February 2010 Archives

DVD THIS WEEK: Alice's TV wonderland

February 28, 2010 7:01 PM

Those wacky DVD distributors, always looking for a bandwagon to jump on. This week, it's the one led by Tim Burton's phantasmagorical movie Alice in Wonderland starring Johnny Depp, which hits theaters Friday.

At least four TV versions of Alice are new on DVD, coming from networks, cable, even Britain. The choices span five decades, two chromatics, high-tech/low-tech, period pieces and contemporary settings, straightforward and reimagined.

Here's a look at the lot.

Alice (Syfy, 2009 miniseries) -- Another young-and-funky reimagining from the folks who brought you Tin Man. Caterina Scorsone (1-800-Missing) stars as a modern martial arts instructor who follows her kidnaped boyfriend through a magic mirror in a grimy warehouse. She lands in a creepy Big-Brother-ish urban environment (and nearby scenic landscape), created largely by CGI and peopled by commercially/politically motivated oddballs. They're played by Kathy Bates (Queen of Hearts), Matt Frewer (White Knight), Harry Dean Stanton (Caterpillar), Tim Curry (Dodo), and most notably, Andrew Lee Potts of Primeval as a hot young Hatter. While the computer effects work overtime, the overall impact feels less personal than Tin Man.

Alice in Wonderland (NBC, 1999 miniseries) -- When computer graphics were emerging, this Hallmark-filmed musical extravaganza paired them with Henson creatures to faithfully embody Carroll's Alice books. Tina Majorino of Napoleon Dynamite is surrounded by another all-star cast -- Martin Short (Mad Hatter), Ben Kingsley (Caterpillar), Whoopi Goldberg (Cheshire Cat), Gene Wilder (Mock Turtle), Peter Ustinov (Walrus), Miranda Richardson (Queen of Hearts). But it's the vibrant look that won awards -- Emmys for visual effects, costumes and makeup, as well as music score. (The production was directed by Nick Willing, who'd tackle Syfy's Alice re-think 10 years later.)

Alice in Wonderland (BBC, 1966 film) -- This one's almost as trippy as Jefferson Airplane's contemporaneous rock hit White Rabbit. Director Jonathan Miller opts for dreamlike surreality in author Lewis Carroll's original Victorian setting, using stark black-and-white cinematography and Ravi Shankar sitar music to make it even more exotic. The witty cast includes Peter Sellers (King of Hearts), Peter Cook (Mad Hatter), John Gielgud (Mock Turtle), Wilfrid Brambell (White Rabbit), Michael Redgrave (Caterpillar) and Leo McKern (Dutchess), in drag! This release has a bounty of bonus features -- insightful Miller commentary, Dennis Potter's 1965 dramatization of Carroll inspiration Alice Liddell, a 1903 Alice silent short, and more.

Alice Through the Looking Glass (NBC, 1966 studio musical) -- The networks once offered a sort of video theater, using the TV studio to stage original musicals and classic plays (Hallmark Hall of Fame was then done on videotape). This songfest brought together a showbiz assortment that included Jimmy Durante (Humpty Dumpty), Agnes Moorehead (Red Queen), Jack Palance (Jabberwock) and the Smothers Brothers (Tweedledee and Tweedledum), around young adult Alice Judi Rolin, all in Bob Mackie costumes. It all looks stagy now, but it was state-of-the-(mainstream)-art then. DVD extras include reminiscences by producer Bob Wynn.

If the TV Alice you remember had friends like Ringo Starr, Sammy Davis Jr. and Carol Channing, then you're thinking of CBS' 1985 Alice in Wonderland musical, which came out on DVD in 2006. This one was produced by disastermeister Irwin Allen, with songs by Steve Allen, and perhaps the all-starriest cast of all -- Ringo (Mock Turtle), Davis (Caterpillar), Channing (White Queen), Anthony Newley (Mad Hatter), Sid Caesar (Gryphon), Telly Savalas (Cheshire Cat), Red Buttons (White Rabbit), Shelley Winters (Dodo Bird), and another dozen. The DVD also includes the same crew's Through the Looking Glass second half, which adds Jonathan Winters (Humpty Dumpty), Karl Malden (Walrus), Ernest Borgnine (Lion), Merv Griffin (Conductor) and many more.

Finally, here's a video bonus -- Miller's BBC trip is clear in this clip:

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NEWS FLASH: 'Max Headroom'!

February 26, 2010 6:56 PM

Should've known this would happen. I just duped a bunch of blurry old VHS-taped episodes with my DVD recorder. And now it's coming out on real, pre-recorded DVD. (Gotta try this trick with my other wants.)

Max Headroom has just been announced by the fine folks at Shout! Factory, the pop-culture preservationists who've brought us such wide-ranging treats as The Middleman, The Job, It's Garry Shandling's Show, thirtysomething, The Dick Cavett Show, Mister Ed and The Goldbergs (out March 16). Not to mention Kurt Russell's legendary Elvis TV movie (see review at right) and the crucial mid-'60s rockfest The T.A.M.I. Show (out March 23).

Max makes his move to DVD later this year -- in complete series form! -- after Shout assembles all sorts of bonus treats.

ABC's unique cyberpunk drama starred Matt Frewer, Amanda Pays and Jeffrey Tambor, and aired 1987-88, after the success of the original synthesized M-M-M-Max on Britain's Channel 4 and America's Cinemax. Frewer plays both the sarcastic virtual wag and good-guy TV reporter Edison Carter, employed by Network 23 in a Blade Runner-esque world where hundreds of corporate-owned channels are ruthlessly battling it out to lure viewers.

Yes! It was fiction then!

Read the Shout press release for more on the show. And rejoice. This one is fun.

P.S. -- Complete Larry Sanders Show just announced, too! Shout, we love you!

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WEIRD & WILD: Weekend wonders

February 26, 2010 12:54 AM

Maybe you're Olympic-ed out. Don't wanna hear any more about Jay or Dave. Couldn't care less about a marriage ref or any of TV's other current Big Deals.

I hear you. I, too, like to zig where others zag. (But apparently not enough to avoid invoking the cliche.)

Always on the lookout for the obscure, alternative or just plain weird to watch, I've spotted a few less obvious choices to help you while away your weekend.

The Gene Autry Show (Friday night at midnight ET through Sunday night at midnight ET, Encore Westerns) -- There's nothing quite so comforting as the predictability of these little '50s western half-hours with songs (Autry), silliness (sidekick Pat Buttram, later Green Acres' Mr. Haney), heroism (Gene and Pat), and the shoot-'em-ups that the pre-show rating label calls "mild violence." You can usually spot an assortment of character actors, too (James Best, Denver Pyle). And never knowing who you'll see adds that crazy degree of excitement we all need in life.

Human Target (Saturday 2-8 p.m. ET, FX) -- Keen Eddie/Boston Legal/Fringe fave Mark Valley is back as a sort of James Bond/Indiana Jones hybrid in this breezy actioner based on the comic book hero. He plays bodyguard by making himself the title character, and blithely escapes all manner of disasters while bantering to beat the band and barely mussing his hair. It's just the kind of mindless fun TV needs, so Fox is hyping it on its sister cable network with this catch-up marathon. (Not that there's anything to catch up on. No mythology, no numbers, nada.) You gotta love a show with both Chi McBride (Pushing Daisies) and Jackie Earle Haley (Shutter Island).

Beauty and the Beast: A Dark Tale (Saturday at 9 p.m. ET, Syfy) -- Here's another reliable genre wallow. Syfy's Saturday Original Movies are actually ratings sleepers, and that's because they're perfect weekend popcorn pix. In addition to the standard selection of animal invasions (Dinoshark), disaster flicks (Meteor Storm) and paranormalities (House of Bones), the channel is adding a new thread of "reimagined fairy tales," starting with this bloody catfight bodice-ripper. They're cheap treats, but if you're home Saturday nights, it's a cheap date.

Disease Detectives (Sunday at 8 p.m. ET, Discovery Health) -- Until this channel morphs into Oprahland next year, it's still providing some bang-up medical info. (When it isn't going gaga over sentimental stuff like Baby Week, which starts Monday.) Celebrate Rare Disease Day with this new hour portrait of a real-life House: Dr. William Gahl, head of the National Institutes of Health's Undiagnosed Disease Program. Don't be disappointed if he's a nice guy.

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DVD THIS WEEK: 'Nurse Jackie,' 'Flash Forward,' more

February 21, 2010 7:30 PM

Flash Forward on DVD already? Yep. ABC Studios releases the first 10 episodes this week. Season 1/Part 1 hits shelves even before the "spring season" starts March 18 to complete what you and I would consider a full "season."

And they're not the only ones playing the split-season game. Also out now are the first 10 episodes of Stargate Universe, in an MGM DVD set labeled 1.0.

Two ways to look at this -- either you appreciate the chance to catch up on these shows before new episodes resume; or you're ticked off that DVD distributors seem to be double-dipping. At least the Flash Forward set includes a link to download a $15-off coupon for the eventual full-season set.

Don't be surprised if this half-and-half tactic becomes more common, especially now that the broadcast networks are picking up on the cablers' strategy of hyping a "season" premiere -- even if it's a resumed "spring" or "summer" season that's actually a continuation after a long hiatus. Breaking seasons into two parts has turned out to be a prime promotional opportunity to tempt viewers who want to be there from what they think is the beginning. Except it's not.

Fans do complain, as they did with the split Battlestar Galactica 4.0 and 4.5 DVD sets, and with the recent Glee Vol. 1: Road to Sectionals release. But they buy, too.

Also out this week:

Nurse Jackie: Season 1 -- Edie Falco's caustic Showtime dramedy about a self-assured but also self-destructive NYC nurse hits both DVD and Blu-ray Disc, at the same list price. And that's a trend we like a lot. (Showtime does this with Weeds, too.) The BD release looks sharp in high-definition, of course, but doesn't have added extras beyond the DVD goodies -- commentaries with Falco and the show's writers, plus behind-the-scenes interviews with both those creators and the type of real-life nurses the show portrays. So its equal pricing is both fair and welcome.

Night Court: Complete Third Season -- Markie Post arrives as everybody's favorite public defender in this cartoony courtroom farce from NBC's renowned '80s adult sitcom slate (Cheers, Taxi, et al). When Post joined the cast (following flame-outs Paula Kelly and Ellen Foley), creator Reinhold Weege's mix of outrageousness and sentiment hit its stride. Her punchy perkiness (and Princess Di fixation) plays briskly off arrogant prosecutor's John Larroquette's obsessions with sex and status, completing the show's central triangle with hippie judge Harry Anderson. But the cast changes aren't over yet. Cranky senior Florence Halop, who assumed the female bailiff's role after originator Selma Diamond died, would herself pass away after this season. The cast finally locked in with Season 4's addition of deadpan comic Marsha Warfield. Among Season 3's top episodes: visits from Carl Ballantine as Harry's magician idol, Mel Torme as Harry's music idol, Dan's sex-changed fraternity brother, his new "little person" boss, and Brent Spiner (Star Trek: The Next Generation) as a surreal hillbilly.

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WATCH THIS: Catch up to the Olympics on-demand, online, downloads

February 18, 2010 2:01 PM

Oops, missed something big from the Vancouver Olympics? You can always try to catch it on one of NBC's myriad broadcasts across its network (NBC) and cable channels (USA, CNBC, MSNBC, Universal HD, Universal Sports).

Or you can grab the video gold anytime, in several ways -- digital cable on-demand, online replays, and free/pay downloads.

TV on demand

Many cable systems have Olympic footage stacked up, awaiting the command of your digital-service remote.

My Comcast system, for instance, offers dozens of free Olympics picks via On Demand through the digital cable box. Start by choosing the Top Picks category, then scroll down to 2010 Winter Olympics. Click to peruse choices like Best of the Day, Meet Team USA, Figure Skating, Speed Skating, Hockey, Board & Freestyle, and more. (Comcast On Demand also offers online search to see what's available.)

Inside those categories, you've got your choice of U.S. competitors, winners, crashes, analysis, music-video montages and more, even last week's Vancouver opening ceremonies or 2006 Torino highlights. Clips range in length from 1 minute to 1-hour-plus. There's HD, too.

Online

NBCOlympics.com hosts action galore, including live streams and full-event replays, so long as you input your collaborating cable system/location. (Video playback also requires the Microsoft Silverlight plug-in.)

Full replays are online for most sports, including hockey, skiing and snowboarding. Some offer a choice between NBC's familiar "as seen on TV" packaging or -- wait for it -- raw on-site coverage without broadcast announcers (yay!), but with ambient audio plus all the graphics and super slo-mo.

Live event streams are slated to include every hockey and curling match. That means live-as-it-happens video even of events NBC isn't interested in (like Canada-Sweden curling).

Myriad other video choices include Daily Recaps, Features & Profiles, Venues & Courses, and Most Popular clips. That last one is where you'll find the likes of Shaun White's double McTwist 1260 and skating's flashy pink pony, Johnny Weir.

Downloads

NBC is loading up iTunes and Amazon On Demand with Olympics footage, most of which you'll pay for. Short roundups are free -- Top 5 Athletes to Watch, bios of biggies like Shaun White and Lindsey Vonn, various sports' video glossaries and scene setters. But actual event action is usually $1 or $2 a pop.

At least many downloads tend toward generous lengths -- the men's figure skating short program is nearly 2 hours. Season Pass is also available on iTunes -- $5 for figure skating, for instance, and $13 for hockey.

(One big caveat: iTunes hasn't been especially timely about getting the action up and available. And their slate isn't necessarily complete. As of Thursday afternoon, Feb. 18, only 3 hockey contests were posted, though 16 games had been played. Amazon On Demand is no better.)

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SITE TO SEE: Network shows, coming back or not?

February 18, 2010 11:12 AM

Now's the time when viewers start wondering if their favorite network shows are going to get renewed. Turns out The Hollywood Reporter isn't just wondering, they're laying odds.

And the trade paper's numbers can be surprising. Less than 50-50 for 24? More than 50-50 for Heroes? How about newbies like Human Target? And long-runs like Smallville and Supernatural [photo above]?

THR's Live Feed blogger James Hibberd lays out the reasons why or why not each show is likely to survive into fall. They're even color-coded at his TV Series Survival Chart, broken out into categories like Safe, OK and Endangered. See if your faves rate salmon or aquamarine.

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DVD THIS WEEK: Vintage game show sociology

February 15, 2010 2:06 PM

Today's culture is so celeb-saturated that we know everything about everybody famous, and start to wish we didn't. Yet "regular" people have almost ceased to exist. Every ordinary American now seems to be appearing on a "reality" show or rehearsing for one. The boy and girl next door are so ready for their close-up that we only see "unaffected" when an actor affects in it performance.

That's why I'm so addicted to Mill Creek's four new budget DVD sets of vintage game shows. They provide snapshots of both the famous and the nameless back when television was younger and people were less intense about it. The guest stars feel more glittery yet more genuine, and the ordinary players feel not self-consciously "real" but truly authentic.

Password in its 1960s prime-time version proves the pinnacle in this sociological spectator sport -- and it's also an engagingly timeless game, at least in the straightforward way it's played in the 30 episodes in The Best of Password. (Mill Creek's new 3-disc set is the re-release of a 2008 BCI set that quickly disappeared from shelves.)

Two celebs pair up with two contestants trying to guess a secret word. One member has to give the other member one-word clues, as teams alternate, to make his/her partner guess it before the other team does. That's it. It's the Wheel of Fortune of its day in its simplicity and its play-along irresistibility. But it's also more elegantly sophisticated. No gimmicky prop wheel or light-up letters. (And, thankfully, no Vanna.) No contestant squealing or audience shrieking. Plain set, plain desk, even a plain host: laid-back Allen Ludden, who comes across charming and witty simply by remaining in the moment.

The stars and the players are just as plain -- people coming direct from the Manhattan studio to your living room, with a relaxed amiability, without seeming intent on presenting a slick image. Sammy Davis Jr. bops all over the place, too wired to sit still. Jane Fonda, barely out of Vassar and still lacking a public persona, nervously tries too hard to play well. Johnny Carson, pre-Tonight Show fame, comes off as an up-and-comer, reserved yet coolly self-assured. A young Woody Allen is awkwardly, adorably Woodyish. Betty White, who'd just gotten married to host Ludden, looks about to jump his bones any second. (Some reputations are well-earned.)

It feels timeless because there's so little production to it. Just black-and-white videotape, without frantic jumpcuts or flashing graphics, with a static pace and quiet moments. Regular folks just act regular, and celebrities try hard to help and harder not to look dumb. Who knew young Nancy Sinatra was so sharp? Who expects Elizabeth Montgomery to digress with "God bless you" when an audience member sneezes?

There's a naivete and even a touch of raggedness to the proceedings -- small mistakes are left in -- yet there's also the opposite of the condescension today's TV often seems to feed us. Password trusts the audience to be at least as smart as the players -- which, of course, we are, shouting better clues at the screen than the celebs can come up with. It all feels adult and aspirational in a way that makes me wonder why some network doesn't try something as simple as this now. Talk about standing out in a frenzied marketplace.

For all the relative class of Password, I'm also endlessly fascinated by the naked conumerist greed celebrated in The Price Is Right, which the Mill Creek set serves up in two flavors through 26 episodes. Four episodes of the black-and-white '50s-'60s original are hosted by Bill Cullen, another genially laid-back everyguy, sitting on a spare set interviewing a panel of price-bidding everyman contestants clearly chosen for their slice-of-Americana appeal: giddy housewives, traveling salesmen, switchboard operators. (The other slice-of-life comes in the way these parades of "modern" products reflect their now-quaint era: rec-room "bachelor" bars, spinet organs, reel-to-reel "stereophonic" tape recorders.)

And then there's the Bob Barker version, seen here in all its nametags-and-Technicolor glory, from the 1972 premiere to 1975's first hourlong episode and then his 2007 finale week. Barker comes from a different host genus, being more smooth than affable, and Price itself has moved into the era of glossy production. The sets are gaudy color circuses, and the varied games are much more intricately devised than the earlier bidding contests. By this time, TV had decided it was desperate to KEEP us interested, as opposed to simply being interesting enough to watch. For me, here, there's less sociology to assess.

But there's plenty on display in Mill Creek's Match Game set, from the 1970s CBS color version with host Gene Rayburn leering over six randy celebs supposedly trying to match a sentence's missing word to that suggested by a contestant. But the show's focus, of course, quickly settled into celebs making as many double entendres as possible, while behaving as if rowdily drunk/stoned/gonzo.

With six celebs per show, Match Game relied on a regular roster of star nuts -- Charles Nelson Reilly, Brett Somers, Richard Dawson and other recurrent rowdies (Betty White, Fannie Flagg, Bill Daily) -- whose behavior would become legend. Reilly was bitchy, Somers was snotty, Dawson the "good" player who actually helped contestants win. But more fascinating are the visiting celebs -- from William Shatner to Jamie Lee Curtis -- who variously fit right in with the wildness, struggle to keep up, or seem baffled by it all. Who's stoned? Who's confused? Who isn't even sure where they are? Ah, the '70s.

(The Match Game set also includes the 1962 pilot of NBC's original and much calmer black-and-white daytime version, plus a Brett Somers interview and other extras.)

Dawson stars again by hosting his own show in Mill Creek's All-Star Family Feud set -- a veritable bounty of '70s star-sighting as the casts of two shows play each other, trying to match the most common responses to poll questions. Feud, too, was a loosey-goosey affair, and these All-Star episodes provide the added bonus of seeing stars outside their controlled habitats, interacting as themselves rather than their characters.

The competing casts include those from Dallas, Dukes of Hazzard, WKRP, Barney Miller and oldies like Gilligan's Island, Brady Bunch and Leave It to Beaver. There's even vintage soap from General Hospital. But the players aren't always their show's "stars." The Welcome Back, Kotter crew, for instance, features Mrs. Kotter and some late-run Sweathogs you forgot existed. (Nice names from Barney, though.)

Mill Creek's game show sets play today as more than just amusing viewing or nostalgic memories. They're little time capsules of past pop culture eras -- encapsulating their day in a way that I wonder whether any of our own TV shows will deliver decades later.

The password is . . . cool.

Also new on DVD:

The Patty Duke Show Season 2 -- These '60s familycom episodes hold up. Even better, a new featurette deconstructs how split-screen filming enabled the teenage Duke to play "identical cousins" Patty and Cathy.

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DVD NEWS: TV shows (not) on DVD

February 10, 2010 4:35 PM

Why isn't Batman out on DVD?

Or Max Headroom?

Or The Wonder Years?

Or China Beach?

Our good friends at TV Shows on DVD have answers to many questions like these in a handy What's the Hold-Up? posting at their Facebook page.

The reasons tend toward a few familiar obstacles -- music rights (too expensive, too tricky to obtain), ownership squabbles (one company might control the characters, while another controls the produced program), and also, for those shows stalled after partial DVD release, just not enough initial sales to keep more sets coming.

Bianculli and I have known TSoD's Gord and Dave for years, so we can vouch for both the reliability of their info/sources and their personal devotion to TV on DVD. For two guys who weren't journalists by trade when they started (back in 2001), they've become a couple of the most intrepid reporters we know.

So bookmark TV Shows on DVD, if you haven't already. They're on top of upcoming releases and TV DVD trends -- even opportunities for fans to interact with studio executives, as in this heads-up about an upcoming online chat with Warner Home Video.

Be sure to vote at the site for shows you'd like to see released on DVD -- the studios do pay attention.

(Six of the 14 shows on my list eventually got released! And a seventh, Jim Hutton's 1970s Ellery Queen is said to be on its way.)

So please join me in lobbying for The John Larroquette Show [photo], Nothing Sacred, Now And Again, Bakersfield P.D., The Powers That Be and The Incredibly Strange Film Show.

And take the time to share your faves here, so other readers can lend their support. We gotta gang up on 'em to get the good stuff . . .

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THE RATINGS: Super Bowl tops all-time viewership

February 8, 2010 3:29 PM

Wow. Seems that Who-Dat/resurrection-of-New Orleans storyline attracted the masses. And having Peyton Manning in the mix didn't hurt.

Sunday night's Super Bowl XLIV (that's 44 in non-pretentious language) scored more than 106 million viewers, Nielsen says, nudging out the 1983 finale of M*A*S*H as American TV's most-watched show ever.

CBS was crowing these details the day after:

02.08.2010

CBS SPORTS' COVERAGE OF SUPER BOWL XLIV IS MOST-WATCHED PROGRAM IN TELEVISION HISTORY

AVERAGE OF 106.5 MILLION WATCH NEW ORLEANS WIN SUPER BOWL XLIV AS GAME TOPS M*A*S*H FINALE IN 1983

Network Garners Fast National Household Rating/Share of 45.0/68 - Highest in 14 Years

CBS Sports' coverage of Super Bowl XLIV, featuring the NEW ORLEANS SAINTS' 31-17 win over the INDIANAPOLIS COLTS on Sunday, Feb 7 (6:31-9:50 PM, ET), was watched by a Nielsen estimated average of 106.5 million viewers, making it the most-watched program in television history, eclipsing the finale of M*A*S*H in 1983 (106 million).

The CBS Television Network's coverage of Super Bowl XLIV earned an average fast national household rating/share of 45.0/68, up +7% from last year's 42.0/64 (Pittsburgh-Arizona), making it the highest-rated Super Bowl in 14 years (1/28/96; 46.0/68; Dallas-Pittsburgh).

Last night's Super Bowl HH rating/share peaked at a 48.5/70 from 9:00-9:30 PM, ET with an average of 114.1 million viewers.

Nielsen estimates that CBS's coverage of Super Bowl XLIV was seen in-all-or part* by an estimated 153.4 million viewers, +1% higher than last year's previous high of 151.6 million (NBC).

[* = six minutes-or-more]

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DVD THIS WEEK: Live TV dramas still unmatched, 50 years later

February 8, 2010 11:21 AM

Live TV creates its own unique brand of electricity. We watch Saturday Night Live and American Idol as they happen -- and we see whatever happens. There's no second take, no safety net. We're sharing the same time and (virtual) space as the people staging the show. And that's a direct connection that taped/filmed shows simply can't match.

This urgency once filled TV's comedies and dramas, too, in the medium's early years of the 1940s and 1950s, before videotape was perfected. That's why I love watching old before-my-time shows, even in the poor quality afforded by filmed-off-a-TV-monitor kinescopes. The programs still sizzle with the adrenaline of a cast and crew who had one shot to get it right.

Some of the programs they got especially right are still legendary. And now the Emmy-staging TV academy's Archive of American Television is making sure we understand why. In tandem with DVD distributor E1, they're releasing live TV originals like Twelve Angry Men, which hits stores today, along with early tube work from writers like Rod Serling and performers like Orson Welles.

Twelve Angry Men is mostly known now through the 1957 theatrical movie starring Henry Fonda -- but it was written for live TV in 1954, to star Robert Cummings (pre-Love That Bob and post-Hitchcock's Saboteur), as a presentation of the eminent anthology drama series Studio One. The TV version was long thought lost, then finally resurfaced in not-bad-quality kinescope form to provide an intriguing comparison to the familiar film. The story's tense jury room showdown is actually better suited to the small-screen medium, with its claustrophic studios feeding the bulky boxes inside '50s homes. And Cummings is more an everyman than Fonda, playing the lone-holdout character facing down bully-boy jurors tautly defined on the tube by Franchot Tone and Edward Arnold.

As was typical with '50s live TV dramas, Reginald Rose wrote the play directly for television, based on his own experience serving on a jury. That's explained in the E1 DVD's fine 16-page booklet, a standard inclusion with these enlightening Archive releases. Rose's essay on the tale is supplemented with a smart look back at the studio production itself, and there's an on-disc introduction to the play that puts Studio One in historical perspective. (Also included on the Twelve Angry Men disc is Rose's Studio One play An Almanac of Liberty, a more heavyhanded allegory delivered as a rebuke to the era's blacklist demonization.)

Even more effort went into E1's new DVD of 1953's King Lear, with Orson Welles starring and Virgil Thomson providing music as part of that decade's acclaimed arts series Omnibus. The Lear production, with Welles recognizable mostly by his voice underneath some ungainly aging makeup (12 years past Citizen Kane, he was still only 38), is not the DVD's only treat. Its many extras demonstrate how the nascent TV networks were dedicated not just to serving the lowest common denominator for the highest ratings, but also to expanding viewers' horizons now that the entire world could suddenly be beamed into their living rooms. (OK, so the networks weren't entirely noble. They also needed the prestige of shows like Studio One to balance all the wrestling matches and shoot-'em-ups they were otherwise purveying.)

The E1 disc holds an additional 90 minutes of vintage bonus features delving into Shakespeare -- an engagingly lively introduction to the Bard by Dr. Frank Baxter (an English professor who was early TV's go-to specialist for explaining learned things to the masses), an Alistair Cooke remote broadcast from the Yale Shakespeare Festival, critic Walter Kerr discussing staging, and a backstage preview of Lear from the previous week's Omnibus. (Watch the DVD trailer here.)

Another superb booklet offers essays from young Lear stager and eventual stage giant Peter Brook and from next-generation actor/director Simon Callow, placing both the mercurial Welles and this stunning production in vivid historical context.

Also new in E1's Archive series is a Studio One double feature from Rod Serling, who long before The Twilight Zone had made his name as a young television writer of such enduring classics as the backstage TV power struggle Patterns. Here, his 1954 political tale The Arena portrays a freshman senator who gets the goods on a elder rival and must decide whether to drag the man through the mud. The Strike stars James Daly (Medical Center, father of Tyne and Tim) as a Korean War officer faced with his own defining dilemma, when he's ordered to begin an attack he knows will kill many of his men. Both are illuminated by a personal essay from Serling's daughter, Anne, exploring what her father hoped to accomplish with these provocative scripts, and how their impact fueled his move into the fantasy allegory of Twilight Zone.

Like Twelve Angry Men, the Serling plays are compact, concentrated one-hour dramas (the Welles King Lear is compressed into an hour and a half), exhibiting rougher production values and a plainer directness of expression than today's viewers are used to. At the same time, they delve deeper into men's minds and motivations, if not their souls, as the protagonists face crucial moments that will define their lives to both others and themselves. Cameras stay tight on the performers' faces to reveal thoughts and emotions that seem to well up from the characters' very guts.

Part of that is performance power we could see on any stage or in any film. But part of it undoubtedly spills out of the air-time tension of dodging behemoth cameras, stepping over monster cables, and racing behind set walls to the next set in cramped New York City studios, trying to hit precise marks at the right second to make the production end at the same exact minute as the TV hour -- all of it viewed by millions of Americans at that very instant. Even west coast viewers who watched on kinescope delay would be seeing that same single performance. The cast and crew had to nail it -- opening night and closing night combined.

And they were making it up as they went along -- not the story or dialogue, but the art form itself, the television play, an especially dynamic amalgamation of film, stage and radio whose impact and intimacy are little known (and little matched) today. The intimate close-ups, the fluid camerawork, the crackling energy -- and, most of all, the psychological ambition of probing men's hearts and minds -- that's why you see stars of today like George Clooney yearning to revive this instantaneous model. Clooney seems to wish he could beam himself back to this era, having spearheaded renewed attempts at live TV drama in 2000's CBS Fail Safe remake and created such admiring look-backs as the 2005 movie Good Night, and Good Luck.

I know where he's coming from. When I'm immersed in the power of these productions, I can imagine myself amid the invention of such a galvanizing art form. It's no wonder that an entire generation of directors schooled in live TV drama -- John Frankenheimer, Sidney Lumet, Delbert Mann, and Franklin Schaffner, who directed the two Serling dramas more than a decade before his Oscar-winning Patton -- would bring that earnest precision to the big screen at a time when post-studio-era Hollywood so desperately needed to reinvent itself. These directors brought along the purpose of those dramas, too, to examine human behavior and reveal larger truths, not merely to entertain but to say something.

Those aspirations -- and the pioneer ingenuity to achieve them despite early TV's lack of time, money and precedent -- also contribute to an enduring immediacy in these live TV dramas that smoothes over any blundered lines or camera wobbles. (Or, to modern eyes, the distancing quality of black-and-white kinescopes. Remember that these live productions were originally broadcast with the same video clarity as news, sports or American Idol.)

Also retaining their urgency, on discs like the Serling Studio One pair, are the era's live commercials -- especially Betty Furness' celebrated demonstrations of the wonders of sponsor Westinghouse's steam irons, refrigerators and matched washer-dryer sets. The spots are plain and slow-moving. Yet somehow, also, a high-wire act that's utterly riveting.

Just as riveting as the plays whose budgets they provided.

You can dive even deeper into live TV drama with two larger DVD compilations of 1950s productions:

• The Archive's Studio One Anthology (currently an Amazon bargain at $32) includes Twelve Angry Men, The Arena, The Strike and 14 other vintage TV plays by writers like Gore Vidal, plus on-disc interviews and a richly informative 52-page booklet.
• The Golden Age of Television (currently $40 at Amazon) collects eight plays from various anthology series, including such timeless originals as Marty, Requiem for a Heavyweight, Days of WIne and Roses, and Serling's Patterns. (The movies would steal plenty from TV in its infancy.) This Criterion Collection set also offers a golden bounty of interviews conducted for the plays' 1980s PBS re-airings, along with immersive commentaries from directors Mann, Frankenheimer (his visceral recollections of 1957's The Comedian starring Mickey Rooney are a drama in themselves), Ralph Nelson and Daniel Petrie. And, of course, the set has its own 36-page booklet, reliving an era and a body of work that TV today, for all its achievements, has yet to match in production ingenuity and emotional impact.

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WOW!: Discovery's 'Life' press kit includes its own TV

February 5, 2010 4:36 PM

TV critics learn pretty quickly how to judge the importance of a show to its network. Sometimes publicists mail us a plain brown envelope with a screener disc in it. Sometimes they send out a swank press kit with info printed on custom show letterhead, in specially designed boxes, maybe with a promotional goodie like a T-shirt.

And then there's the press kit for Discovery's upcoming Life nature miniseries, which essentially unreels on its own little enclosed TV set.

Whoa.

It's a high-water mark for tempting critics to watch a show, that's for sure.

Who could resist peeking inside the 12-inch-square 2-inch-thick black hardbox with only the word Life emblazoned on its cover? Gotta be something interesting inside a package this lavish.

Open the hinged cover, and on the left are tucked those custom letterhead press releases. But on the right, there's an 8-inch-square half-inch-thick hardcover book nestled in a custom-fit slot. Pull it out and open its cover, and -- OMG! There's a tiny TV screen on which full-color video and sound begin running automatically, since opening the book pulls a tab between the book's front and back sides (like a greeting card with sound).

Whooooa.

Never seen that before.

And it gets cooler. To the right of the 4-inch screen are five circles marked "PUSH." Doing so starts up different 5 film clips -- not from the series itself (two episodes of that are on preliminary DVD screeners tucked behind the book slot), but from behind-the-scenes featurettes showing how the BBC-Discovery nature series was patiently and sometimes bravely shot in the wild.

You think Discovery considers Life a big deal?

Critics sure will, since this elaborate TV-set press kit is one of those jawdropping moments we so rarely encounter. Every day, we throw DVD screeners onto office stacks we might or might not dig through later, and we leave email notifications of password-protected online screeners sitting in the inbox till we eventually either watch (maybe) or delete (more likely).

But who's not gonna watch these TV-in-your-hand Life clips? The first one's a "push" inevitability, since it runs automatically, but after you see it -- well, it's the potato chips of screener clips. You can't watch just one. Those "Push" circles are too tempting. Portable self-contained on-demand viewing -- how cool is that?

Discovery clearly wants us to think Life is cool, too. And we're already inclined to, since it's essentially a followup to Planet Earth, the ooh-and-ahh nature mini that both critics and viewers gaped over in 2006.

But this press kit is Discovery's announcement that Life isn't just a big deal, it's A Big Deal. Maybe even A BIG Deal. Discovery wants it to demand attention, so that's what the press kit does. (Sorry for the quality of the photos I shot to illustrate this column. I'm a writer, not a shooter.)

With so many channels, so much competition, and so little time, Discovery's gotta cut through the clutter. Spend money to make money. Dress it up to demonstrate that it's special. You couldn't push critics into gushing over Destroyed in Seconds that way, but you can sure impress us with a serious project's lavish production by making a lavish production out of promoting it.

Whoa -- gotta push "Push" again . . .

Life airs on Discovery Channel on Sundays at 8-10 p.m. ET March 21 through April 18, narrated in the U.S. by Oprah Winfrey. (As with Planet Earth, the original British presentation is voiced by wildlife authority David Attenborough. Let the debate begin, again, as it did over Attenborough vs. U.S. Earth voice Sigourney Weaver.)

You can watch clips from the show online -- sorry, no TV-set press kit for you -- at Discovery's Life site here.

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WATCH THIS: Skip the Super Bowl!

February 5, 2010 2:05 PM

Super Bowl not your speed?

We've collected some alternate viewing options this Sunday evening.

Movies, series, documentaries -- you want it, you got it. Lots of channels are happy to help you forego CBS' 6:30 p.m. ET football extravaganza.

Here are some of the Feb. 7 choices (all times ET):

TV SERIES FAVORITES

Law & Order -- 5 a.m.-midnight, TNT
Law & Order: SVU -- 11 a.m.-11 p.m.,USA
I Love Lucy -- 11 a.m.-1 a.m., Hallmark
CSI -- 1 p.m.-4 a.m., Spike
Home Improvement -- 6 p.m.- midnight, TV Land

DOCUMENTARIES

How It's Made -- 9:30 a.m.-3 a.m., Science
Miracle Planet -- 5 p.m.-5 a.m., HD Theater

MOVIES

The Sound of Music -- 7-11 p.m., ABC Family
Titanic -- 7-11 p.m., TBS
Fellini double feature: 8 1/2 and Juliet of the Spirits -- 8 p.m.-1 a.m., Turner Classic Movies

UNSCRIPTED

Sunday Best (finale) -- 2-11 p.m., BET
Teen Mom -- 6 p.m.-midnight, MTV
The Biggest Loser -- 7-11 p.m., NBC
What Not to Wear -- 7 p.m.-midnight, TLC

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DVD UPDATE: Stalled shows get restarted!

February 1, 2010 3:53 PM

[This week in TV DVD, Shout Factory restarts stalled shows with online-exclusive season sets of Room 222, Ironside and Mr. Belvedere. Among the new arrivals on store shelves -- "Chuckles Bites the Dust" in The Mary Tyler Moore Show Season 6, David Tennant in Doctor Who: The Complete Specials, and Clint Eastwood in Mister Ed Season 2. (Yes, THAT Clint Eastwood) . . . ]

Looking for St. Elsewhere Season 2? NYPD Blue Season 5? Once and Again Season 3? Season 2 of Murphy Brown or Malcolm in the Middle? Season 7 of All in the Family?

Don't expect to find these DVD sets. They don't exist. All these series started coming out on disc, then stopped midrun.

That's before St. Elsewhere's amazing two-part flashback history of St. Eligius hospital, not to mention that mindtwisting series finale. It's before Rick Schroder joined the NYPD Blue squad. Before Murphy had her baby. Before Mike and Gloria split up.

We never got even a second season of orphan shows like Picket Fences, Life Goes On, Family, Cagney & Lacey, Kojak, Baretta, Archie Bunker's Place, Newhart and The Practice -- thanks, or no thanks, to sales apparently not strong enough for their studios to continue releasing subsequent sets.

Now Shout Factory is trying an innovative tack to keep the seasons coming. For select "library" (vintage) titles, they'll try releasing later sets online, rather than to stores. That makes them available to diehard fans, who can order directly from Shout. It cuts out the retail middleman -- little interested, anyway, in shows decades old and rarely seen -- and that allows the release of later seasons to be more financially feasible.

Already out in this new Shout Factory Exclusives line are Room 222 Season 2, Ironside Season 3 and Mr. Belvedere Season 4, with My Two Dads Season 2 due March 16.

The 1970 high school half-hour Room 222 is an especially welcome continuance, being such a landmark show -- TV's first truly integrated cast, topical subject matter, early hybrid dramedy, creators including James L. Brooks (who'd move on to The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and later, of course, The Simpsons), and star-to-be guest actors like Richard Dreyfuss and Kurt Russell.

ABC aired Room 222 in the same years (circa 1970) as a similar no-laugh-track gem Shout plans for a Season 2 release later this year -- NBC's The Bill Cosby Show, the smartly understated portrayal of a high school gym teacher confronting daily obstacles with wit and wisdom. (You can buy Season 1 here with the bonus of a revealing Cosby interview.)

Ironside is the kind of straightforward '60s-'70s crimesolving drama that has a circle of devoted adherents -- and a signature twist in its wheelchair detective -- but not enough flash, style or starpower to attract many buyers beyond that. Ditto the '80s family laffer Mr. Belvedere, beloved of viewers of a certain age but unlikely to collect a sizable new following.

Of course, these shows' fans have to find these sets at Shout's web site, which may be easier said than done. Let's hope they can help pass the word on web forums and other venues.

Shout deserves credit (and our $$) for doing the right thing, especially by producing the sets as standard DVD releases -- not the manufactured-on-demand sets (MOD) duped onto home-style purple DVD-R discs for sale through Amazon (some Nickelodeon and MTV shows) or Warner Archive (Eleventh Hour).

Click through the links in this article to find details on DVD content and features, and to purchase sets. (Click on the Exclusives tab at the upper right of the Shout web page.)

You'll also find announcements of other upcoming releases of true TV rarities. First and foremost -- The Goldbergs, a radio and TV landmark for its ethnic portrayals and the remarkable backstage history of creator Gertrude Berg. Shout has rounded up not just the lesser last-season filmed syndication episodes but also an array of kinescopes of the live episodes from early TV, tapes of radio episodes, historical extras, and an essential explanatory booklet.

Jump on board to buy if you're at all interested, so Shout will keep the goodies coming.

Also out on DVD in stores this week:

The Mary Tyler Moore Show Season 6 -- Here's an orphan show whose parents finally got their act back in gear. After a hiatus of 3 years, Fox Home Entertainment re-started MTM DVD releases last October with Season 5 -- and now delivers the season that contains the immortal episode "Chuckles Bites the Dust," one of TV's best half-hours ever. No bonus features here, but we're happy just to have Mare and the gang going again. (Now only one season remains to be released, with that influentially ironic series finale.)

Mister Ed Season 2 -- For completists like me, Shout Factory continues full-season releases with the '60s talking horse and his human pet Wilbur. (MGM's 2004 releases were best-ofs.) There's a fun guest roster this time -- Clint Eastwood, George Burns, Zsa Zsa Gabor. And there are more added-value extras, including vintage commercials and an interview with Alan Young and costar Connie Hines, who passed away Dec. 18.

Doctor Who: The Complete Specials -- Five discs of David Tennant finales: The Next Doctor, Planet of the Dead, The Waters of Mars, The End of Time Parts 1 and 2. With behind-the-scenes extras, on both DVD and Blu-ray.

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DVD DEAL: 'Curb' the price

February 1, 2010 10:59 AM

Larry David provides today's deal in Amazon's HBO week.

Thursday's gold box discount gets you six season sets of Curb Your Enthusiasm -- $90 for sets collectively list priced at about $240.

Although it initially seemed those sets might comprise the complete series, David eventually decided to return for the seventh season on HBO last fall that included David's characteristically cranky take on the eventuality of a Seinfeld TV reunion. Season 7 hasn't yet been announced for DVD release, but of course it's just a matter of time. (Curb seasons generally cost around $35 each on Amazon.)

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PREVIOUS DEALS INCLUDED:

You've probably figured out already that it's HBO Week at Amazon's gold box daily-deal space.

Tuesday's discount goodie: the complete set of the witty funeral home saga Six Feet Under, all 5 seasons and 63 episodes for $68.

That's a great drop from the list price ($180, which few people ever pay), and a bit off the usual Amazon price ($85).

This is the repackaged set, in a smaller box than the earlier gift set, without the soundtrack CD or the collectible fake-turf cemetery top.

So if you didn't see Michael C. Hall before Dexter, or Peter Krause before Dirty Sexy Money (and NBC's upcoming Parenthood), or creator Alan Ball's work before True Blood, now's the time to love this quirky show to death.

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MONDAY'S DEAL WAS:

If you can't get enough of Tony, Carmela, Livia, Uncle Junior and the rest of the Jersey crew, Amazon's Monday deal is the complete DVD set of The Sopranos.

List priced at $300, it's $120 for one day only (Amazon price normally around $160).

Note that this is the repackaged set released last fall. It's not the 2008 "gift set" that was list priced at $100 more, with discs packaged in a hardback book, all housed in a black fabric box.

But if it's the episodes you want, go for it. Today's deal set has all the on-disc extras -- commentaries, cast roundtable, even creator David Chase reacting to the outcry about the final moments of his series finale.

It doesn't, however, contain the two soundtrack discs (which fans may already own anyway).

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