Party of Five - The Complete Third Season
by Arvin Brown
from Sony Pictures
Lots of changes are in store for the Salinger family in Party of Five: The Complete Third Season. Over 25 episodes, the San Francisco-based siblings, survivors of parents who died at the series' beginning, confront some of the most difficult issues anyone has to deal with, from depression to alcoholism, breakups, dishonesty, separation and much more. The season kicks off with a bang as eldest brother and surrogate father Charlie (Matthew Fox) suddenly finds the mother of his girlfriend Kirsten (Paula Devicq) staying with them for several days due to marital problems. Given that their guest has never given--and still will not give--Charlie a break on anything, the fact that he is more empathetic about her plight than Kirsten is surprises even him. Meanwhile, Bailey (Scott Wolf) tries too hard to have a final adventure with his best friend before the two are separated by college plans. Traveling in Mexico with their girlfriends (including Bailey's longtime date, Sarah, played by Jennifer Love Hewitt), the old buddies have a series of disasters, culminating in the disappearance of Bailey's jeep. While that's going on, Julia (Neve Campbell) discovers her eccentric boyfriend, Griffin (Jeremy London), is back in town and hasn't contacted her for reasons unknown. Not to be outdone, little sister Claudia (Lacey Chabert) claims to have a boyfriend that no one has actually met--until, one day, he shows up at the door.
During the rest of the season, Julia and Griffin will struggle to figure their relationship out, growing apart and then back together, leaving one another far too often, and finally deciding on a permanent solution that makes for a touching finale. Kirsten's career ambitions threaten to throw a wrench into her relationship with Charlie, until her new doctoral degree and teaching job at a Monterey college are undone by the discovery that she plagiarized part of her dissertation. Her ensuing depression makes for dark and lonely times, and ushers in more than one relationship drama for Charlie before season's end. Restless Bailey struggles to find his way as a college man, stooping to some ambiguous ethics and discovering, almost tragically, that he has a serious drinking problem that affects his romance with Sarah and his status as a promising wrestler on the school's team. Little Claudia chafes against the amount of adult responsibility being placed on her shoulders, and a new woman in Charlie's life brings a lot of promise and a lot of emotional confusion. All that, and people still ask the Salinger offspring if they're related to you-know-who: that famous author guy. --Tom Keogh
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 12/23/2008 Run time: 1175 minutes
21 Jump Street - The Complete First Season
by Peter DeLuise
from Fox Network
Best known today as the series that helped launch Johnny Depp to stardom, Stephen J. Cannell's 21 Jump Street was also one of the first hit programs for the fledgling Fox network, a status that lasted for most of its five-year run (1987-91), thanks to its engaging mix of youth culture and police drama. As outlined in the pilot, Depp's baby-faced Ofc. Tom Hanson is transferred to the special Jump Street division, a unit that utilized young cops to infiltrate juvenile crime. Unlike many of Fox's youth-oriented shows of the period (i.e., Beverly Hills 90210), Jump Street took its stories seriously, and addressed numerous social issues in its episodes; though some of the fashions and slang seem dated, the program remains entertaining decades later. The Jump Street set compiles all 13 episodes of the debut season, including the two-part pilot; the solid extras feature commentary by co-star Peter DeLuise, as well as interviews with fellow Jump Street officers Dustin Nguyen, Holly Robinson Peete, and Steven Williams (whose Captain Fuller replaced Frederic Forrest's Jenko halfway through the first season), as well as the prolific Cannell. --Paul Gaita
It all begins here, as baby-faced rookie Officer Tom Hanson (Johnny Depp) is assigned to an elite squad of young undercover cops - Judy Hoffs (Holly Robinson Peete), Doug Penhall (Peter DeLuise) and Harry Truman Ioki (Dustin Nguyen) - to infiltrate high schools and fight crime. Frederic Forrest and Steven Williams co-star in this classic first season that also features such guest stars as Jason Priestley, Josh Brolin, David Paymer, Sherilyn Fenn and Blair Underwood in what became Fox's first runaway hit and remains one of the coolest cop shows in TV history! 21 JUMP STREET - SEASON ONE includes all 13 explosive episodes - including the rarely seen two-part premiere - and is now packed with extras that include all-new interviews with stars Holly Robinson Peete, Dustin Nguyen, Steven Williams and series co- creator Stephen J. Cannell and an exclusive audio commentary with star Peter DeLuise.
Miami Vice - Season Three
by Don Johnson
from Universal Dist. Corp. (MCA)
Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 03/20/2007
Miami Vice: Season Five
by Don Johnson
from National Broadcasting Company (NBC)
Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 06/26/2007 Rating: Nr
Party of Five - The Complete Second Season
by Arvin Brown
from Sony Pictures
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 12/23/2008 Run time: 980 minutes
Party of Five: The Complete Second Season is the absorbing follow-up to the first season's introduction of the Salinger children and their initial trauma following the death of their parents at the hands of a drunk driver. After a year of seemingly endless individual sacrifices, as the older kids did what they had to do to keep their family together at the expense of schoolwork, jobs, and relationships, year 2 finds everyone a little wiser about how to balance priorities. Oldest son Charlie (Matthew Fox) and his fiancee Kirsten (Paula Devicq) have wedding plans, though there are a number of obstacles that will get in the way of reaching the altar, including doubts between them and, eventually, other lovers. Bailey (Scott Wolf) has regained some footing at school, but his relationship with Sarah (Jennifer Love Hewitt) will prove complex, including Bailey's wrongheaded involvement in Sarah's search for a very important person in her life. Julia (Neve Campbell) has settled down a bit from her partying ways, but she is now involved in a love triangle and will face serious personal issues this season that will affect her future, one way or another. Young Claudia (Lacey Chabert) will keep company with a bad influence--another girl who is trying to grow up too fast (at least, faster than Claudia) with boys, smoking, drinking, etc. Moreover, Claudia is no longer sure about the things that seemed important to her last season, such as playing violin.
Carroll O'Connor signs on as the Salingers' long-lost grandfather, and Patricia Heaton (Everybody Loves Raymond) and Jane Kaczmarek (Malcolm in the Middle) turn up in supporting roles. In a different way, the things that were important last season--such as holding on to what really matters, against all odds--are just as important in the second season. The fate of the restaurant, the outlook for the next generation of Salingers, college--all of this and more will continue to be a part of the family's future, or not. --Tom Keogh
21 Jump Street - The Complete Second Season
by Bill Corcoran
from Fox Network
Studio: Starz/sphe Release Date: 06/06/2006 Run time: 1015 minutes Rating: Nr
Miami Vice - Season Four
by Don Johnson
from National Broadcasting Company (NBC)
Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 03/20/2007
21 Jump Street - The Complete Third Season
by Bill Corcoran
from Anchor Bay Entertainment
Studio: Starz/sphe Release Date: 06/06/2006
Crime Story - Season Two
by Aaron Lipstadt
from Starz / Anchor Bay
When the first season of Crime Story ended spectacularly in the Nevada desert, it was anyone's guess what season 2 would do for an encore. With low first-season ratings and conservative watchdogs complaining about its violence, the show received a surprise renewal that necessitated the "miraculous" return of mob-boss Ray Luca (Anthony Denison) and his dimwit sidekick Pauli Taglia (played by former Chicago burglar John Santucci). Moving from 10:00 p.m. Fridays to a new 10:00 p.m. Tuesday-night timeslot on NBC, the Michael Mann-produced series continued its ratings decline, and this lent the series a giddy, go-for-broke quality that held plenty of surprises. The year is 1966, and Chicago Police Lt. Mike Torello (Dennis Farina) and his close-knit Major Crimes Unit continues to track Luca's criminal activities in Las Vegas, where additional complications fueled a number of dynamic, stand-alone episodes, beginning with season opener "The Senator, the Movie Star and the Mob," guest-starring Kevin Spacey (in his first major TV role) and Jenny Wright (Near Dark) in a sordid, mob-connected plot with obvious parallels to Bobby Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe. This established the neon-lit, casino-and-nightclub milieu of the season, and Luca's reappearance set the season in volatile motion.
The series' daring, pulp-fictional style attracted an impressive array of guests stars and newcomers, some of whom (like 24's Dennis Haysbert) would later appear in Michael Mann's films. Ted Levine (The Silence of the Lambs) reprises his role as burglar-turned-rocker Frank Holman; Margaret Avery (The Color Purple) and NYPD Blue's James McDaniel are superb in the racial-tension plot of "Seize the Time"; Laura San Giacomo (sex, lies, and videotape) aces her role as Luca's former flame in "Protected Witness"; and Elias Koteas delivers a fine performance in "Roadrunner," an exciting road-thriller episode that showcases Farina's skill with hardboiled comedy. (For the record, other noteworthy guest stars include Pam Grier, David Hyde Pierce, Billy Zane, David Soul, Steven Weber, Michael Jeter, and recurring performances by Andrew Dice Clay and Rolling Stone editor Jann S. Wenner.) "Pauli Taglia's Dream" is an outrageous experiment in all-out delirium, focusing on Santucci's scene-stealing character and providing a wacky lead-up to the season's climactic story arc, which leads Luca and Torello to their ultimate showdown in an unspecified Latin American country full of corruptible drug-trade politicians.
Of course, any innovative series has a few drawbacks: The violent shootouts turn somewhat redundant as the season progresses, and while Torello's gun-toting crew is brought to life by a perfect supporting cast (Bill Smitrovich, Ray Butler, Steve Ryan, and a young Bill Campbell), there was never enough time (or episodes) to properly develop their characters. The turncoat betrayal of lawyer David Abrams (superbly played by Stephen Lang) is never fully convincing (you just know he's not a bad guy), and when Crime Story's cancellation inevitably came to pass, the final-episode cliffhanger of "Going Home" (broadcast May 10, 1988) left frustrated fans with unanswered questions and nowhere else to go. It's especially regrettable, then, that this four-DVD set offers no extras whatsoever. The fact that Farina, Denison, Mann, and series cocreators Chuck Adamson and Gustave Reininger were not invited to do audio commentaries represents a missed opportunity of epic proportions. We can be grateful, however, that the series' pop-music soundtrack (chosen by the great Al Kooper, credited as "Guy Who Picks Music for the Show") remains intact and unchanged as an essential ingredient to one of the best TV shows of the 1980s. --Jeff Shannon
It was hailed for its realism, condemned for its violence and ended with a climax that shocked millions. Though it lasted only two seasons, fans and critics still consider CRIME STORY to be one of the most uncompromising and influential action dramas in television history. In this stunning final season, obsessed lawman Mike Torello and his street tough strike force pursue mob kingpin Ray Luca from the neon battleground of Las Vegas to the corrupt killing fields of Latin America. Experience the explosive closing chapters of the acclaimed crime epic that New York Newsday calls "A genuine work of art... a masterpiece in a classic genre"
Miami Vice - Season One
by Abel Ferrara
from National Broadcasting Company (NBC)
Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 02/08/2005
To hear the opening beats of Jan Hammer's percussive, propulsive Miami Vice theme is to be instantly transported back to 1984. But this groundbreaking series, with its cinematic sensibility, cool clothes, and killer soundtrack is no mere blast from the past. It still rocks. This three-disc set would be worthless if it didn't. Music was an integral part of Miami Vice's hip vibe. The soundtrack propelled the stories and established the mood like no series before it. So the first thing you want to know is: Have the music rights been secured for this DVD release? In the pilot episode, does Phil Collins's "In the Air Tonight" still play ominously as vice undercover cops Crockett and Tubbs speed toward a bust? Does Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight" serenade Sonny and Gina on his boat in the episode "One-Eyed Jack?" And what would the benchmark episode, "Smuggler's Blues" be without Glenn Frey's instant classic? From the Rolling Stones on a boombox to Elvis Presley singing "Rubberneckin'" on a TV, Vice's cutting-edge soundtrack has been preserved and honed in 5.1 surround sound glory.
Miami Vice made stars out of Don Johnson, Philip Michael Thomas, and Edward James Olmos, who won an Emmy as the intense, taciturn Lt. Castillo (watching him bust some martial arts moves in "Golden Triangle" is like Yoda cutting lose in Attack of the Clones), but the first season also offers time-capsule glimpses of actors on the cusp of stardom, including a pre-L.A. Law Jimmy Smits in the pilot, a pre-Crime Story Dennis Farina in "One-Eyed Jack," and a pre-Moonlighting Bruce Willis in "No Exit." Miami Vice put a neon sheen on cop-show convention. Its fashion sense (pastel suits, no belt, no socks), and the brilliantly employed freeze frames are still arresting. Miami Vice was a TV watershed, and this DVD set does it full justice. --Donald Liebenson
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