Picket Fences – Season One

 

Picture: C     Sound: C+     Extras: C     Episodes: C

 

 

David E. Kelley is one of the few producers of TV series making anything anyone is really going to remember decades from now, but for every Boston Legal, there is a show that quickly burns out like Ally McBeal.  Picket Fences was critically acclaimed over its four years, but I was surprised by all the critical acclaim considering how overly jokey and cheeky it tended to be about law and order in a small town.  It is not a Western.

 

The show starred Tom Skerritt, Kathy Baker, Costas Mandylor, Lauren Holly, Fyvush Finkle and Ray Walston in a show that got some good ratings and critical acclaim, but was too much the same each show to the point of being rather predictable.  I suspect the presence of Walston and Finkle in particular gave the show most of its respectability, but looking at Season One in this new DVD set from Fox, my option about the show in the first place felt confirmed.  All 22 hour-long shows are here and that will please fans, but at best, this is an acquired taste, so you are on your own if you have never sent he show.

 

The 1.33 X 1 image is much softer than a show this relatively recent should be, looking like it was shot on film (35mm?) then finished and/or edited on analog video.  That was a lazy trend that began with filmed shows in the early 1980s and for syndicated shows well into the later 1990s, but Kelley usually goes all out and we hope the HD versions will be better than this.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is more like it, though it has no surrounds.  The only extra is the All Roads Lead To Home featurette reflecting on the show.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo