Quick Reviews: Foyle's War: The Home Front Files, Acorn US

Foyle's War, created by Anthony Horowitz (Crime Traveller, Collision) snf which has run for seven series on ITV (and on PBS in the States) as of summer 2013, stars Michael Kitchen as Christopher Foyle, a cerebral policeman, who solves a variety of crimes with brain over brawn, mostly in seaside home front Hastings during World War II and the Cold War. He is aided by Samantha "Sam" Stewart (played by the wonderfully named Honeysuckle Weeks) and, for most of the seven series, detective sergeant Paul Milner (Anthony Howell). Apart from the wonderful Kitchen two of the joys of the series are its attention to historical detail and its showing of home front WWII Britain warts and all. Excellent mysteries, excellent acting all around.

The series. Very good. 4 to 4.5 stars.

The package. On the positive side, this is a very good transfer and is up to Acorn's usual high standards. On the negative side, there's the packaging. Instead of one episode per disc Acorn could have put two episodes on each of the first four series discs. Disc three of set six was cracked so I had to return it adding a layer of annoyance into the purchase. The packaging is up to Acorn's usual standards on its larger sets: MEDIOCRE. The slipcase into which the six series regular size keepcases slip into had already split apart at its poorly glued seams before I even took the six series sets out of the Amazon box. Note to Acorn: put as much care into your slip cases as the rest of your product. Your slipcases as a general rule are quite awful. Keepcases? Well they are flimsy, very flimsy. 2.5 stars.

Summation: a mixed bag. If you only care about the series and not about the packaging go for it. 3 stars total.