quinn Mallory (Jerry O’Connell), a young inventor, builds an electronic gadget in his basement that allows him to jump -- slide -- from one parallel universe to another. The only problem is that a remote control has been set to automatically decide where the user will slide to next. To get home, Quinn and his companions must keep sliding from universe to universe, hoping to eventually land back in the one they started from. Sliders explored many of the stock parallel-universe premises, including those in which the Confederates won the Civil War and the Nazis won WWII. In each episode the gang gets into some sort of trouble and barely makes it back to the slide point in time. (If they miss, they’re stuck in that universe forever.) Sliders began with great promise -- Seasons 1-3 were very good, and Quinn’s companions were interesting: his girlfriend and pal Wade Welles (Sabrina Lloyd), physics professor Maximilian Arturo (John Rhys-Davies), and soul singer Rembrandt "Crying Man" Brown (Cleavant Derricks). After three seasons the show moved from Fox to the Sci-Fi Channel, lost Wade and the Professor, and then Quinn himself at the end of Season 4, after which it limped through a lackluster final season. The picture is always bright and colorful, with good definition, and the sound is robust and clear. Seasons 1-4 are available on Universal DVD sets, in excellent transfers at the original 4:3 aspect ratio. Amazon.com has remarkably low prices for Seasons 1-3, which are the best anyhow.

. . . Rad Bennett
radb@hometheatersound.com

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