Murdoch Mysteries - Season Two (2009/Acorn Blu-rays)/The Complete New Avengers (1976 - 1977/Umbrella Region Four/Import PAL DVD Set)/F/X (1986/Orion/MGM/Umbrella Region B Import 50i Blu-ray)

Picture: B-/C+/B- Sound: C+/C+/B- Extras: C/C/D Main Programs: C+/B-/B-

PLEASE NOTE: The Region 4 PAL DVD set of The New Avengers is now out of print, but StudioCanal U.K. has remastered and reissued the series on DVD, Blu-ray and a deluxe 4K box set.

Before forensic police procedural shows made gadgets, science, devices and crime boring and pseudo-intellectual, they used to be fun and the following new releases show us how.

Set over 100 years ago, Murdoch Mysteries - Season Two (2009) is a hit still on the air as you read this, but Acorn is just getting around to use very old, then-new and even groundbreaking technology on the rise to solve the cases, which for me, makes this a much more bearable show than its modern (or is that post-modern) counterparts. But the 13 episodes here with Detective William Murdoch (Yannick Bisson) and company who have slightly more advanced understandings of the emerging sciences at work has the most energy when it is being episodic and the money spent to recreate the past is a plus for the show.

However, this might wear thin for some still and though you can start with this set over the debut season, I still think that might work a little more if you intend to take on the whole show eventually. Extras include a photo gallery and 60-minutes-long behind the scenes clip.

The 1960s British spy classic The Avengers was such a hit and so imitated, it was a show that everyone hoped would be revived at some point, including bringing back Diana Rigg as Mrs. Emma Peel long before the very, very, very unfortunate Uma Thurman/Ralph Fiennes feature film. The French loved Linda Thorson as Tara King (who succeeded Mrs. Peel before the show folded) that they funded a mid-1980s revival entitled The New Avengers. It lasted two seasons before it folded, so it was a moderate success, in part because it tried to be more realistic than the original. The Complete New Avengers (1976 - 1977) DVD set combines the two seasons we covered as separate sets A&E issued years ago and are now discontinued. You can read about them at the following links:

1976

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/84/New+Avengers+1976+Set+One+(A&E+D

1977

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/1313/New+Avengers+1977+Set+Two+(A&E

The show has aged in odd ways, with Joanna Lumley (who played Purdey and is best known in the U.S. for the hit comedy Absolutely Fabulous, somewhat sending up her sexy image here) an even bigger star now than when the U.S. DVDs arrived, while co-star Gareth Hunt (who played Mike Gambit) sadly passed away a few years ago for reasons of poor health, though the two did get together to launch the show on home video in the U.K. years ago.

The episodes follow the same order as the U.S. DVD sets, but now in a more compact case. No doubt the trio with Patrick Macnee again as John Steed had chemistry and the episodes like Target, Sleeper, howler Angels Of Death, Obsession and Canadian-made Complex are the ones that hold up most. Clemens had a choice between making the last four shows in the U.S. or Canada, chose Canada which had no infrastructure at the time and made what fans consider the four worst shows of the series, the shows that kicked the series (Clemens in a more recent interview revealed his unhappiness with his choice) and ended the Macnee era of the franchise for good, but I still think Complex (penned by Dennis Spooner) is better than it gets credit for and is as fitting an ending to the original franchise as Bizarre was for the 1960s show.

It is also among the last pre-Thatcher U.K. action shows (along with Return Of The Saint, reviewed elsewhere on this site) and each show is worth seeing at least once. Car fans will enjoy Steed's scarce 2-door variant of a Jaguar XJ-6, the XJ-12 Big Cat, but others will be amused to see an earlier Range Rover and Rover car in several shows. Gambit landed up with a red Jaguar XJ-S, while Purdey got a yellow Triumph TR-7, vehicles that showed up later in the opposite colors in the Canadian shows.

The fight sequences are not bad, some of which were brutal for their time, others of which are not as successful. Nice to see the shows again, especially as the U.S. sets are hard to come by now.

Until those sets are reissued in the U.S., they are going for big money, but they do not have the extras this set has. It is not as much as it should have had, but we get an episode guide on the inside of the cases' insert sleeve (the plastic case is transparent plastic, while the episodes ''The Eagle's Nest'' and ''Dead Men Are Dangerous'' feature audio commentary tracks by the Gareth Hunt and Brian Clemens.

Finally we have a moderate hit film that has been forgotten somewhat in the shuffle of franchises, bankruptcies and imitators. Robert Mandel's F/X (1986) was a hit for the now defunct Orion Pictures, but they were not able to turn it into a series, especially after a bloated, goofy sequel that lost enough money to kill all. Often compared to The Stunt Man (reviewed elsewhere on this site) to some extent, Bryan Brown (sadly now most known for the inept hit Cocktail with Tom Cruise) is Roland 'Rollie' Tyler (definitely inspired by Martin Landau's character in the original TV classic Mission: Impossible) is hired to fake an actual mobster/gangster to help out a turncoat/snitch in the Witness Protection Program with his expert work in make-up and other motion picture-caliber visual effects.

In the process, he becomes a target himself when he is betrayed and additionally has a very good at his job cop (Brian Dennehy) also going after him, so he'll have to use all of his talents and resources on both of them until he can find a way to resolve his dilemma.

Like The New Avengers unintentionally and Murdoch Mysteries nostalgically and intentionally, seeing the older analog technology in full swing in ambitious productions make it all worth seeing and versus most of the shallow digital garbage we are now getting with zero imagination, it is all worth seeing for the fun of it, even when things don't always work or age well. There are no extras, but the now-completed run of the big screen Tom Cruise revival of Mission: Impossible picked up where these films left off. We'll see who tries this kind of thing out next.

Oh well…

The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Murdoch (shot in HD) and 1080/50i (only playable on European and Australian HDTV set-ups normally) 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on F/X are about even with each other, despite the fact that the latter is a smooth 35mm feature film. This is an older interlaced HD master and the film should get the 4K treatment at some point being one of Orion's few original franchises. It was never a visually spectacular film, but the effects are very interesting and having seen this film in 35mm, know it can look better. The 1.33 X 1 transfers on New Avengers are from the same video masters used on the U.S. DVDs with aliasing errors and mostly the same results. Too bad these are not from HD masters as this entire series is nicely shot in 35mm in real life, but these will do for now.

The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Murdoch (with no major Pro Logic surrounds) sounds newer and fresher than the older lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on New Avengers, but not by as much as expected and again, the New Avengers tracks are the same as the older U.S. DVDs. I bet the show could sound better, but that will probably not happen until lossless sound is offered on a Blu-ray release, though it will not be as good in lossless mono versus the owners of the show going back to the original music and sound stems and considering a stereo or 5.1 upgrade. The PCM 2.0 Stereo on F/X is encoded in old Dolby System analog A-type noise reduction and plays back interestingly in Pro Logic surround. This was not bad for its time and a film not offered in 70mm blow-ups with better 4.1 or 5.1 sound, because the possibilities are there.

- Nicholas Sheffo