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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The William Castle Film Collection

Forty-two years after his death, B-horror legend William Castle remains synonymous with cinematic gimmicks with names like “Emergo,” (a glow-in-the-dark skeleton that flew over the audience), “Percepto” (a small vibrator under some theaters seats) and “Illusion-O” (a “ghost viewer”). Though his modestly budgeted productions delighted the young, they were impossible to take seriously and never earned him the kind of respect given to less avidly commercial auteurs. Still, he was a solid movie craftsman of the old school with a buoyant attitude who worked with Orson Welles, Roman Polanski, and possibly influenced Alfred Hitchcock’s move into sensational horror with Psycho and The Birds. As a director, he was a competent craftsman whose essentially good-natured works aimed a bit low. As a showman, however, Welles, Polanski, and Hitchcock had very little on him.

Read the rest of this DVD review - which was co-written by Bob Westal - by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

For Fawkes Sake

Good Evening London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine - the security, the familiar, the tranquility, repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke.

But in the spirit of commemoration, thereby those important events of the past usually associated with someone's death or the end of some awful bloody struggle: A celebration of a nice holiday. I thought we could mark this November the 5th, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat.

There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the annunciation of truth.

And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and depression. And where once you had the freedom to object, think, and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission.

How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable. But again, truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent.

Last night I sought to end that silence. Last night I destroyed the Old Bailey, to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice and freedom are more than words: They are perspectives.

So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked.

But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament, and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot.

V

Doctor Who: The War Games

It always feels like a special occasion when a serial from Patrick Troughton’s era of Doctor Who is released on DVD, since so little of his time as the central character even exists anymore. It’s of course a huge shame that any Who stories were junked, but the Troughton era was hit particularly hard, and only six of its stories exist in their complete forms (although the release of “The Invasion” a few years ago, with animation providing the visuals for Episodes One and Four, helps to bump the total up to seven). Troughton’s Doctor had a true sense of the magic of the universe about him, an attribute which trickled into his stories as well. On his watch, the series started shedding its “for kids only” formula, and began churning out some truly memorable sci-fi yarns.

This DVD release seems doubly special since “The War Games” was not only the last story of his era, but it was also the last Who story of the ‘60s, as well as the last to be shot in black and white. Clocking in at over four hours in length and spanning a whopping ten episodes, “The War Games” is truly something special – although the one aspect that makes it particularly noteworthy hasn’t even been mentioned yet. We’ll get there in due course, however, so hang tight.

The Doctor (Troughton) and his companions Jamie (Frazer Hines), the Scottish Highlander from the past, and Zoe (Wendy Padbury), the girl genius from the future, arrive smack in what appears to be the middle of World War I. “Appears” is the key word here, and over the course of several episodes of being captured, shot at, captured again, threatened, caught once more, escaping (several times), and loads of running around, they discover they aren’t on Earth at all, but rather an unnamed alien planet. A group of human-looking aliens have kidnapped groups of soldiers from numerous eras of human history and sectioned them off into separate zones, so that they believe they are still on Earth, fighting their respective wars. What is the aliens’ eventual plan? Well, despite having ten episodes in which to explore that issue, the mechanics of it remain fairly glossed over, but the idea seems to be to put together a “super army” for conquest purposes.

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Doctor Who: The Black Guardian Trilogy

After the Doctor tussled with the Black Guardian (Valentine Dyall) back in “The Key to Time” season, the god-like entity vowed to eventually catch up with the Time Lord and destroy him. Over the course of these three stories, the Black Guardian attempts to make good on his threat, although his instrument of doom is a rather peculiar weapon: a teenage alien posing as a British schoolboy. His name is Turlough (Mark Strickson) and he makes a pact with the Guardian that he will kill the Doctor if the deity will take him away from Earth once and for all. Over the course of these three stories he’s bullied, prodded, and talked down to by the Black Guardian at every turn, and it’s a huge shame that early on he doesn’t just say to the Doctor, “Hey, this creepy guy with a dead bird on his head wants me to off you, but it looks like you’ve got some pretty awesome hardware at your disposal, so why I don’t I just hitch a ride with you instead?” Clearly, Turlough wasn’t thinking straight, and if he had managed to double-cross the Guardian so early on, these three tales wouldn’t have their linking thread, which is actually one of the more interesting propositions the series ever offered up: What if the Doctor’s companion was actively engaged in trying to kill him?

The trilogy kicks off with “Mawdryn Undead,” a truly twisty-turny tale of time and space. Indeed, for a TV series which so often uses time travel as its jumping off point, Doctor Who rarely offers up time conundrums and problems as central to the conflict of its stories. Of course, there are only so many ways you can go back in time and step on a butterfly, so this is understandable in regards to the series. And yet, when Who does pull out a story where time travel plays an important role, it’s always great fun to just kick back and let the McFlyness of it all wash over you.

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Blackadder Remastered: The Ultimate Edition

In The Hall of Great British Comedy, where all manner of witty, farcical and bawdy behavior is stored for safekeeping, there are a handful of TV shows which preside over all the rest. Fare such as Fawlty Towers, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Absolutely Fabulous, The Office and Mr. Bean are all concepts that are so perfect in their conception and execution that they’ve found big audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. Alas, poor Blackadder, despite airings on both A&E and PBS, has never had much more than a cult following here in the U.S – which is unfortunate, since it’s every bit the standout as the aforementioned programs and is more than deserving of being spoken of in the same breath. It details the exploits of one Edmund Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson) and his exploits throughout different eras of English history. Throughout his numerous incarnations, he’s accompanied by the reliably dimwitted Baldrick (Tony Robinson) and a handful of bumbling confidants and comical nemeses.

For a series with numerous strengths, perhaps its strongest is its wordplay: the way it deftly shifts from highbrow, almost lyrical comedic prose to simplistic, monosyllabic insult humor. If by some chance you feel it’s going over your head, stick around a few minutes and a penis or fart gag will invariably pop up. It’s tempting to throw out some quotes from the series, but frankly there are far too many to choose from, and I’m not even sure how they’d come across without the delivery of the fine cast which makes up the whole of Blackadder.

Ah, yes, the cast! Leading the troupe is, of course, Atkinson, and he’s probably never been finer than he is as Blackadder. For as big as Mr. Bean made him, this is an entirely different side of the man. You may have glimpsed flashes of his Adder brilliance in some of his other roles, but I’m pretty sure he’s never been given material that’s as suited to his talents as what writers Richard Curtis (Love Actually) and Ben Elton (The Young Ones) cooked up throughout the course of this series. This is largely a suave, calculated performance, and it’s impossible to imagine anyone other than Atkinson playing the part. He’s a true leading man, and far removed from the inept supporting player he so often seems to end up playing elsewhere. Tony Robinson’s Baldrick is, on the other hand, a simpleton – he represents the common man thrust into otherwise uncommon situations. Again, Robinson’s portrayal is so ideal that it becomes very easy to assume that he’s an imbecile in real life, although as various interviews on this set prove, he’s actually an incredibly well-spoken man (and, as I understand it, heavily involved in shaping the political landscape in his country). The rest of the main cast we’ll get to in due course, but before getting there, a roll call must be made of various actors that litter the Blackadder landscape in guest shots throughout the series: Jim Broadbent, Miriam Margolyes, Peter Cook, Rik Mayall, Tom Baker, Simon Jones, Ronald Lacey, Robbie Coltrane, Nigel Planer, Chris Barrie, Adrian Edmondson, Geoffrey Palmer, Colin Firth, and even Kate Moss! Those are only the most noticeable ones, and yet that’s still a pretty hefty cross-section of U.K. talent.

So we’ve got a slew of great actors delivering an even greater slew of pitch-perfect dialogue. Additionally, Blackadder boasts outstanding costumes. It’s the kind of stuff you’d see in any given BBC-produced period drama, only here it dresses up the comedy. Whether a character needs to appear a part of the regal aristocracy or a grungy manservant, the seemingly effortless capture of the period dress is a big part of what makes Blackadder so special.

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The Mary Tyler Moore Show: The Complete Fifth Season

Just about every piece of criticism I’ve ever read about The Mary Tyler Moore Show (or just plain Mary Tyler Moore, which is the title in the opening credits) goes to great lengths to talk about how it’s one of the greatest sitcoms in TV history. Maybe it is. Maybe it’s not. When you start attaching the label “greatest” to pieces of pop culture, there tend to be expectations involved, and surely that’s the case if the viewer is new to the show. I’ve got a massive amount of unconditional love for Mary Tyler Moore, but I watched this particular set with a more critical eye than I normally would, and tried to be a little bit more objective throughout my viewing.

The truth is that a fair amount of this series is horribly dated by today’s standards. What made the show so groundbreaking at the time – the idea of a career woman making it on her own without the help of a man – today seems awfully quaint and naïve. Further, there’s a great deal of sexism that pops up from time to time. Sometimes, when it’s from anchorman Ted Baxter (Ted Knight), it’s appropriately funny because Baxter is supposed to be a clueless buffoon. Other times, however, it comes from Mary’s boss, Lou Grant (Edward Asner), and it’s these instances that may very well have the power to get under people’s skin. Lou wasn’t like Ted, or even Archie Bunker for that matter: he was an intelligent, decent man, and a good boss, so it becomes all the more obnoxious when Mary is still expected to get him his coffee. In this season, when Mary is promoted to producer, she has to beg Lou to give her more responsibility; in his mind, giving her the title was plenty. Much of the series is probably an accurate reflection of what single career-minded women were going through in the ‘70s, so it’s really important to take all that into context when watching the show.

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Nip/Tuck: Season Five, Part Two

The press release for this set finishes up with two sentences: “And Liz says ‘I do’ to the last person you’d imagine. Time to stretch your imagination, fans.” When even the marketing department can no longer take a show seriously, it must be Nip/Tuck. As a fan since day one, I’m past resenting the show for failing to be as good as it once was, and have moved on to embracing Nip/Tuck for the freakshow it’s become. How freaky you ask? Well, in one episode, when Dr. Troy (Julian McMahon) refuses to give a woman an unnecessary mastectomy, she performs the surgery on herself – in the lobby of McNamara/Troy – with an electric carving knife.

Never a show to be too far behind the times, another installment features a pair of lovers who’ve taken their vampiric bloodlust a bit too far. You’ve seen these folks at goth clubs, I’m sure, but have secretly hoped it was all an act. Nip/Tuck is here to show you that the freakshow never ends, and that people do indeed partake in mutual bloodsucking. Surely the most outrageous display of hedonistic debasement comes in the form of the guy who likes to fuck furniture. If I hadn’t been laughing so hard, I might have turned away. What’s most noteworthy about this block of episodes, is that there isn’t a villain in the traditional Nip/Tuck sense – no Carver, or Escobar – although Eden (AnnaLynne McCord) does show up a couple times to fan a few flames.

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