Quick Reviews: The Sopranos, The Complete Series with Extras, HBO

The design challenged folks at HBO have struck again. Yes, the same folks who gave you that awful first The Wire collected set and that awful The Sopranos collected set where DVD's were stuck into cardboard slats so they could get scratched have struck again. They have decided that rather than stick the DVDs for their most recent The Sopranos complete set into regular keepcases and on multidisc holders as any Eric the half a bee with half a brain would, they would once again give us that bane of DVD collectors everywhere, a The Sopranos set in which plastic DVD's have been stuck into cardboard slats where they get scratched and buffed and generally abused. And to add further insult to consumer unjoy, they have created cardboard accordion season holders that, when you put the discs in and take them out of their cardboard holders, tear. I guess we should thank our lucky stars that HBO television is generally much better, though not that much better, than their design department. 

O stars for the packaging and a big raspberry for the zombie suited idiots in the design department at HBO. They have shown us once and for all that form does not follow functionality and that design is more important than protecting DVD's, at least for these corporate types.

Dear HBO, I hope you love the packaging of this set because it means that you just lost a sale because I just returned this box set for a full refund. I will not be buying another until your design department obtains their Ph.D's in rocket science, a degree which should, I hope, allow them to build a The Sopranos box set that actually protects the DVD's rather than looks sexy design pretty. Unlike you I don't judge a book by its cover.

Quick Reviews: Lewis, Series 1 through 6, ITV

The Show: Lewis (ITV, 2006-2013), which just finished its seventh and apparently last series on ITV and will be broadcast on PBS this summer, is the excellent spin-off of the wonderful Morse (ITV, 1987-1993 and 1995-2000). Lewis follows the investigations of Morse’s former partner Lewis (Kevin Whately) and his ex Cantab theology student partner Hathaway (Laurence Fox) as they uncover murderers in the college town of Oxford, most of them academics. Of the many joys of Lewis, scenes of gorgeous Oxford and its college architecture and the puzzle that is the murders, to pick two examples, it’s the academics as murderers one that I probably enjoyed more than any other. And while I realise most academics don't commit murders in the numbers they do in Lewis (and Morse) there is a dark side to the ultimately silly and petty power games that academics really do play behind those ivy covered walls. 4 to 4.5 stars.

The DVD: Very good transfer. Good clean audio. A bit difficult for an oldie like me on a few occasions. 4 stars.

The Package: Up to ITV’s usual standard for its larger box sets: Mediocre. Two of the discs in the second and third of the three keepcases were off their spindles. Thankfully they weren’t damaged much. One of the discs, the behind the scenes disc in series one (disc three) was scratched and buffed and didn't function properly freezing up, thanks to the scratches and buffings, periodically. 2 stars.

Miscellaneous: For those of you who don't have an all region DVD player the first series of Lewis put out by the sometimes incompetent PBS is the cut PBS version of Lewis, cut bizarrely in order to fit into the Masterpiece 1 hour and a half slot, not the full ITV version. So at this point you have no other option, if you want series one, than to go for the hack and hacked up PBS version of series one. So many DVD companies aren't worth the cost of plastic in the DVD's they peddle.

Quick Reviews: H20: Just Add Water, Flatiron Film

I haven't watched H2O: Just Add Water yet but I am told H2O, which ran for three series on Ten (and on Nikelodeon in the US) is an Australian show about three young Gold Coast women who find themselves trapped on an island and find themselves turned into mermaids with magical powers (a genre trope if there ever was one) while trapped on the island. This bildungsroman follows the trials and travails of Rikki Chadwick (Cariba Heine), Emma Gilbert (Claire Holt, who left in series two to be replaced by Indiana Evans as "Bella" Hartley) and Cleo Sertori (Phoebe Tonkin), as they deal with how the transformation from young women to mermaids affects their daily lives.

The show: I haven't watched the Flatiron H2O DVD yet so can't really comment on the transfer or the show itself. It was a why not purchase when the series was on sale. I want to see what this Aussie show is like since I have an interest in non-US TV.

The packaging: Mediocre at best. The set arrived with each and every one of the six discs on the left side of each of the four disc season keepcases off of their spindles. On the plus side a cursory glance suggests that no damage was done to the discs, a rare occurrence. I will look more closely in the future to see if this is the case. As for the slip case that the DVD's slip into, good.

Summary. If you don't care about potentially bad discs take your chance...

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.

From Glen Oaks to Walton's Mountain: Musings on 7th Heaven and The Walton's

I have recently been thinking a bit about two "family shows" I once watched fairly regularly, 7th Heaven and The Waltons, and the similarities and differences between them.

7th Heaven was the brainchild of Atlanta native Brenda Hampton, a veteran TV sitcom writer. The show is, as rumour has it, based on Hampton’s experiences growing up in that Southern city. According to legend, Hampton pitched her idea for a show about one of the last functional families left in America to veteran mega-producer Aaron Spelling (Charlie’s Angels, Dynasty, Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place) and the rest is, as they say, history. With Spelling behind the show 7th Heaven was eventually picked up by the fledgling WB netlet reportedly, by the way, over Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It premiered on 26 August 1996 and ran for eleven seasons on the WB and later the CW, the network created by the merger of the WB and UPN in 2006, making it the longest running TV show in the WB’s history and of Aaron Spelling’s career.

7th Heaven always seemed to me a throwback to 1950s family oriented American television. It’s no surprise that the show shares the representational illusions of most 1950s American television. 7th Heaven centers on the sunny Camden family of sunny Glen Oaks, California. Dad Eric (Stephen Collins), a preacher at a local church, his stay at home wife Anne (Catherine Hicks), and their seven mostly biblically named children, Matt (Barry Watson), Mary (Jessica Biel), Lucy (Beverly Mitchell), Simon (David Gallagher), Ruthie (Mackenzie Rosman), and the twins Sam and David (Lorenzo and Nikolas Brino) who were born in the 14th episode of season three. 7th Heaven, like so many other family oriented television shows on American television was always utterly predictable. Over its eleven seasons the Camden children and their many friends, acquaintances, and neighbours, may have had problems with dating, boys or girls, keeping secrets from mom and dad, sexy dancing, smoking, drinking, premarital sex, giving birth to children out of wedlock, not having a place to live, and so on ad nauseum, but by the end of each episode or certainly by the end of each season all of them, save for oldest daughter Mary who in Durkheimian fashion serves as a warning to all the other Camden children of where misbehaviour can lead, always find themselves back on the moral path they are supposed to be on in their lives according to the nondenominational gospel according to Brenda Hampton.

While 7th Heaven was never a critical favourite the show did draw the highest audiences ratings for the WB during its run becoming in the process the longest running family drama in the history of American TV. What this says about American TV audiences I will leave up to you to decipher. Praised by such Christian moral watchdog groups as the Parents Television Council, a group that not surprisingly hated Buffy, Angel, South Park, The Simpsons, Veronica Mars, Lost, and Heroes to name just a few, 7th Heaven was slotted for cancellation in May of 2006. High Nielsen numbers for the shows finale that season, however, gave the programme a new lease on life. The show’s resurrection lasted only for one year more, however. 7th Heaven was cancelled and ended its long run on 13 May 2007.

As you can probably tell by now dear unreaders I never really liked 7th Heaven. I often watched the show. The reason? I can only describe my addiction to 7th Heaven as akin to watching a car crash or a train wreck. I had to see how much worse it could get. I should hasten to add that I don’t inherently dislike the family oriented TV genre. I actually have enjoyed some American family TV in the past. Rather, I disliked 7th Heaven because, like Friends, it was so unreal. I say this knowing that all film and TV create their own worlds and their own realities. I disliked it because with its sugar coated pat formulas about life it seemed far more of a fantasy show to me than that TV show meant, one one level, to be fantasy show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show, by the way, which I found one of the most emotionally realistic shows ever to appear on American television.

One family oriented drama I really liked in the 1970s and continue to like today is The Waltons. The Waltons, which ran from 1972 to 1981 on CBS, was the brainchild of veteran TV writer Earl Hamner Jr. Hamner wrote a number of episodes for the classic Twilight Zone series from the late 1950s and early 1960s. Like 7th Heaven, The Waltons, was grounded in autobiography, in this case the real life reminiscences of creator Earl Hamner’s experiences of growing up in rural Virginia during the Great Depression and the New Deal. Like 7th Heaven, The Waltons centred around a large family. There was father John (Ralph Waite), mother Olivia (Miss Michael Learned), grandpa and patriarch Zebulon (veteran Hollywood actor, old leftist, and gay Will Geer) Grandma Esther (Ellen Corby), and children John-Boy (Richard Thomas), Jason (Jon Walmsley), Mary Ellen (Judy Norton), Erin (Mary Elizabeth McDonough), Ben (Eric Scott), Jim-Bob (David Harper), and Elizabeth (Kami Cotler).

Like 7th Heaven, The Waltons could be sugary at times, but not all the time. Unlike 7th Heaven where the middle class Camden family was urban and relatively well off, The Walton clan was rural and poor though not impoverished. Unlike 7th Heaven where the struggles of the middle class Camden’s always seemed to strain credibility, the struggles of the Walton family trying to survive the tough times of the Great Depression of the 1930s always seemed, at least to me, credible and real and often bittersweet. Not everything always ended on a happy note on Walton’s Mountain. Unlike 7th Heaven where Glen Oaks seemed like everywhere USA, a telling commentary perhaps on our times in which all of America seems increasingly to look alike, The Waltons had a wonderful sense of place, some would say a romanticised, nostalgic, and somewhat xenophobic sense of place though I wouldn't, the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

Not too long ago I rewatched seasons one and two of The Waltons on DVD. I recall being struck by the quality of the storytelling and the almost poetic quality of the words some of the characters, particularly John-Boy, said. I remember being struck by the quality of the acting in The Waltons particularly from Ralph Waite, Miss Michael Learned, Will Geer, Ellen Corby, and Richard Thomas. I recall being struck by how, despite the fact that it was filmed in a Hollywood back lot—the Walton house, by the way, for those of you interested in trivial pursuits, shows up in another CW show Gilmore Girls—the show gives you a sense of Great Depression era Virginia and the history of America during the Great Depression and New Deal eras. I remember being struck by how touching several of the episodes are including what surely has to be one of the first shows ever on American TV about anti-Semitism in 1930s Germany (“The Ceremony”, 1:9). Another one of the earliest, by the way, was The Twilight Zone episode "Death's-Head Revisited", episode 3:9, from 1961. I recall being struck by the quality of the cinematography. Walton’s cinematographer Russell Metty had worked, after all, with Douglas Sirk on his classic melodramas of the 1950s, and with Orson Welles on his brilliant Touch of Evil. I remember being struck by how literate and literary the show is. I love the short story quality of the show with its wonderfully nostalgic opening voice overs by creator Earl Hamner Jr. And I recalled how much of an influence The Waltons had on me, a teenager in the 1970s.

I grew up with The Waltons. I had watched the television movie in which the Walton family first appeared on the small screen, "The Homecoming: A Christmas Story", when it debuted on CBS in December of 1971 and I watched the series when it came on the air almost a year later in September in 1972. The show appealed to me so much and for so many reasons but I think the main reason I fell in love with The Waltons was because I really identified with John-Boy Walton (Richard Thomas) and I came to believe that there was a lot of John-Boy in me. Or perhaps by religiously watching the show and by identifying so strongly with John-Boy I turned more and more like John-Boy. I didn't dream of becoming a writer like John-Boy but I was, like him, a reader of books and a lover of books and still am. Instead I dreamed, as did John-Boy, I think, that I too might become an intellectual. I don't recall exactly when I started thinking about going to college--I stupidly confused being an intellectual with becoming an academic--but I wouldn't be surprised if it was John-Boy who, because he wanted to go to college and he romanticised it so much, made me think about going to college and who helped me create my own romance about academia, a romance that was very similar to his (that I no longer do thanks to being smacked in the face by reality on several occasions).

It wasn't only because of intellectual yearnings or a dream of going to college that I identified with John-Boy so much. When John-Boy fell in love with Jenny Pendleton (Sian Barbara Allen) in "The Love Story" (1:17), so did I. When John-Boy worried that his father might sell Walton's Mountain to a developer who wanted to build a health spa destroying, in the process, the Walton family heritage ("The Heritage", 2:18), so did I. When John-Boy opposed censorship and the burning of German books on Walton's Mountain ("The Fire Storm, 5:5), so did I. Looking back on it I am not sure whether I liked John-Boy so much because his sensitivities and morality were just like mine or whether John-Boy's sensitivity and morality were increasingly becoming my sensitivity and morality because I admired him so much. Perhaps John Boy made me one part liberal, one part conservative, and one part socialist.

Anyway, I wish I could report that the quality of The Waltons DVD’s is as good as the show is but I can’t. Warner Brothers, usually the best of the big corporate home entertainment boys, has not given The Waltons the Criterion treatment. The show is presented in its original 4:3 aspect ratio. Colours seem right. Blacks are fine. Contrasts are fine. Audio is good. There are, however, far too many scratches and pops that appear throughout the episodes and particularly during the opening credits. No restoration here. There are no extras. The French subtitles have to be manually turned off. Despite all of this, this is probably about as good as it is going to get for this seminal and outstanding American TV series. And that, dear

unreaders, is sad but then life in an America that, unlike the rural America of the Walton's, has become a land of commodity aestheticism. Warner Brothers presumably thinks that the rural America of The Waltons has a limited appeal to a largely nostalgia target audience in the now urban and consumer America.

Like the Commissar the TV Show Disappears...

I have been buying DVD's for some ten years now. Sometimes the DVD's one buys bring with them annoyance. DVD companies, save for Criterion and Masters of Cinema, seem to have a problem buying or manufacturing keepcases that keep the DVD's safely on their spindles and as a result they arrive loose in the case and damaged. The annoyance this causes and the seeming Ph.D. in that proverbial Rocket Science making a DVD keepcase that actually does what it is supposed to do seems to require is nothing compared with another problem I have with DVD's and DVD corporations, their manipulation of history.

Rather like the powers that be in the Stalinist Soviet Union of the past, powers who, when the political times required it, wrote and imaged certain commissars out of Soviet and World Communist history, entertainment conglomerates and their DVD companies have, though less for political and more for economic reasons, imaged and audioed music, scenes, and recording style out of history.

NBC Universal and Lionsgate, for instance, released DVDs of "Will and Grace" that contain, in some cases, the syndicated rather than full original broadcast versions of that show. Universal and E One Entertainment released a DVD set of "It Takes a Thief" that contains, in some cases, the syndicated versions of episodes of that show (in mediocre transfers) rather than the original full broadcast versions. Universal released seasons two through six of "Northern Exposure" without, in many cases, its original music. CBS/Paramount warns those who are thinking about purchasing its DVD's of "The Fugitive" and "Holocaust" that "[s]ome episodes may be edited from their original broadcast version" and that [s]ome music may be changed from their original home version entertainment release in very small print that is barely readable on the back of the DVD box. ITV released a transfer of "Raffles" in which the original broadcast version of the show, a show that was largely videotaped, seems to have been replaced with a version in which the videotape seems to have been transferred onto film. As a result "Raffles's" inside scenes appear much darker than those on the original version. We can, by the way, compare the original and the ITV versions, because the wonderful Acorn has released the original version of "Raffles" in the US market in an excellent transfer.

So what is the historian to make of all of these corporate manipulations? Well, first, there is the obvious. Entertainment giants like Universal, Fox, and Warner's, only and understandably got broadcast rights for the popular music they began to use in the 1950s and used extensively after the 1970s as the age 14 to 26 demographic became the obsession of the "new" Hollywood (an odd phrase to use to describe post-studio system Hollywood since so much of "new" Hollywood is remakes or regurgitations of the "old"). Now, in the world of DVD's and whatever will take their place in the future, these, fighting media giants cannot come to an agreement on music rights in those cases when the music in the TV show isn't owned by the same media giant that made the film or television show in the first place. Fights over music rights was the reason "Ally McBeal" was given a delayed release in the US and why the wonderful "Wonder Years" is not likely to appear on DVD in my life time. Second, media conglomerates don't really care about historical accuracy or their customers, particularly those of their customers who want the original version of TV shows. They appear, if the release of syndicated versions of TV shows and poor quality transfers of TV shows, like Warner Brothers "The Waltons" (ironically the WB is a usually reliable purveyor of quality DVD's), is a guide, to, by and large, make the least expenditure of energy for something they think has limited sales potential route. And the sad thing is that most customers don't seem to care because they continue to buy the poor quality crap Hollywood conglomerates continue to put out. Bread and Circuses? Bread and Circuses.

Postscript
Weirdly, I feel like I should praise CBS/Paramount for telling us what they might have done to their television shows in their DVD transfers. At least they are being honest, a rare pearl of great price in corporations indeed these days. Most entertainment conglomerates don't, as CBS/Paramount has, tell consumers that scenes and music from the show may be missing from their home entertainment release of a TV show for "contractual" reasons, doublespeak for media conglomerate infighting over money and hence profits. This preference of entertainment corporations for uninformed customers, by the way, tells us much, much not particularly good, about the economic world and those who control this economic world in which all of us live in, an economic world in which many of us in the US don't even have a right to know what is in our milk, butter, or yoghurt.

An Old Person's and Young Person's Guide to DVD Companies...

Ok, so I am a film, documentary, and television junkie. I have probably close to a thousand DVD's that I have bought over the years. I thus have a lot of experience with DVD's and DVD companies. Here is what I have found.

Criterion Collection. Along with Masters of Cinema the Gold Standard of DVD and Blue Ray Companies. Criterion does the highest quality transfers of the best cinema has to offer. Its packaging is sometimes an art form in itself. Outstanding and informative booklets. Lots of extras with informative content on releases. Stands by its product. I had a bad package for Monsoon Wedding once and they replaced it. Of the almost 500 plus Criterion's I own I have had problems withonly four discs.

Masters of Cinema. Along with Criterion the Gold Standard in DVD's. Highest quality transfers of the best cinema has to offer. Like Criterion MoC does great booklets and puts lots of informative extras on their releases. And like Criterion it stands by its product. I once had a bad booklet which they replaced immediately. Of the almost 100 MoC's I have I have had only three discs arrive damaged.

CBS/Paramount. Mediocre in its transfers. Some like I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners are good, very good. Others, like Dragnet, are clearly not restored and are mediocre at best. Purveyor of some very poor to awful packaging. With MGM has a tendency to design packages in which the discs are stuck into very tight cardboard slats meaning that they scratch easily on the way in or on the way out (e.g., Beauty and the Beast). Another thing to beware of with CBS, particularly with respect to their TV releases, is incomplete episodes of TV series. Many of CBS's TV programmes are the shortened syndicated versions (e.g., some episodes of Lucy), some are shortened for some reason that is unfathomable (e.g. Holocaust), some have been cut for copyright issues (usually music the costs of which the megacorporation that owns the television programme doesn't want to pay while the megacorporation who owns the music wants megabucks for). Surprisingly, CBS/Paramount does note that a programme may be cut or doesn't have its original music in tiny print at the bottom of the information on the back of their keepcases. Another problem: CBS/Paramount sometimes puts content on both sides of their discs leading to scratching. Some of their product has limited if any extras. They do stand by their product, however. My Dragnet season one double sided disc one was scratched to kingdom come and they replaced it at their cost.

MGM. Mediocre in transfer quality. Some quite good. Many, most of them, quite mediocre. Purveyor of some poor to awful packaging like CBS where DVD's are stuck into cardboard slats and damaged as a result (e.g., Star Gate, Hitchcock collection). Why do these companies spend tons on box design and, at the same time, stick disc into tight cardboard slats. Can you say very stupid? Variations in number and quality of extras.

Warner Brothers. Clearly and easily the best of the big boy corporate home entertainment companies. Some outstanding transfers with lots of extras. On occasion, normally with TV product, WB produces very poor quality product with double sided discs which easily get scratched and poor transfer quality (e.g. The Waltons). Also on occasion WB releases, inexplicably, widescreen films solely in standard format (Stand and Deliver and Running on Empty), usually they release them in both. Heresy.

LionsGate. Mediocre. Sometimes releases high quality films and TV programmes though in mediocre to fair transfers. Beware of their TV releases. Some contain syndicated versions (e.g., Little House on the Prairie) though this isn't entirely the fault of LionsGate and Imavision, the Quebec company that originally released Little House, since both companies released what they were given by NBC (see below). Caveat emptor: LionsGate doesn't stand by their product. I bought their Mad Men season one which came poorly packaged in a plastic skin that I had difficulty getting off and found it was defective when I finally got it off. They refused to replace this meaning that they don't stand behind the product they produce. Unfortunately LionsGate has acquired some films formerly done by Criterion. Boo. Hiss.

Universal/NBC. Mediocre in every sense of the word. Their Will and Grace release contains syndicated versions of some of the episodes though in decent unrestored transfers. On the other hand their releases of the first two seasons of Beaver were quite good. And then they stopped releasing any further seasons presumably because sales didn't meet their expectations (reasonable or not). Yes Virginia we live in an age in which everything is a commodity with a dollar sign plastered in front of it. By the way, I have been happier with the British Universal Playback releases (including that of the wonderful BBC All Creatures Great and Small) then with US Universal releases.

Shout Factory. Good though not Criterion or MoC. Some great releases in good to excellent transfers. As a company that licenses product from other sources they are prisoners to what they are given by the megacompanies that own the films or TV programmes they release. Their box set of Leave it to Beaver is excellent but contains some versions of episodes that aren't in their original transmission form. Who do we have to thank for this? I think NBC/Universal. Shout deserves credit for their Corman releases, Max Headroom, and Beaver. Shout also responds to customer concerns: they did away with that stupid and unnecessary hard to get off tape (as did Criterion, by the way; European releases have never had it in the first place) at the top of their releases.

Timeless. Mediocre but they deserve extra points for trying. Timeless releases a lot of American television Westerns like the excellent Laredo, the brilliant Alias Smith and Jones, Wagon Train, and The Virginian in decent transfers. Unfortunately, Timeless has also released British and Australian TV programmes like To the Ends of the Earth and The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant in incorrect aspect ratio transfers. Buy these from the UK if you can.

HBO. Generally very good. Some of their releases, like the original box set of The Sopranos and The Wire, are very poorly packaged: the dreaded DVD's stuck into the dreaded cardboard slats. As such HBO is rapidly catching up with MGM and CBS as the DVD company with the stupidest designers.

2 Entertain/BBC. Some excellent releases (Dr. Who, Quatermass). Transfer quality can vary given the condition of the original material. The BBC didn't start to archive and preserve until the 1970s. Some of their keepcases, the ones that have DVD on both sides of the box, have a tendency to lose their discs which, as a result, get scratched while floating around free range in the keepcases. Apparently it requires a Ph.D. in physics to make good keepcases unless you are Criterion of MoC.

I have contacted 2Entertain on a number of occasions about the problems with their keepcases. Sadly, it was a waste of time and energy. Each time I contacted them about their poor quality keepcases I received essentially the same reply: it's not our fault. What I gained from dealing with BBC/2Entertain is this: there is perhaps no more arrogant institution in the English speaking world than the BBC and no institution I know of which has less reason to be arrogant given their poor their poor keepcases. That the BBC is as bad as American corporations like Universal, MGM, and Paramount says volumes about this public institution. I guess we should be thankful that one of the few megacorporations that cares about product, the WB, does some of the BBC's American releases. Someone, after all, has to save the BBC from itself.

ITV. Virtually a carbon copy of BBC/2 Entertain. No difference between the public BBC or private ITV here though I think 2 Entertainment is a for profit enterprise partly owned by the Beeb. That said their restroratons and remasterings of Lean's and Powell's and Pressberger's films are quite nice

On the downside ITV's transfer of some of their TV shows is an absolute and unmitigated disaster. The wonderful Raffles, for instance, was, like so many shows in the 70s shot on videotape. Some gumby at ITV, however, (the same ones perhaps who turned the 4:3 World at War into a widescreen disaster epic) has decided that it was best not to release Raffles in its original form, defacing history in a manner almost akin to what happened to photographs in Stalinist Russia. Instead ITV apparently has chosen to transfer the video portions of Raffles onto film changing the look of the programme, not to mention its contrast, in the process. Americans are the lucky ones here for the Acorn US release of Raffles contains the show as originally broadcast (though I don't recall whether it has the Yorkshire idents and act breaks). Shame on ITV. Who would have thunk (well me because I know that capitalists and commies all love their history whitewashed) that a capitalist corporation would have Stalinist tendencies that led it to, in this instance, change history for economic rather than political reasons.

Acorn UK. Licenses product largely from the Beeb and ITV. Good transfers though the quality varies due to the quality of the original material. Like 2 Entertain and ITV there are problems with discs staying on the spindles of Acorn's double disc sets for the same reasons as 2 Entertain/BBC and ITV. The Foyle's War (great ITV series) complete set had a lot of scratching and buffing problems.

Acorn also has a branch in North America. I have purchased their DVD's of the excellent Canadian shows Da Vinci's Inquest and Intelligence. Both were very good in terms of quality and packaging. Acorn's release of Upstairs Downstairs and the 35th anniversary edition of I Claudius are outstanding in every way.

Channel 4 DVD. Generally good transfers of some great stuff. Channel 4, originally established of offer more innovative fare than the Beeb and ITV, played a major role in the renaissance of British cinema in the 1980s and 1990s and in bringing innovative shows to the small screen in the 1980s and 1990s. 4DVD has released great cinema in good to very good transfers like Bill Forsythe's Local Hero and My Beautiful Laundrette (the US release of this seminal film by MGM is mediocre). It has released great and seminal TV shows like Spaced in a very good transfer. Given 4's support for innovative films and TV programmes, at least at one time, I like to support 4DVD.

Second Run. Not quite in the Criterion and MoC league but close. Great library of seminal Eastern European films (such as Valerie and Her Week of Wonders) and documentaries (such as In the Land of the Deaf). Excellent booklets, good extras.

E one Entertainment. Like Second Run not quite in the Criterion and MoC league but close. Great releases in fine transfers of TV shows like the Ellery Queen Mysteries, Sondheim's Evening Primrose, and Studio One teleplays. Nice releases of Canadian shows like Being Erica and Republic of Doyle and classic BBC shows like Anne of Avalon. The problem with Being Erica is the original aspect ratio. Most of the E one season one of Being Erica is in the standard TV ration (4:3) while the British edition on Channel 4 is in widescreen (1:66 or 1:78). The show, as far as I know, was originally in widescreen. Why the standard frame in most of season one of Being Erica E one?

Recently my appreciation for E one declined thanks to their very poor release of the complete series of what is in my opinion the best American television spy show and one of the best American TV shows ever, It Takes a Thief. The remastering is poor. The box the set it comes in is awful. The discs are stuck into cardboard slats though they weren't terribly damaged upon arrival. Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that Universal, the owner of It Takes a Thief, and one of the worst DVD companies in the business, from whom E one licensed It Takes a Thief, is probably responsible for most of the problems with the transfer quality of this set? Because that is the Universal way. Apparently the German transfer of the first season and a half of the show is vastly superior.

BFI: Like Second Run and E1 not quite Criterion or MoC but pretty close. A great library of releases of seminal films (and once upon a time a few TV programmes) from around the world in generally very good quality transfers. Now releasing wonderful combo DVD/Blue Ray packages of great directors like Ozu and Bunuel.

Network. It is hard not to like Network because of what they release. Network by and large re-releases classic British television. They also release the best transfer of the wonderful Canadian show Due South. Most of their releases are not restored but a few, like The Prisoner, are. Since they are simply mastered the quality of the transfers are not always spectacular. But then the quality of the original material is not always particularly good either. Some of the early keepcases were flawed allowing discs to pop off the spindles and get scratched in the case as a result. Recent releases have much superior keep cases. It is nice to see a company in today's world respond to complaints about their product and improve them. Too bad that this is an anomaly in the modern world dominated by take it or leave it megacorporations. Sad that more consumers don't complain about poor product and avoid buying it. But then we live in a gotta have it and gotta have it now Western world, don't we?.

Blue Underground. Cut from the E1, Second Run, and BFI cloth. Very good but not quite the gold standard of Criterion and MoC. Blue Underground releases a lot of "classics" from the European and American gore underground along with art film classics like My Brilliant Career, Newsfront, and the Alan Bennett collection. I did have a problem with the Newsfront keepcase. The disc fell off the spindle and arrived scratched so I exchanged it for another. It had the same problem so I returned it. Blue Underground promised to replace any such occurrence in the future. And they did. When I bought a third copy and the disc was off the spindle and damaged Blue Underground replaced it promptly.

Park Circus. One step down from Criterion and MoC. They recently released Peter Greenaway's Pillow Book in a fine quality transfer.

Optimum. Generally good transfers of some great films including those of the great Godard. Optimum also releases some interesting Asian film and some past and contemporary horror classics. Optimum's Bergman releases are generally excellent.

Arrow. Generally good transfers of some classic and contemporary cinema. Arrow does a good box set of Rohmer's wonderful Comédies et Proverbes.

Artificial Eye. Generally good transfers of some classics and some good contemporary cinema. I treasure my two Rohmer box sets from Artificial Eye and have been eying the Resnais box set.

Zeitgeist. I don't own any of their DVD's but hear excellent things about this company that releases highly critically regarded films on DVD.

Raro Video. An Italian company that has just arrived in the US market with several releases including Fellini's The Clowns. Good transfer. Some have complained about Raro quality and lack of response to quality concern issues.

VCI. Generally good and sometimes very good transfers. VCI's release of Joseph Losey's famous noir The Prowler. That disc has been restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive and so looks quite nice.

BFS. What is it with BFS. Their recently released Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders, a great ITV adaptation of Defoe's starring Alex Kingston and Daniel Craig. Unfortunately, BFS's transfer does not appear to do this superb show justice. There is no information on the BFS website about the aspect ratio of the transfer. The original is widescreen (1:66 or 1:78). The BFS transfer is, if Amazon is accurate (not always the case, by the way) 1:33. So if you don't mind missing a significant part of the show buy it. As for me I will stick with the ITV release in the correct oar I purchased some time back and will remain annoyed by the BFS tradition of not telling consumers anything about the oar on the packages or on their website and their tradition of transforming a widescreen film or TV programme into a TV screen box oar. Pathetic and sad. I expect more but I never get it from BFS. In fact, I still haven't figured out whether the BFS transfer of the superb BBC docudrama about Arthur Conan Doyle and his mentor Dr. Joseph Bell, one of the inventors of modern forensics, The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes/Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle is in the correct oar. There is certainly no indication on the package what the aspect ratio of the transfer is. The only thing I do know is that it is not in the 1:33:1 format Amazon claims. There should be as any consumer respecting DVD company knows. By the way Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle was the pilot for the superb BBC series Murder Rooms which is available in the States from MPI in a good quality and correct aspect ratio transfer.

Mill Creek. Bargain basement quality at bargain basement prices. Some of their public domain unrestored transfers are, however, sometimes more than passable. Their Ozzie and Harriet collection actually contains, in most cases, the original broadcast releases rather than the syndicated versions something which can not be said of the Shout release of the official versions licensed from the Rick Nelson Company. Now releasing some stuff with Shout, megacreator Stephen Cannell (Cannell was too cheap to pony up for music rights so his stuff is absent the original music as it was on the Anchor Bay releases), Freemantle, the British production and rights megacorporation, and NBC/Universal (Howdy Doody).

Echo Bridge. An echo of Mill Creek. Bargain basement transfers at bargain basement prices of stuff in the public domain. Echo Bridge recently cut a deal with Miramax and is now releasing, in generally poor transfers, Miramax product.

Olive Films: Olive Films, an independent producer of DVD's, has recently released a version of the Migenes, Domingo, Maazel, and Rosi realisation of Bizet's great opera, Carmen. On the plus side: the transfer looks pretty good and appears to be in or close to its original aspect ratio. On the down side: the subtitles are in white and yellow and unremovable. Unremovable subtitles are unforgivable as any self-respecting quality DVD company should know. The extras contained on the new restored Second Sight British DVD are absent from the Olive. Unfortunate.I may, after purchasing Olive's transfer of Carmen, never buy another DVD or Blue Ray from this company again. If you have an all region DVD, and every film and opera buff should, get the two DVD Second Sight transfer. You may get the PAL speedup with the Second Sight version and you cannot remove the subtitles, apparently you can on the French Gaumont version, but at least you will have the two extras. So for those of you who do have an all region DVD player you have a choice between the bare bones Olive, the more fulsome Second Sight, and the superior French version. I really wish I had chosen the last.

Let me close this guide with a few more words about packaging. I have noted some of the problems with the fancy box sets put out by MGM, Fox, HBO, and others, those box sets that are gorgeous on the outside but have their DVD's stuck into cardboard slats on the inside. The result of this is almost always scratched discs. There are other problems with DVD packaging in the US in particular, however. WB and HBO originally had these hybrid plastic and paper keepcases that didn't fit well next to the other plastic DVD keepcases on the shelf and occasionally were damaged when one tried to take that security and name tape plastered on, in some cases, three sides of the keepcase. And then there is the issue of what to do when the spindle is damaged in these keepcases since it is not easy to replace a damaged one with one that isn't damaged. But back to the security tape. The security tape, particularly on older DVD's, also on occasion damages the plastic of the keepcases themselves as well. I find this tape along with those black plastic meets metal security devices annoying because they are totally unnecessary. European DVD's manage to get along without either. Kudos to Criterion and Shout Factory for doing away with the tape on the top of their keepcases.

The packaging of DVD's and the fact that many DVD's don't stay on their spindles far too often raises questions about the intelligence of whatever species designs these keepcases. Given that there are so many unnecessary faults with DVD keepcases and packaging has led me to wonder whether DVD companies need to consider hiring PhD's in Engineering to design keepcases. Given the track record of far too many DVD companies at present my answer to this query is yes.

Postscript, 4 December 2011:
Thoughts on BBC/2Entertain and Acorn.UK Product. From my Amazon.UK review of the new Upstairs Downstairs

I give four stars for the show and no stars for the keepcases BBC/2Entertain uses to store their product in. That gives us two stars.

I am going to skip reviewing the show since others have written about the quality of the show better than I could. Suffice it to say that this is more Upstairs Downstairs than Downton Abbey, the most recent semi-rehash of the old Upstairs Downstairs. History and the relationships between upstairs and downstairs have always been at the heart of Upstairs Downstairs and they remain so here. Downton Abbey, of course, has played with these classic elements of the subgenre as well.

Now to the keepcases. No company, in my experience, does keepcases or buys keepcases as bad as BBC/2Entertain (save for Acorn UK, more about that later). It almost seems that the BBC's/2Entertain's lack of interest in quality control for their keepcases rivals that, on occasion, of their transfers and that both express their cynicism about consumers, a cynicism that seems to be the fools will buy anything. Nothing reflects this cynicism more than the Beeb's and 2Entertain's release of Only Horses and Fools in a sliced and diced transfer that no company that cares about its customers let alone any self respecting company would release unless they were cynical or simply operating on greed. And nothing expresses the cynicism and contempt the BBC and 2Entertain must have for their customers than the keepcases they use.

To put this into context. I have purchased over five hundred discs from the Criterion Collection. Only three of the discs have wiggled off their keepcases and been damaged as a result. I have purchased around one hundred discs from Masters of Cinema. Only three have had discs loose in the keepcase and damaged. I have purchased some seventy five DVD's from BBC/2Entertain and fully one-third if not more of the double disc sets have arrived with discs off their spindles and were seriously damaged as a result. The BBC's response to this when I contacted them was to blame Amazon.UK's packaging of product. Interestingly other discs I have ordered and received simultaneously from Amazon.UK, including ITV product, have not had this problem. The only other UK DVD corporation whose keepcases regularly have the same problem as the Beeb, as I mentioned earlier, is Acorn. Not surprisingly Acorn regularly uses the same brand or type of keepcases BBC/2Entertain does for its two disc sets. Will the Beeb and Acorn get this rather obvious connection here, a connection that even someone as limited in deductive powers as the Gumby's could get? I doubt it

One would hope that the BBC and Acorn would recognise this problem and fix it. The BBC has an easy fix. Use the same keepcases you use for the Dr. Who double disc sets. That neither BBC or Acorn switch to these sets I am afraid says something about their sense of quality control and their cynicism about consumers who, I am sure they believe, will buy any piece of crap as long as they feel they have to have it.

By the way, I think that the fact that so many of the DVD products of so many corporations are so bad or at best mediocre says something not only about corporate quality control but also about global capitalism and corporate cynicism in general. It also tells us something about how corporations, via advertising propaganda, have created consumers that so "need" to buy product that many will buy the product regardless of how poor or how bad it is. Ah, life in the modern world of consumer capitalism.