The Prisoner

With the successful revival/reinvention of shows like Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica in recent years, a reinterpretation of the ‘60s cult phenomenon The Prisoner seems like a no-brainer. Indeed, it’s something that had been bandied about for years (long before such projects became the “it” thing to do), so such a development was an inevitability. If you’re a fan of the original – as am I – it’s virtually impossible to sit through this new miniseries version without playing compare and contrast along the way. However, this DVD was my second experience with this mini, and this time around it was somewhat easier to try to forget about the original and take this version on its own merits. The problem is that it isn’t any easier to swallow the heaping mounds of hallucinogenic madness this serves up, even when taking the brilliance of the Patrick McGoohan version out of the equation. Both versions are akin to acid trips, only this new one is, metaphorically speaking, missing all the pretty colors.

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Rhoda: Season Two

It isn’t often that DVD producers listen to consumer reaction, or at least it doesn’t seem terribly common. Last year, Shout! released the first season of Rhoda and it was an atrocious presentation. Well over half of the episodes suffered cuts, and the audio and video quality were more often than not dodgy at best. (Indeed, in hindsight, I was generous in giving it three stars.) People complained, and it seems Shout! wisely listened. Season Two is presented in its entirety, uncut and remastered – and boy, the difference is truly a night and day affair.

Remember how perfect the first season of Mary Tyler Moore looked – back when Fox actively gave a shit? This is nearly, if not as good. The colors are bright and beautiful and the ‘70s fashions jump right off the screen and into your eye sockets. The picture is crisp and clean, and the sound is likewise really nice – well, about as nice as a sitcom from 1975 can possibly sound anyway. In any case, major props to Shout! for not covering their ears and intoning “La la la la la la…” when faced with disgruntled fans. Maybe someday they’ll even see fit to go back and give Season One a proper makeover.

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Monk: Season Eight

Normally in a review like this – one written about the final season of a series – I’d say, “This isn’t the place to start if you’ve never watched [insert show title here] before.” But with Monk, there isn’t any real reason why you shouldn’t. You’ll “get it” even if you start watching with this DVD. Of course, the show was on the air for eight seasons, so chances are you’ve already been exposed to some of it, somewhere along the way. You may even be like me – someone who’s only watched the show intermittently over the years. If so, then you know the basic premise of the obsessive-compulsive detective, and the ongoing backstory of how the murder of Monk’s wife Trudy caused him to cave in as a human being. In this final season, Monk finally solves that most important and personal of cases, but more on that later.

Monk is never going to go down as one of the great cop series of the ‘00s – not in a decade that produced fare like The Shield and The Wire. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t one of the most reliably entertaining series of the decade. It’s the TV equivalent of comfort food, and there aren’t many shows you can say that about anymore. Now there’s one less. Likewise, Tony Shalhoub is never going to garner the same kind of critical respect bestowed upon actors like Michael Chiklis and James Gandolfini, because his performance was more often than not played for comedy, and that’s a huge shame, because if you see enough of this series, you begin to know that his work is every bit as calculated and driven as the Bryan Cranstons and the Jon Hamms; all this despite three Emmys, which goes to show that awards probably don’t mean all that much.

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thirtysomething: The Complete Second Season

Imbibing in the second season of thirtysomething brought me to a minor revelation: I like this show because it makes me love a group of characters who, on the surface, I feel I should dislike. The reason? These people are dirty, or rather, there’s nothing clean about their lives. After thoroughly digging on Season One, I was interested, but not exactly eager, to check out the winding road it would continue to go down. If you picked up Season One and didn’t care for it (it’s hard to believe anyone would outright hate it), then there’s nothing here that’s going to change your mind. On the other hand, you may have viewed Season One and thought, “OK, that’s enough. I’ve sifted through the time capsule once and there’s no need to go for seconds.” You’re probably right. If this was just enough for you on the first round, why bother with another helping? My TV-watching life wouldn’t have suffered any irreparable damage without seeing Season Two, and yet there’s no denying that once again the show sucked me in. thirtysomething is good writing and acting, and while there’s no shortage of either on TV today, you can never have enough of both.

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Alice in Wonderland (1966)

With the impending release of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland we’ve been inundated with press releases of DVDs for what seem like nearly every version of the Lewis Carroll story ever put to film. It’s all being released or rereleased on DVD due to the awareness of the new film. The one I jumped at – due to a combination of the cast, its reputation, and its unavailability in the U.S. – was this take which was made for BBC television in 1966. To be sure, this version owes more to feature film than BBC TV. Burton may think he’s redefined Alice, but he’s wrong. Surely nobody’s ever explored this story the way Jonathan Miller did 44 years ago – nope, not even the porn musical from the ‘70s with Kristine DeBell. Admittedly, I’ve yet to see Burton’s movie, but come on…

There’s little that’s jolly or wondrous about this take, and yet that very approach makes it a wonder to behold. Shot in crisp black and white (which on this DVD is nearly spotless), the story unfolds like some kind of dream from Ingmar Bergman, or perhaps even more like a nightmare from David Lynch. While all the hallmarks of the Carroll story are present, their execution is mostly unexpected. The most glaring omission is the absence of talking animals and childlike wonder. There are no elaborate costumes or walking cards or giant mushrooms here, yet it remains a work of utter fantasia. Alice (Anne-Marie Mallick) sees the White Rabbit (Wilfrid Brambell, Paul’s grandfather in A Hard Day’s Night) and follows him into a dreamy state that has no singing flowers, or Tweedledum or Tweedledee – after all, that duo first appeared in Carroll’s sequel, so they’re not part of this action. It’s a loose interpretation of the events within the first book. If you know the story, you really don’t need a recap. If, for whatever reason you don’t know the story, then this DVD is probably not for you. It’s for people who’ve seen version after version of the same story but are seeking something different.

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Doctor Who: Dalek War

The last time material from the Jon Pertwee era was released on DVD was two years ago, and that was the “Beneath the Surface” box set. Because it’s been such a lengthy gap since the last Pertwee, I’m probably feeling overly enthusiastic about this set, and yet it’s arguably a remarkable example of this period of the classic series. The Pertwee era was heavily dependent on six-part serials, which are all too often referred to as “padded.” One can say that, but it lacks imagination. Maybe a kinder label should be used. How about “leisurely?” Leisurely works well if you’re into a story and in no particular hurry to see it end. This set is comprised of two such six-parters, “Frontier in Space” and “Planet of the Daleks.”

The title “Dalek War” is a little misleading since it promotes the idea that this is some kind of action-packed extravaganza with Daleks trundling rampant, killing everyone and everything in sight. That isn’t quite the case, and yet it doesn’t make the set itself any less of an extravaganza from a presentation standpoint. Both stories have been given a thorough overhaul, and they’ve never looked better than they do here. Where the real magic becomes apparent, however, is in Episode Three of “Planet,” which has existed only in black and white for the past 30 some odd years – until now. Several techniques, including the new kid on the block, color recovery, have been joined together to achieve this feat, and the results are astounding. Visually, the differences between it and the other five episodes of the story are negligible. “The Silurians” colorization from “Beneath the Surface” was impressive, but this restoration leaves that one in the dust.

If these techniques can be honed further, it’ll be fascinating to see what can eventually be achieved with the other half-dozen Pertwee serials deserving the same kind of attention. It remains to be seen what exactly can be done, as the materials with which to work apparently vary from story to story, and, of course, money is always an issue. Yet this is a huge step forward, not just for the Doctor Who DVD range, but for vintage TV (particularly of the BBC kind) in general. There’s so much vintage TV that’s released on DVD these days, and a great deal of it doesn’t get the attention it deserves. As much as I love “Doctor Who,” it’s a real pleasure to view and review the series on DVD, as there are people behind the scenes working overtime to make this material the best it can possibly be, and far more often than not they succeed. If only the classic series weren’t so niche, other DVD producers might take note of what’s happening with this range and adopt the same strategies. It pays off in the long run to do right by shows with a fervent fan base.

Anyway, enough about the technical stuff and on to these two stories...

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Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks (Special Edition)

It’s almost a shame this title is being released on the same day as the inaccurately named “Dalek War” box set, because “Remembrance” features far more Dalek carnage. Better still, it’s Dalek whooping Dalek ass, assuming Daleks have asses to whoop. Having been very unkind to the Sylvester McCoy era in recent Bullz-Eye reviews (“Delta and the Bannermen” and “Battlefield”), this story affords the opportunity to bestow some major kudos. Like the story itself, let’s travel back to another time.

In 1988, Doctor Who had seen far better days. Colin Baker’s controversial era – during which the show was put on hiatus for 18 months – hadn’t gone down well with viewers, and he was eventually fired. The first season of Doctor #7 (McCoy) was god awful – surely the worst the series had ever seen, and it proved that Baker wasn’t the problem. The show’s 25th Anniversary was approaching, and even the faithful had lost faith. Could there possibly be anything new unveiled worth celebrating? Season 25 charged out of the gate with a “fuck that shit” attitude: “Remembrance of the Daleks” aimed to prove that not only the Doctor, but the Daleks themselves, still had a lot of life left in them. It’s something of a shame that Colin Baker’s Dalek story was titled “Revelation of the Daleks,” because back in the day, this is the one that felt revelatory.

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The Mary Tyler Moore Show: The Complete Sixth Season

Any discussion of Season Six of The Mary Tyler Moore Show should probably begin with the episode “Chuckles Bites the Dust,” especially since so many conversations about the show in general start off with that episode as a reference point. It’s been hailed time and again as one of the greatest TV episodes of all time of any series. Once a piece of pop culture attains that sort of status, the only place to go is downhill, and then it’s all a matter of how far it’s going to go.

The premise of “Chuckles” is largely a one-joke affair that builds and builds to a crescendo. Chuckles the Clown, who’s sort of WJM’s version of Bozo, dies at the trunk of an elephant. He was dressed as a giant peanut at the time, you see. These events are of course played off-screen, but they’re described in detail well enough that we get the picture. At first the staff is shocked, but after some time passes, Murray (Gavin MacLeod) cracks a morbid joke, which Lou (Ed Asner) finds to be a scream. Before long, Ted (Ted Knight) and Sue Ann (Betty White) are joining in on the fun, with each offering up one lame gag after another. And the jokes are pretty lame, but the jokes aren’t why the episode is funny. No, the humor here begins with the fact that Mary doesn’t care for their attitudes and takes each of them to task for their insensitivity, which is turn just eggs them on.

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Doctor Who: The Complete Specials

Some called it the best of times, others claimed it the worst of times, but when it comes right down to it, wasn’t it really just The End of Time? Yeah, the big finish which brought to a dual close the eras of David Tennant and Russell T. Davies was nothing if not a controversial conclusion to the most revolutionary period in the long history of Doctor Who. This Blu-ray set is a grand celebration of the Tennant/Davies era, and a fitting coda to the past five years of Who. Over five episodes, these stories offer up examples of everything that was glorious, right alongside everything that didn’t work quite as well. Anyone interested in this set likely already knows how they feel about this block of episodes, as this is for the folks who’ve been paying attention. If you’ve never seen Doctor Who, this is no more the right place to start than it would be to dive into the Star Wars movies with Return of the Jedi.

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Kendra: The Complete First Season

Millions of years from now, when the aliens are sifting through the remnants of the doomed planet Earth, upon finding DVDs of Kendra, they will come not to the conclusion that we amused ourselves to death, but rather that we had it coming. Maybe they’ll at least get some huge chuckles out of the episode where Kendra visits Roswell, New Mexico. It’s not that I have any dislike for Kendra Wilkinson herself. I’m sure she’s a very nice person, even if her crayon box is missing some of the brighter colors. But reality shows are created in the editing room, and if this series had any engaging material, it must have been left on the cutting room floor. (Admittedly, that’s a phrase that’s becoming less and less appropriate in this day and age of digital.) Having had a hit series with The Girls Next Door, E! has seen fit to spin off Kendra into her own show, now that she’s living away from the Playboy Mansion and no longer has to service Hef’s member.

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Dallas: The Complete Twelfth Season

It’s always a little sad when a long-running series begins to show its age, yet fights against it tooth and nail, and that’s more or less what’s happening with Dallas in its twelfth season. The core cast that remains is getting noticeably grayer, and so younger, prettier actors have been brought in to help spice things up – a move that seems to work only about half the time. The plots, too, seem to have been given a bit of an overhaul, probably in an attempt to compete with other primetime dramas of the day. This isn’t a show that has by any means “lost it,” but it’s most certainly one that has seen far better days.

After the Nicholas Pearce debacle of Season Eleven, which provided the season cliffhanger, J.R. (Larry Hagman) has once again been shot – this time by Sue Ellen (Linda Gray). His recovery is swift and he’s back on his feet by the second episode, and the entire incident is written off by the authorities as self-defense on everyone’s part, so no charges are filed against anyone. But Pearce is dead, and Sue Ellen wants revenge against J.R., and so begins her story arc for the entire season, which would turn out to be Gray’s last on the series proper. It cannot be calculated exactly how much class Gray brought to this series, and so it’s something of shame that she doesn’t get a stronger exit. As the season moves forward, she meets a screenwriter/director named Don Lockwood (Ian McShane), and hatches a plan that involves bringing the details of her sordid marriage to J.R. to the big screen. (She describes it as Citizen Kane in Texas.) The aim is to produce a work that will humble and humiliate J.R. for good. This entire idea probably seemed a great deal cleverer back when it first aired, but in this day and age it feels awfully quaint, and worst of all, what little we see of the resulting movie makes it looks like a disastrous picture that nobody would ever want to sit through. And to top it all off, J.R.’s viewing of the movie provides Season Twelve with its cliffhanger – surely one of the most anticlimactic this series ever produced.

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The Philanthropist: The Complete Series

The Philanthropist tells the stories of Teddy Rist (James Purefoy), a billionaire who, while on a trip to Nigeria, finds himself in the position of saving a young boy in the midst of a hurricane. Having recently divorced his wife (Krista Allen) after the couple dealt with the death of their son, his eyes are now open, and he realizes that a great deal of good needs to be done in the world, and he’s in a position to do some good deeds. Teddy fights sex trafficking in Paris, forced labor in Burma, and food shortages in Haiti. It doesn’t necessarily sound like a fun series, and yet it is, because Teddy enjoys the company of fine booze and sexy women, although not necessarily in that order. He never carries a gun, yet often finds himself on the other end of one. His “missions” always seem to involve him becoming personally involved in the situation due to the presence of one or two people who desperately need his help, and these smaller stories are set against the backdrop of the bigger, more important pictures. In many ways, the show feels a bit like a series of mini-James Bond adventures, only without the license to kill.

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Doctor Who: The Twin Dilemma

A recent poll conducted by Doctor Who Magazine asked readers to rank every single story from 1963 all the way to “Planet of the Dead,” which apparently can be calculated to a nifty, even 200 stories. “The Twin Dilemma” came in dead last; in an odd twist, the story that immediately precedes it, “The Caves of Androzani,” took the #1 spot. It’s true, “The Twin Dilemma” is not a great story, but it is also not nearly as bad as reputation would suggest. There are plenty of other entries that are far worse than this one (for instance, “The Keys of Marinus”). It’s mildly noteworthy that this story should be released at this time, as it’s the first story of the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker), and since we just saw David Tennant regenerate into Matt Smith a few days ago, there might be slightly more interest in the title than there would otherwise be. While the storyline is a bit duff and the creatures look rubbery and fake, the road the production team went down to unveil the new Doctor was probably the boldest experiment ever conducted under that banner. Whether or not you’ll find the experiment a success will largely depend on your feelings about Baker’s Doctor. If you didn’t like him before, nothing here is going to change that. If you enjoy his take on the character, however, he throws down a pretty dazzling, crazed performance for his freshman outing, and this is well worth checking out.

The story involves the kidnapping of two twin boy geniuses (what exactly is it with '80s Who and boy geniuses!?) by a benign rogue Time Lord going by the name of Professor Edgeworth (Maurice Denham). In reality, he’s an old friend of the Doctor’s named Azmael, and he’s using the boys’ skills to aid one Mestor the Magnificent, the leader of a race of giant slugs who has plans of galactic conquest (don’t they always?). If you saw the finale of Extras, which guest-starred David Tennant, the ridiculous creature Ricky Gervais played in that scene was likely based on Mestor. Azmael is only begrudgingly doing this as a last ditch effort to save the planet Jaconda, which appears to hold the same sentiment for him as Earth does for the Doctor.

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Doctor Who: The Keys of Marinus

Here’s a vintage Who entry – from the series’ very first season, in fact – that proves the show was wholly capable of producing crap from the very beginning. Indeed, from now on, when I hear some old fogey complaining that the new series isn’t as good as the old, I’m going to point them in the direction of “Marinus” and tell them to keep walking. Apparently, “Marinus” was a last minute replacement for another story that fell through. It was scripted by Terry Nation, who’d written the far more successful “The Daleks” earlier in the season, but he seems to have spent little more than a couple days cobbling together this tale. Actually, I’m being a tad unfair, because one of the six episodes of this tale is actually very good, but we’re not quite there yet, so hang tight.

In the first episode, which is actually titled “The Sea of Death” (this is back when every single episode of Who had its own individual title), the TARDIS lands on the planet Marinus, where the beach is made of glass, and the sea is made of acid – and a tab of LSD would certainly have done wonders for my perception of this story.

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Doctor Who: The End of Time Part Two

Last week, when writing about the first part of the Tennant/Davies swansong, I talked about not making any predictions, as well as the possibility of expectations not being met. On the predictions front, I’m glad I didn’t bother (although one of the few that I did make may actually be true – more on that in a bit), because there’s really no way I could have predicted the bizarre manner in which this tale concluded. The narrative meat of this episode – the stuff involving the Time Lords, Gallifrey and the Master – was quite frankly difficult to wade through on the first viewing; a second viewing alleviated some of that, and yet I’m still not convinced it all makes perfect sense. Perhaps I’m looking at it too deeply, and wanting more than there is?

I’d also be lying if I said I went into this episode without any expectations – I mean, how can you not? Many, if not most of them weren’t met, although there were plenty of other treats on display that made up for that. Indeed, this episode was hell bent on subverting expectations. “The End of Time” as a whole, which is how it should be judged, is a landmark slice of Doctor Who, even though the writing isn’t as tight as the intricate standard set by “The Waters of Mars.” Oh well – based on previous finales, I didn’t really expect it to be, and on that level it can’t be called a letdown. It’s so steeped in the mythology of Davies’ vision of Who, that it’s difficult to imagine it could possibly work as a piece of standalone drama for anyone unfamiliar with the past five years of the series. But that also can’t be a criticism, since what it really is is a jagged love letter to everyone who’s been paying attention during that time. Davies really backed himself into a corner with this one, because “Journey’s End” very much felt like the end of the era, only it wasn’t. So this proper ending, which feels more like a coda or an afterward, had to be a horse of a different color, and it most certainly was.

The episode wastes no time addressing the final moments of “Part One” by diving straight into the Gallifrey situation. Before going further, let me just say how incredibly fucking cool it was to have James Bond playing the Time Lord President. If someone had told me 20 years ago that Timothy Dalton would someday be playing such a role on Doctor Who I’d have thought them bonkers. Sure, it’s not as if Sean Connery is gracing the screen, but anyone who really appreciates the Bond franchise knows Dalton got a bum deal, and that both of his outings were pretty damn good entries. Anyone who appreciates both Bond and Who will also acknowledge how the two concepts – which, aside from their inherent Britishness, really only have the changing of lead actors in common – have worked oddly parallel to one another over the past 40 some-odd years. Dalton is terrifying here, especially for anyone who doesn’t know the history of the classic series, and expects the Time Lords to be the good guys. Even as an old school fan, it was shocking to see the Time Lords as they’re presented here, but the more I thought about it, the more it was perfect and right. These guys – even from their very first outing, “The War Games” – were bad news. It’s just that they were so passive in their assholedom before; here they’re proactively destructive. Even though it’s never stated in the episode, the old Time Lord decree of “non-intervention” was obviously filed into 13 once their existence was threatened. And then there’s the Deus ex glove! Oh, how I loved and hated that stupid glove! (Maybe it’s a relative of the glove from Torchwood?) My teenager hilariously dubbed it “The Glove of Time.” He started making up dialogue for Dalton: “I am endowed with The Glove of Time!” and “The Glove of Time will smite you!” We got, and will continue to get, a lot of mileage out of that silly glove.

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Doctor Who: The End of Time Part One

Before moving on to the actual write-up, let’s take a moment to offer some high praise to BBC America for showing this episode a day after it first screened in the U.K. A day! For the first time on American TV, we aren’t seeing the premiere of a Doctor Who Christmas special when it’s warm outside, and the Christmas-themed portions of the story don’t seem hopelessly out of place. Back when I wrote up “Journey’s End,” I pleaded with Syfy to show the various David Tennant specials in a timely manner, so that audiences wouldn’t be forced to go elsewhere to get their Who fix or, even worse, get bored and forget about the show altogether. Good thing Syfy no longer has first-run rights here in the States, because I highly doubt they would’ve made the same programming move that BBC America made. Further, BBC America is committed (at least for the time being) to showing the episodes uncut, which is just as if not more important. Keep it up BBCA, and you’ll keep building a devoted audience. Heck, even a week or two after the U.K. premieres would be more than acceptable in my book.

It’s always difficult to write about the first half of a two-part finale, and never more so than in this case. This episode is all over the place in tone, and yet hangs together quite nicely, although it took me two viewings to realize the latter. Yet whatever one might think about “The End of Time Part One,” there’s no denying that the bigger picture has yet to be seen, and what Russell T. Davies unveiled in this hour is only a setup for the real finale. About the first 15 minutes of this thing just zoom by, setting up one aspect of the story after another. In fact, there are so many elements that are set up throughout the hour that one wonders how they can all be addressed in the finale proper.

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The Sherlock Holmes Collection

With a brand new Sherlock Holmes movie hitting the big screen in just a matter of days, it probably goes without saying that there will be a demand for classic adventures featuring the world’s most famous detective. The folks at A&E have unearthed this collection from the bowels of the BBC and are presenting these episodes from the ‘60s series starring Peter Cushing for the first time here in the States.

The back of the box claims that “only five episodes of the BBC’s celebrated 1960s Sherlock Holmes series survive. Coincidentally, all five star the inimitable Peter Cushing…” This is somewhat true, but also a bit misleading. The series spanned two seasons in the U.K. The first batch was produced in ‘65 and starred Douglas Wilmer in the title role. As I understand it, nearly that entire run exists, only it’s never been released on DVD either here or in the U.K. For the second season, which was produced three years later, Wilmer was unwilling to return, so Cushing was hired to take his place. (Nigel Stock played Watson in both seasons.) As is often the case with old BBC TV, many episodes were scrapped and the Cushing season was hit the hardest. Actually, six episodes still exist, but two of them comprise “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” so it’s actually five stories, rather than five episodes. The six episodes are spread across three discs, and as one might expect from a color ‘60s BBC show, the majority of the program is shot on videotape, while the occasional exterior work is shot on film. The picture and audio quality is acceptable across the board, but you can tell that no real restoration work has gone into this set.

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Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars

When it was first announced that Doctor Who was taking a break from normal seasons in 2009, I thought, “I can handle that – not a big deal.” After all, aside from the Fox TV movie with Paul McGann in 1996, I’d lived without new televised Who for 16 years before the show came back in ’05. Each new season since then has been like a little gift. Surely one year with “only” four specials would be a breeze? As 2009 droned on, however, it seemed an interminably long wait for new outings of the series, and it didn’t help matters that the one outing we did get – “Planet of the Dead” – was a subpar piece of storytelling at best. The other three specials are all being unveiled on BBC America in the last weeks of the year (actually, the big finale will play on the second day of 2010!). Anyway, this was my roundabout way of illustrating how much I’ve come to take the new series for granted, and thankfully “The Waters of Mars” is as strong a slice of Who as just about anything the series has done up to this point. It is, in fact, everything “Planet of the Dead” wasn’t, which may very well have been the point.

The Doctor (David Tennant), still traveling alone, lands on Mars in the year 2059. He trudges across the desolate, red landscape and bumps into a robot, called Gadget, that takes him to its leader on Bowie Base One, which is a clever enough joke – although one that’s a bit old hat for anyone who’s basked in the wonder that is Life on Mars, which coincidentally (or not) starred John Simm, who we’ll be seeing more of next week. Inside the base, the Time Lord meets the crew, led by Captain Adelaide Brooke (Lindsay Duncan), and quickly realizes who they are, and is as awestruck as any fanboy we’ve ever seen. Bowie Base One holds humanity’s first group of colonists on Mars, only the Doctor knows they all mysteriously died on the 21st of November, 2059. Guess what the date is? He quickly realizes that he should go, as this is an instance where he shouldn’t meddle with time. He sees it as a fixed point in the universe, and, as he explains later in the episode, “What happens here must always happen.” But events conspire to prevent his exit, and before long the crew begins succumbing to what ends up being a virus – it transforms them into hideous, zombie-type creatures, with cracked faces and the ability to use water as a deadly weapon. Only Doctor Who can find an inventive, frightening way to use water as a killer, and its ideas such as this that make the show the unique concept it is.

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Life on Mars: Series Two

Let’s get an important issue out of the way: If you haven’t seen the first season of the original U.K. version of Life on Mars, you’ve no business reading this review. Move along – there’s nothing for you to see here. But do go check out our review of the first season, buy the set, and then come back here if you liked what you saw (and chances are, you will). Life on Mars is great television, and the Brits may have a lot to teach Americans about the economy of storytelling, as Series Two is again comprised of eight episodes, which in turn wrap up the entire story; the whole thing is a mere 16 episodes, which makes its two seasons together a whole episode shorter than the one season of the ABC remake from last year.

The first season of Mars offered up a fairly even mix of procedural and out of time weirdness. We didn’t learn much more about the “whys” of Sam Tyler’s (John Simm) predicament by the end of the season than we knew at the beginning. Season Two kicks off without showing its hand immediately, and yet from the very first episode, the viewer gets the feeling the stakes have been raised. A series of nasty killings leads Sam and Gene (Philip Glenister) to casino owner Tony Crane (the criminally underrated Marc Warren), whom Sam recognizes as a nemesis from his future (or is it his present?). Gene believes Crane to be clean, but Sam knows better, and throughout the episode a hazy version of Crane threatens Sam’s life in the hospital many years away. Crane’s girlfriend, Eve (Yasmin Bannerman), may be the key to putting him away for good, if only Sam can convince her that forming a lifelong partnership with Crane will lead to her eventual death. It’s a pretty amazing (and complex) kick-start for the season, and Warren makes for an unusually effective boogeyman.

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The Best of Star Trek: The Next Generation - Volume Two

Earlier this year, when the new Star Trek movie was released in theaters, Paramount trotted out two “Best of” collections from their most endurable franchise. One compiled four episodes from the original series, the other dished up four installments from The Next Generation, and both were very nice discs aimed at the casual collector who has little interest in forking over big bucks for entire seasons of either show but would like to own a few classic episodes for periodic enjoyment. Fast forward to the DVD release date of the latest Star Trek film, and Paramount has offered up another two discs from the same two series, again each featuring four episodes for your short-attention span enjoyment.

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