The Best of Star Trek: The Original Series, Vol. 2

Standard episodes from a standard-setting series
This is a good -- but not great -- single-disc compilation for Star Trek newbies and cheapskates (such as myself) but not nearly as essential as its companion volume, The Best of Star Trek: The Original Series. That first volume contained four of the Original Series' most vital entries, including the Vulcan adventure, "Amok Time," the amusing "The Trouble With Tribbles" and the immortal "The City on the Edge of Forever." This time around we're given two bona fide classics, a jolly adventure story (on a mob-run planet, no less) and the second pilot episode commissioned by NBC which, while historically important, is a bit of a snoozer in the adventure-and-suspense department. Regrettably, the space (no pun intended... well, maybe just a little) taken up by these two latter episodes could've been occupied by other, better examples (the two-parter, "The Menagerie," comes immediately to mind).

Should you...

Still not all of the best...
Like many reviewers, when Best of Star Trek TOS came out this past summer, I was confused why SPACE SEED didn't make the cut, but TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES, AMOK TIME, CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER, and BALANCE OF TERROR definately rank as top episodes. So when it was announced a second Best of volume was being released, I crossed my fingers yet again and this time, it worked.

Volume 2 does include SPACE SEED, the first appearance of Khan, as well as WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE, A PIECE OF THE ACTION, and BABEL. This is where I disagree with the selections. I'd have gone for MIRROR, MIRROR and ARENA instead of BABEL and A PIECE OF THE ACTION, but then again, who knows - maybe there'll be a Volume 3. Then they could include the two part MENAGIRE or THE GALILEO SEVEN.

From the back of the case:

WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE - Warp speed goes wild when a Starfleet propulsion expert and his alien assistant come aboard the Enterprise to increase...

Not a bad value if you want to see remastered shows
I bought this and the other volume for a gift at Christmas. The receiver has the complete TOS collection that was released several years ago (before the "remastering" and new special effects). So, I thought these two collection discs would be a nice taste of the updated episodes. They were. I could see a significant improvement in picture quality (makes me wonder why the older set was even offered). The new special effects (mostly exterior shots of the Enterprise and the planets it visits) are convincing, tastefully done (not extravagant), and consistent with the originals (e.g., the phaser shots in the "Balance of Terror" episode---a very early show---were improved but left as a sort of torpedo effect rather than a beam effect, thus preserving the original intent/experience).

I'd have chosen a few other episodes as the "Best", but hey, for the cost how can I complain?

I will say that seeing these much-improved DVD copies of 8 episodes almost (but not quite) make...

Click to Editorial Reviews

7th Heaven: The Ninth Season

Good family entertainment
Unfortunately, I didn't watch much TV when 7th Heaven was originally airing so I am discovering it in reruns and am now trying to collect all the DVDs. Every season is great family entertainment and there is almost none of that on now with all the stupid reality shows on TV. It really makes me long for the good old days of early TV (50s and 60s and anything through the 90s is better than what is on today). I highly recommend this for any family looking for something they can watch together.

AMAZING
I've been watching 7th Heaven since the first episode of the first season. Let me tell you it ends on top! It just gets better and better and this season in particular is amazing! 5 stars!

Love the series....unfortunately, poorly made DVDs
Love 7th Heaven-it's nice to have the collection on DVD. However, this is possibly the cheapest, poorly produced set of DVDs I own. I own many tv series and they are done very well-full episode, no cuts, original music, extras included.
7th Heaven has none of the above. With DVDs produced so cheaply, the price ought to be much less also, IMO.
Glad to have the collection, just wish QUALITY had gone into making these. Two more seasons left-10, 11. Wish they would at least do something special (i.e. extras) on the last season released.

Click to Editorial Reviews

The Untouchables: Season 3 Volume 2

The Untouchables Season 3 Volume 2
As is the case with the other DVDs in this series this next installment is of excellent quality both in audio and video. Robert Stack shines as the great Eliot Ness, crime fighter of the 1930's. I am hoping that the final Season 4 will also be released to complete this series. The packaging of the videos is top notch and you will not be disappointed in these videos.

look out mobsters...cause...here they come again!
How can I find fault with Ness and his crew? Answer is...I can't.
I now have all the Untouchables that have been released by Paramount.
Lets hurry up and release some more so I can buy em up!
Amazons excellent and speedy service only adds to the joy of owning the Untouchables!

The Untouchables TV Series of the 1960's
The television programs produced in the 60's were better than the "crap" produced today where sitcom actors sit on a couch, crack jokes, and go nowhere. The Untouchables is an action series filmed in black and white which enabled using old 1930's film footage and mixing with the 1960's production. This puts the viewer back in the 1930's time frame. This series was "well done".

Click to Editorial Reviews

Perry Mason: Season Four, Vol. 2

The Best of Television
Perry Mason is as much a part of American culture as apple pie and mom. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone of any age who doesn't at least recognize the name. Erle Stanley Gardner's books have millions of devoted fans. The television show it spawned was fabulous as entertainment, and today is widely regarded as one of the best shows television ever produced. Perry was the attorney you wanted on your side in a jam.

It was Gardner himself who picked Raymond Burr, even though the studio only agreed to let him test for Perry if he would test for Burger too! Barbara Hale was his pretty secretary, Della Street, who kept Perry human and was in love with him. William Hopper was the dapper detective, Paul Drake. He had a playful and flirtatious relationship with Della but every viewer knew that secretly her heart belonged to Perry. And we liked it that way.

William Talman as D.A. Hamilton Burger would almost be ready to gloat, Lt. Tragg (Ray Collins) not far behind,...

Worth the wait
The second half of the fourth season suffers from the sporadic appearance of Bill Talman's masterful portrayal of Hamilton Burger, the unluckiest district attorney in history. Talman was exiled for a morals clause violation the previous season but brought back by popular demand. CBS seems to have looked for ways to keep the actor off the show. One of the few positive effects of this experimentation is found in an episode entitled "the Case of the Cowardly Lion" which is shot extensively on location at the San Diego Zoo and the Kona Kai resort. The zoo in 1961 was indeed a wondrous place, and quite unlike zoos of its era.

Another sixties wonder was the space race. "The Case of the Misguided Missile" was shot extensively at Vandenberg Air Force Base, the Pacific missile launch site. Among the cast was William Schallert, later of the Patty Duke Show and the mayor in the Best Picture Oscar winning fim "In the Heat of the Night". Also in the cast of that episode was James B...

The Original Courtroom Drama
Perry Mason Season 4 Volume 2

These twelve TV films from 1961 are mostly stories based on the novels of Erle Stanley Gardner. The books are more complete and informative and tell stories about life that is not experienced by most people. The books can tell you why certain things are done, the films only show you what happened. The books tell you about "ropers", rough or smooth shadows, and how to evade surveillance and avoid leaving a back trail. Some may question the legality and ethics of Perry Mason's tactics but most stories were written before the modern legal rules of the 1960s. The backgrounds tell about life in Los Angeles. It is difficult to film a scene at night but easy to describe it in a book. Erle Stanley Gardner was the founder of the "Court of Last Resort" which sought to free many unjustly convicted persons. Gardner, among others, sought to use scientific means to find the guilty, rather than using hunches or guesses alone.

The seeming reality of...

Click to Editorial Reviews

The Fugitive: Season Three, Vol. 2

CBS has cut corners again, don't waste your money
The music in Season 3 Volume 2 seems to be a mixed bag. Some episodes are nearly free of the awful Heyes replacement music, while others have much more.

NOT WITH A WHIMPER has quite a bit of Heyes replacement music. I noted soft Heyes cues at 18:00, 25:52, 29:32, and loud Heyes at 18:21, 28:40, 36:10. But I gave up taking notes in Act 4 when my hand started to cramp from jotting down all of the Heyes cues that I heard.

WIFE KILLER is a pleasant surprise. Yes, there are a few Heyes cues, but just a few. Overall, this episode's original music is mostly intact. I wonder if we'll ever get an explanation from CBS as to how one episode can be awash in Heyes, while the next is almost Heyes-free? Go figure.

THIS'LL KILL YOU lands somewhere in the middle. It's about 50% original and 50% Heyes. The more prominent Heyes cues are at 15:29, 29:32, 35:25, 42:15, and the one at 47:07 was so loud that it nearly blasted me out of my chair. Most of the too-loud...

From an original Fugitive fan
This is the first time I've written a review of DVDs for Amazon that I can recall and probably never will again. But I have to express my opinion on the controversy of replacement music for the classic series "The Fugitive".

I've watched this show since it aired in 1963. I've seen all the episodes dozens of times over the years. For those of you who don't care if the music has changed, good for you. You are seeing the best TV show ever broadcast. Enjoy it. The pictures are beautiful and the episodes superbly produced, written, directed and acted. Simply the best.

However, for those of us who watched many times, the "new" music is unacceptable. It's the same as listening to "new" rerecordings of the music of the 50s and 60s that I cherish. It's not what I remember and love and I don't enjoy it. It's that simple. I have pre-ordered all six volumes so far. But for Season Four I will wait till the reviews come in before purchasing any more. I'll just...

GREAT COLLECTION OF EPISODES .... STILL TOO MUCH SUBSTITUTE MUSIC, BUT COULD BE MUCH WORSE .... OVERALL: A RECOMMENDED PURCHASE
"THE FUGITIVE: SEASON THREE, VOLUME TWO" arrived on DVD from CBS/Paramount on December 8, 2009, just six weeks after the first half of Season 3 was released.

This 4-Disc set contains a great selection of episodes from what is (in my opinion) the very best television drama series that ever aired on American TV screens: "The Fugitive", starring David Janssen as falsely-convicted Dr. Richard Kimble and co-starring London-born actor Barry Morse, who seemingly was born to play the part of Kimble's chief adversary, Indiana Police Lieutenant Philip Gerard.

When I first received this volume and started looking over the episode descriptions on the inside cover of the DVD case, I kept saying to myself over and over: "Oh, that's right, THAT great episode is included in this set too! Excellent!" (or something similar to those thoughts anyway).

And while I consider myself to be a (very) big fan of "The Fugitive" and also fairly well-schooled in the episodes and...

Click to Editorial Reviews