Years:  1978, 1979
Genre:  TV series, Cop, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Jack Lord, James MacArthur, Kam Fong, Al Harrington
Creator:  Leonard Freeman
Run time:  19 hours, 51 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Season Eleven of Hawaii Five-O was on television when I was an embryo.  Or a zygote.  So it’s odd for me to feel intense nostalgia for something I never experienced at the time when it would have actually been nostalgic.  But I guess it takes a really silly retread of something to create that feeling – having just watched the first season of the new Hawaii Five-O, I actually DO long for a simpler time.

     A time when Wo Fat was a cartoonish evildoer, a creepy Bond-like villain.  A time when the bikini girls were just gratuitous montage shots between scenes, rather than actual members of the cast.  A time when Chin Ho was just some guy in the police station, rather than a main character with a suspect back story.  And a time when McGarrett and Danno had to worry about mafia and punks and corporate killers, instead of serial killers and terrorists.

     Most of all though, I miss the realistic banter between McGarrett and Danno – banter that came easily and naturally between two men of the law who respected and liked each other, and came only occasionally when it fit.  So much better than the forced buddy-cop love-hate banter that has become a prerequisite for all cop shows of today.  Today, McGarrett and Danno fight over food, over the radio, over their driving, over everything.  In the 70s, they just solved crimes.  Oh, the good old days.

     Thankfully, as Paramount Home Entertainment releases the first season of the NEW Hawaii Five-O on DVD today, they are also releasing the eleventh season of the old Hawaii Five-O.  I think it’s clear which one I recommend more.

Year:   2010, 2011
Genre:  TV series, Crime, Drama
Country:  United States
Languages:  English
Starring:  Tom Selleck, Donnie Wahlberg, Bridget Moynahan, Will Estes, Jennifer Esposito, Len Cariou, Amy Carlson, Nicholas Turturro
Creators:  Robin Green, Mitchell Burgess
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     The one problem I have with Blue Bloods is how over-the-top American it is.  When the family gets together for their weekly dinner, and they discuss the subject matter of the day – which almost always relates to the case they were working on that day – it feels like a crappy episode of Crossfire or The View or one of any number of political pundit shows in the States.

     The rest of the show is uber-American too – the tough-guy, ends-justify-the-means attitude, the “rugged individualism”, the hero-cops and the flags in the background.  Sure, they try to temper that with their forced, awkward round-table discussions at dinner, but it’s pretty clear at all times just what the “right” answer is to all their debates.

     That being said, getting the negative stuff out of the way first, I do like the show.  Season One comes out September 13th from Paramount Home Entertainment, and the cast is the best thing about it.  Tom Selleck’s moustache oozes authenticity as the police commissioner.  Will Estes is excellent as his son, a new recruit to the police department and a beat cop.  Bridget Moynahan, as the New York assistant DA (and Selleck’s daughter) is lovely and perfect, and Donnie Wahlberg (the older brother, tough-guy rule-bending cop) is the best part of the show.

     Unfortunately, because this is New York City, and the show is so very American, a lot of the episodes have to deal with terrorist plots and terror cells and terrorism.  It still crackles along at a terrific pace, with just enough lulls for some Tom Selleck wisdom or some Bridget Moynahan moralizing.  And when the cases are more usual – abducted children and so forth – the show is truly excellent.

Year:   2010, 2011
Genre:  TV series, Lawyer, Drama
Country:  United States
Languages:  English
Starring:  Julianna Margulies, Archie Panjabi, Chris Noth, Matt Czuchry, Christine Baranski, Graham Phillips, Makenzie Vega, Josh Charles
Guest stars:  Alan Cumming, Titus Welliver, Sarah Silverman, Miranda Cosgrove, Michael J. Fox, Ken Leung, Jerry Stiller, Rita Wilson, America Ferrera, Lou Dobbs (as himself – of course), Fred Thompson 
Eye candy:  Margulies, Panjabi, Wilson, Silverman
Creators:  Robert King, Michelle King
Producers:  Tony Scott, Ridley Scott
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I said of Season One of The Good Wife that it was a legal drama pretending to be something else.  In that case, I meant it pretended to be about this woman (Julianna Margulies) and her strained relationship with her philandering politician husband (Chris Noth), when in reality it was a good, solid, compelling legal drama.  The rest was just window dressing.

     In the second season, out September 13th from Paramount Home Entertainment, I am of a different opinion.  In the second season, the show is more about the relationship, Peter’s re-election bid, and the office politics than it is about the actual courtroom.

     Kalinda (Archie Panjabi) is relegated to a secondary, (fairly tedious) game of one-upmanship with the firm’s new investigator.  She is involved in a bombshell later in the season – although when you think about this “bombshell”, it should likely NOT have been as big a deal as it was…

     The season is kind of all over the place – the kids get involved with dad’s campaign and screw things up.  The firm is going to split, then they’re not, then they are.  Alicia is getting along better with her husband, then she isn’t, then the bombshell.  His campaign right-hand man is screwing things up for her and Will, who still may or may not get together.

     And in the middle of all this, some court cases.  Miranda Cosgrove (iCarly) shows up as a young music superstar accused of attempted murder, much like Miranda Cosgrove in real life.  Except for the attempted murder.  Michael J. Fox shows up as a cut-throat lawyer and steals the show every time he’s on screen, he’s fabulous.  Other great guest stars include Sarah Silverman, Ken Leung, and Lou Dobbs as himself sowing discord between the partners (especially the left-leaning Christine Baranski).

     In the end, it’s actually the guest stars who carry the bulk of the second season.  They’re good enough to keep it rolling nicely.  Well, Michael J. Fox, Fred Thompson, Miranda Cosgrove and Julianna Margulies who is as magnificent as ever.  I still like The Good Wife a lot, even though it’s quite a bit different for me than it was in Season One.  But just like that first season, I sat down and watched the entire DVD.  As I recommend you do too.

Year:  2011
Genre:  TV series, Crime, Drama
Country:  United States
Languages:  English
Starring:  Kristen Vangsness, Forest Whitaker, Janeane Garofalo, Michael Kelly, Beau Garrett, Matt Ryan
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     CBS really has no one to blame but themselves for the cancellation of Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior.  The only reason this show was canceled was that…it was created in the first place.  There was nowhere to go but down from there.  First off, they didn’t really bother creating a cool new title for the show.  Suspect Behavior is, after all, what Criminal Minds is all about.  They’re basically calling the show Criminal Minds: Criminal Minds.  Not that NCIS: LA or CSI: NY or CSI: Miami are that much more inventive, but at least they aren’t redundant.

     The thing is, I LIKE Suspect Behavior.  Yes, it’s exactly like all the other police procedurals out there, exactly like the original Criminal Minds.  But with Forest Whitaker, Janeane Garofalo and a very cool cast, it actually manages to be better at doing the exact same thing.  I think.

     Then again, it’s a moot point.  After all, the show WAS canceled, and all we will ever have is this one DVD volume that ends with Garofalo being kidnapped and Forest Whitaker about to blow some guy away.  I would call this a cliffhanger, but does anyone really think something crazy was going to happen?  They did plan to make a second season, which is why they would end with a cliffhanger.  So for the uber-fan(s) of this show, know this – Garofalo would have been saved, Whitaker would not have shot the guy, and Episode 2 would have been right back into more of the same.

     That, really, is the only real problem with Criminal Minds: Criminal Minds (aside from the title).  It’s more of the same.  In the second-last episode of the season, the team deals with a case of a murdered marine.  I found myself thinking – wait, that’s a marine!  He’s a navy guy!  Shouldn’t…NCIS be handling this?  Or, failing that, if they needed anti-terrorism experts and more explosions, NCIS: LA?

     And there it is.  CBS (formerly Columbia Broadcasting System) found they had a major hit with CSI (Crime Scene Investigation).  So they decided to spin it off into CSI: Miami (Crime Scene Investigation: Miami).  THAT show was an even BIGGER hit, so they spun off again into CSI: NY (Crime Scene Investigation: New York).  All this spawned a ton of video games, board games, action figures, backpacks, lunchboxes and CSI-themed children’s birthday parties.

     Of course, it was the acronym that was making these shows successful, so they moved on to NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Service).  Soon, that one was a hit as well, so the spin-off had to come.  NCIS: LA (Naval Criminal Investigative Service: Los Angeles).  Soon, CBS may run out of cities.  Perhaps they already have, not wanting to brand their new spin-off Criminal Minds: Spokane.

     But that’s it – they have achieved critical mass.  The already-bloated prime time police procedural drama slate could not handle even one more spin-off, whether it was good or not.  Blue Bloods is out there too, taking up a little bit of CBS real estate with another cop show (but a new one, with a new idea, that amazingly doesn’t cover the exact same ground as all the others).  But once you’ve hit the limit – there it is.  CBS should have been tipped off when they couldn’t think of another city to put after the colon in the show’s title.

     So it’s done, and we have the one season, which I DID really like.  And it’s on DVD now from Paramount Home Entertainment, and that is where it will stay forever, consigned to the dustbin of Failed Spinoff Prime Time Police Investigative Procedurals.  Something tells me that dustbin will be very full, very soon.

Years:  2010, 2011
Genre:  TV series, Crime, Drama
Country:  United States
Languages:  English, French (dubbing of course)
Starring:  Thomas Gibson, Joe Mantegna, Matthew Gray Gubler, Shemar Moore, Kristen Vangsness, Paget Brewster, AJ Cook, Rachel Nichols, Jane Lynch
Creator:  Jeff Davis
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I have only one complaint with Criminal Minds in this, the sixth season.  And that is “unsubs”.  First, they assume we’ve been watching the show forever, and therefore we understand the term.  Like CSI assuming we understand all about epitheleals and so forth.  Were I to just jump into the sixth season, this would annoy me. 

     Now, I am a veteran of a few seasons of Criminal Minds, so I DO know that an “unsub” is an “unkown subject” – the bad guy (or girl) they are chasing.  But I am still annoyed.  Because it’s such an overused word on the show, they continue to call the suspect an “unsub”, very often, even after they have figured out who it is, what their name is, and have put out an APB.  If it’s Jim Henson of Delaware, it’s no longer an “unsub”, right?

     OK.  Done with the complaints.  Otherwise, Criminal Minds is still a totally engrossing show that I can watch endlessly without getting tired of it.  The calm coolness of Thomas Gibson running the show, the I-can’t-quite-put-my-finger-on-it sexiness of Paget Brewster, the charmingly naive genius of Matthew Gray Gubler, the credible gravitas of Joe Mantegna, the wide-eyed hot-tempered earnestness of Shemar Moore, the silly wardrobe of Kristen Vangsness, and the badly underused (at least in Season 6) smoking hotness that is AJ Cook.  And yeah yeah, I get she was pregnant or something and will be back full-time for Season Seven.

     Filling in the hotness gap for Cook, however, is actress Rachel Nichols, who appears as the daughter of a serial killer who has now been added to the team.  I suspect that once Cook returns, there will be no more need for this much Hot though, and Nichols will be let go to return to movies (like all the sequels sure to come for Conan The Barbarian).

     I’m always impressed by how often the writers of shows like these can keep coming up with something new.  The old serial killer with alzheimer’s, the pedophile living in the mountains off the Appalachian Trail, the guy who burns his victims alive on Hallowe’en, it all works, and it all seems fresh.  That, to me, is the most remarkable thing about the sixth season of Criminal Minds, on DVD September 6th from Paramount Home Entertainment.

Years:  2010, 2011
Genre:  TV series, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Shenae Grimes, AnnaLynne McCord, Jessica Stroup, Tristan Wilds, Ryan Eggold, Michael Steger, Lori Loughlin, Matt Lanter, Jessica Lowndes, Gillian Zinser   
Eye candy:  Lowndes, Grimes, McCord, Stroup, Loughlin, Sara Foster Creators:  Rob Thomas, Gabe Sachs, Jeff Judah
Run time:  15 hours, 5 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     90210 continues to be a flashy, shiny, overproduced show about “high school” kids who attend a “high school” and strive to have as little substance and realism as possible in their every day lives.  The show continues to focus on hot babes who spend as much time in underwear and bikinis as possible, and have a lot more sex than most of the high school kids I knew when I was once a high school kid.  Then again, I was a high school kid at the age of 14, not 27.

     For some reason, this show wants to insist on following a strict chronological progression – it presumably started in the sophomore year of most of the stars, and now they are in senior year.  Shenae Grimes is 21.  AnnaLynne McCord and Jessica Stroup are both 24.  Jessica Lowndes is 22, Gillian Zinser is 25, and the dead-sexy Lori Loughlin is 47.  Every one of them is too old, and too hot, to be a plausible high school student.

     So why bother?  Why bother pretending that the school years are progressing in synch with the seasons of the show?  Next year, they will still be too old and too hot to be plausible first-year college students.  Maybe ten years from now, when they are 30-somethings making their way up corporate ladders and dealing with the fact that they are too old for the pop-star-and-modelling businesses, it won’t matter.  Until then, I long for the (relative) realism of Degrassi.

     I hate to down on a show just because it has a bunch of hot babes.  Hot babes should be great for a show, and make me want to watch.  But when a 25-year-old hottie is playing a 16-year-old hottie, there’s something vaguely creepy about ogling her on television.  And since that’s about the only thing I can get out of 90210, I have to give the thumbs-down to the third season, which hits DVD August 30th from Paramount Home Entertainment.

Year:  1986
Genre:  Blu-Ray, Romance, Action, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Anthony Edwards, Tom Skerritt, Meg Ryan, Val Kilmer, Michael Ironside
Notable bit parts: Clarence Gilyard Jr, Tim Robbins
Director:  Tony Scott
Run time:  110 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Top Gun is a movie that, more than most, foreshadows the rest of the 80s, much of the 90s, and even a bit of the new millenium’s cinematic landscape.  For example – Tom Cruise played a cocky prodigy with daddy issues, a role that he would come to define in the next 20 years – A Few Good Men, The Firm, Days of Thunder. 

     Also, it’s hard for me to see Tim Robbins in his tiny, itty-bitty walk-on role here without thinking of the time he and Tom Cruise shared the screen in the recent War of the Worlds (an encounter that turned out very differently for Robbins). 

     Then there’s Tom Skerritt, who I love.  At the end of Top Gun, you’ll remember, Skerritt tells Cruise “I’ll fly with you”.  But then he doesn’t.  And Cruise goes out alone.  And Skerritt disappears from the film, much as he disappeared from public consciousness over the past 20 years.  I miss remembering who Tom Skerritt is.

     Meg Ryan shows up briefly as Goose’s wife, all pretty and perky.  This foreshadows her pretty perkiness in every movie since then.  But when Goose is killed, she disappears.  No sad scene where she cries over her dead husband.  I suspect that this is because when Meg Ryan cried on set, her face swelled up and she was no longer photogenic.  Just like it has in real life of late.

     Then there’s Anthony Edwards, who went on to a very successful run on the TV show ER, and Kelly McGillis who really wasn’t that good an actress in this film, and was super-hot only in a dated, 80s sort of way.  She was recently in town here in Ottawa stripping down in the stage presentation of The Graduate.  Nice to see she’s still getting work.

     That brings me to Val Kilmer, who of late has apparently been willing to work for food, showing up in movies like Columbus Day, The Traveler and The Chaos Experiment.  I think the downward arc of his career can be explained by the volleyball scene in Top Gun, where he shows his well-defined abs.  Now, when he shows up in movies, he’s a pudgy chunker.  I think that as his abs went, so went his career.  Like Meg Ryan’s lips – the chubbier they are, the less we want to see them on screen.

     I love Top Gun.  Love the fighter planes and the over-the-top cockiness of the whole thing.  I also love the cheesiness and the sappy romance, because it continues to make me laugh.  Watch Top Gun again, and try to count the number of times Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone” plays.  Or Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away”.  Any time someone does something macho, it’s Loggins.  Every time someone does something romantic, it’s Berlin.  The movie could have been half an hour shorter if Tony Scott hadn’t insisted on including montages of shirtless men playing volleyball to the strains of “Danger Zone”.

     And now, with Paramount’s Blu-Ray release of Top Gun August 30th, you can get this 80s classic in the format it deserves – hope you have surround sound too!  Those fighter jets are meant to dogfight in HD and they are meant to leave the flight deck in surround sound.  So work it out!

Years:  2010, 2011
Genre:  TV series, Crime, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  LL Cool J, Chris O’Donnell, Linda Hunt, Peter Cambor, Daniela Rush, Adam Jamal Craig, Barrett Foa
Creator:  Shane Brennan
Run time:  17 hours, 25 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment
Related reviews:  NCIS Season Seven, NCIS Season Eight, NCIS: LA Season One

     The connection between NCIS and NCIS: LA extends, it seems to me, only as far as the acronym with which they are both named.  The NCIS gang investigate crimes, find the guilty parties, and arrest the wife or the husband or the co-worker or the disgruntled coffee shop employee responsible for the murder.

     In NCIS: LA, it is never an angry wife, or a jilted lover, or a slightly loopy Dairy Queen manager who ends up being the murderer.  It is always a terrorist.  (Or, on the rare occasion it is not directly a terrorist, it’s a massive governmental, CIA-assisted conspiracy that is tangentially related to some terrorists.)

     NCIS seems to be concerned with accumulating evidence, examining DNA and fingerprints and tracking cell phone calls and updating databases.  There is a forensic component, and an investigative component, and the cases rarely boil down to actual gunfire and car chases.

     On the LA version, though, I’m not sure ANY forensics are ever done, I think it is ALL car chases and gunfights.  In every episode, someone goes undercover to investigate a terror cell.  There are apparently an awful lot of those in LA.  And it ends with a gunfight, a close call for an NCIS team member, and an explosion. 

     Actually, none of the episodes end with an explosion.  The CASE ends with an explosion or a gun battle, but the EPISODE ends with nine minutes of banter between LL Cool J and Chris O’Donnell.  Or between Hetty and someone.  Or between two other characters.  Just as long as there is banter.  That is what matters.

     There is also a lot of back story.  Everyone is badass, with a Navy Seal past or a Special Ops past or some kind of lethal-killing-murder training.  The funniest character in this vein is Hetty, the diminutive (under 5 feet) boss of the outfit, who can apparently scale mountains with the greatest of ease, kill you nine times before you hit the floor, and is constantly name-dropping all kinds of presidents and generals and clandestine figures.  I remember Oliver North used to say that to me…

     The thing is – yes, it’s silly.  It’s immeasurably silly and cheesy.  It looks bright, and shiny, and slick as hell and that can be very irritating also.  But I like it.  I like laughing at the cheesiest moments (LL Cool J is reminiscing about the time he was buried alive as a Navy SEAL – it’s emotional!), and rolling my eyes at the most ludicrous scenarios (terrorists have infiltrated a cruise ship offshore at a big Gala Event where they plan to assassinate some dignitaries!  Again!) 

     And I love it.  And once I start watching, I can’t stop watching it.  And just like the first season, I watched the entire second season in days.  The second season, which comes out August 23rd from Paramount Home Entertainment.  That one.

Years:  2010, 2011
Genre:  TV series, Crime, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English, French
Starring:  Mark Harmon, Michael Weatherly, Pauley Perrette, Sean Murray, David McCallum, Brian Dietzen, Cote De Pablo, Rocky Carroll
Creator:  Donald P. Bellisario, Don McGill
Run time:  16 hours, 49 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     There’s nothing new to say about NCIS, now putting its eighth season on DVD, August 23rd from Paramount Home Entertainment.  DiNozzo and Ziva have the same old relationship, full of sexual tension and bragadoccio.  McGee and Abby have the same old relationship too, full of sexual tension and nerdy-scientist competitive banter.  Gibbs still scares people without ever being scary, Ducky still rambles on about non-sequitor stories, and the rest of the cast is still…around, doing stuff.

     Actually, I think there is one difference.  As NCIS has matured lo these past eight years, it HAS slowed down a bit.  Not in the writing or the look or the direction of the show, which is as gleamingly polished as ever.  Rather, it takes them longer and longer to end each season now.  It used to be one cliffhanger episode, followed by a season opener to resolve it the next year.  Then it was two-part episodes to close out the season.  This year, it takes them FIVE episodes just to set up the cliffhanger!  You’re getting old, NCIS.

     At least, in some ways, it isn’t NCIS: LA.  These guys still deal with cases that involve murder, and investigation, and catching a bad guy and moving on.  NCIS: LA, with the exception of the occasional reference to “director Vance”, has virtually nothing to do with the original NCIS.  Except for the acronym.  And I realize that I am giving both the same rating here.  I get that.  That is because NCIS: LA is crack, while NCIS is beer.  Neither one is particularly good for you, but a taste of either will leave you wanting more.  And the original NCIS is a little less harmful to your brain.

Years:  2010
Genre:  TV series, Crime, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Carpenter, Desmond Harrington, Lauren Velez, David Zayas, James Remar
Guest stars:  Julia Stiles, Peter Weller, Jonny Lee Miller 
Creator:  James Manos Jr.
Run time:  10 hours, 32 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     There was no topping Season Four of Dexter, which was one of the greatest seasons of any TV show I’ve ever seen.  No new guest star could compete with John Lithgow’s Trinity Killer.  That guy was the creepiest, scariest, most cold-blooded foil for Dexter yet, and finished the season with one of the most shocking moments in recent television history.

     That being said, Season Five comes pretty darn close.  And Julia Stiles, whom I have disliked for years, has completely turned me around.  All she had to do was stalk and kill some rapists and murderers, and I am now 100% in her camp.  I am a Julia Stiles fan!  She’s no John Lithgow…but then, who is?

     In Season Five, on DVD August 16th from Paramount Home Entertainment, our favourite serial killer Dexter gets a new partner in homicide when he rescues Lumen (Stiles) from the clutches of a ring of rapist-torturer-murderers.  They form an uneasy alliance as she becomes more and more determined to hunt down the men responsible for her abduction and torture.  The relationship between Lumen and Dexter is as sweet and awkward as it is murderous and vengeful, and comes to a bittersweet conclusion at the end of the season which is actually very touching.

     That, I think, is one of the reasons Dexter remains one of the best shows on TV.  Every season is compelling, once you watch one episode yuo have to watch the rest – but every season ends.  Sure, there may be a little carry over – how will Dexter deal with the death of such-and-such?  How will he feel about being a father?  But that’s it.  No annoying cliffhangers, no nine-season story arc.  Just one great season at a time.  And Season Five IS a great season.

Year:  2011
Genre:  TV series, Comedy, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Billie Piper, Iddo Goldberg, Cherie Lunghi
Creator:  Lucy Prebble
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     There’s an old joke I once heard.  It involved hiring a high-priced hooker, then when she got to your house asking her to trim your hedge and clean your bathroom.  The idea was that it might spark a philisophical discussion between you and the hooker as to what was more degrading, and what truly constituted prostitution.  Maybe it wasn’t a joke, so much as it was one of those philosophical unanswerable questions, like trees in the forest and chickens and eggs. 

     I was thinking about it, though, while watching the final season of Secret Diary of a Call Girl.  See, Belle/Hannah has created this super successful book about her exciting wonderful life as a hooker.  And she goes to New York to see the production they’re making of her book.  And she is shocked – shocked! to discover that they are making it about sex!

     I wonder if this is how the real woman behind the blog that is behind this TV series felt when watching the TV series.  I doubt it – it isn’t THAT much about sex, after all.  No, I expect that her character feels more like Joe Ezterhasz after he was paid millions for the screenplay to Showgirls.  Well, not exactly, because she leaves the money behind.

     I won’t say much more about the final season, on DVD August 9th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  The actual ending was a genuine surprise for me – (and vaguely creepy also), but the series never truly made sense to me either.  I like Billie Piper, and I like a good unsettling ending.  But I can’t love this show, which is a little too much like Sex And The City and not nearly enough like Band of Brothers for my taste.

Year:  2011
Genre:  TV series, Comedy, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Toni Collette, John Corbett, Toni Collette, Brie Larson, Toni Collette, Keir Gilchrist, Toni Collette, Rosemarie DeWitt, Toni Collette, Patton Oswalt, Pamela Reed, Fred Ward, Hayley McFarland, Eddie Izzard, Keir O’Donnell
Eye candy:  Collette, Larson, Collette, DeWitt, Collette
Creator:  Diablo Cody
Producers:  Steven Spielberg, Alexa Junge
Run time:  5 hours 32 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     This is a plea.  A totally self-serving, utterly useless plea that I am placing into a bottle that is this blog and releasing to the roaring current out into the ocean that is the internet.  But for those of you who happen to pick this message up, do me one small favour.  Stop watching United States of Tara.  Right now, and forever.  I know, I know, Toni Collette and her lunatic alter-egos are entertaining!  Yes, Rosemarie DeWitt is attractive and the daughter is hot and the son is interesting and new people like Eddie Izzard are adding great new twists to the show.  But stop, and stop now.  I’ll explain…

     I have really loved the first two seasons of The United States of Tara, but at a certain point, it had to run its course. And that point for me was very early in the third season. I was really looking forward to season three, because I was really excited to find out what was going on with Toni Collette and her many bonkers personalities. What crazy childhood trauma brought on her lunacy, and where she was going to go from here?

     But right away in the third season, I realized something that I suppose I had known all along. I realized that United States of Tara is a television show. And it exists, primarily, to generate ratings and thereby continue to be a television show. And solving the mystery of Tara’s multiple personality insanity would put an end to the show. And the money it generates. I know, this is pretty obvious. Maybe to everyone except me. But the third season, out August 2^nd from Paramount Home Entertainment, showed me that throughout the run of the show, I had been far more interested in the mystery than I had in the characters.

     I didn’t care about the daughter’s (Brie Larson) mean angry flight attendant mentor. I didn’t care about the son’s (Keir Gilchrist) film career or the husband (John Corbett) selling his business. And I especially didn’t care about Tara’s sister (DeWitt) and her man (Patton Oswalt) and her baby. Iguess that I did care a little about Izzard, Tara’s new psych professor.

     All of it is just window dressing to the central story, which is of course Tara and her demons and her personalities and her childhood trauma. THAT interests me. But I’ll never find out the answer as long as the show remains profitable and they can make more shows. So there’s the dilemma. The more people watch the show, the less likely it is they will ever get closure. So that’s what I ask of you. Please stop watching United States of Tara. I need you to help bring down the ratings so that I can get some closure!

Years:  2008
Genre:  TV series, Crime, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Michael C. Hall, Julie Benz, Jennifer Carpenter, Desmond Harrington, Lauren Velez, David Zayas, James Remar
Guest stars:  Jimmy Smits, Valerie Cruz, David Ramsey
Creator:  James Manos Jr.
Run time:  10 hours, 32 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Paramount Home Entertainment is re-releasing Seasons Three and Four of Dexter on DVD August 2nd.  The reason for this is that they have added French dubbing.  It’s a lot better on Dexter than it was on say, the NCIS DVDs I watched.  Not that I spent a lot of time with the French soundtrack, but I always like to see if, when translated into another language, it remains the same show.  In this case, it does.  The guy doing Dexter’s voice is very good, and adequately creepy.

     The third season, overall, is the weakest season of Dexter so far.  Oh, it’s still good.  In some cases very good.  The two climactic episodes are some of the most pulse-pounding of the show.  But otherwise, the spark seems to be missing from this season.  That spark returns in Season Four with John Lithgow as the Trinity Killer, but Jimmy Smits is just an awkward fit in Season Three as an assistant DA who forms an uneasy alliance with Dexter in tracking down and killing the bad guys. 

     Thankfully, Dexter picked back up in a big way in Season Four and Five, and it was a momentary lapse into middling territory for an otherwise superior TV show.  Paramount is releasing Season Four with French dubbing at the same time – click here for a review of season four.

Years:  2006, 2007
Genre:  TV series, Crime, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English, French
Starring:  Mark Harmon, Michael Weatherly, Pauley Perrette, Sean Murray, David McCallum, Brian Dietzen, Cote De Pablo, Lauren Holly
Creator:  Donald P. Bellisario, Don McGill
Run time:  16 hours, 49 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Season four of NCIS continues where Season Three left off – with an irritating run of shows that try really hard to put the main characters in personal danger.  A lot of shows do that when they run out of other ideas.  NCIS is still solid, thanks to the cast and characters, and there’s some good writing, but I just can’t stand the episodes where DiNozzo tries desperately to make time for his new girlfriend, or where McGee struggles with writers’ block after the huge success of his last novel.  Or where Gibbs awkwardly works things out with a new girlfriend, or DiNozzo does secret undercover work for the director, or Ducky and Gibbs get sour with each other over Gibbs’ attempt to retire.  And that’s most every episode in Season Four.

     The French dubbing that made these Paramount Home Entertainment re-releases necessary is still adequate, although every single character (except Abby) takes on a totally different persona thanks to the voices.  Wait – necessary?  No…I think that might have been the wrong word.  Convenient?  Plausible?  I don’t know.  Either way, it gave me a chance to watch the first four seasons for the first time.  And complain though I do, I DID watch them all.  Four full seasons over the course of my two-week vacation, every time I wasn’t watching the fifth season of Dexter or the third season of The United States of Tara, or the final season of Secret Diary of a Call Girl.  That’s what NCIS is good for.  A diversion between other entertainments – one that I keep returning to, no matter how much I complain!

Years:  2005, 2006
Genre:  TV series, Crime, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English, French
Starring:  Mark Harmon, Michael Weatherly, Sasha Alexander, Pauley Perrette, Sean Murray, David McCallum, Brian Dietzen, Cote De Pablo, Lauren Holly
Creator:  Donald P. Bellisario, Don McGill
Run time:  17 hours, 37 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Season three is when NCIS started to go downhill for me – I guess someone, somewhere got the idea that Sasha Alexander was not hot enough, and they replaced Caitlin with Ziva (Cote De Pablo), I guess figuring she was hotter.  And just in case that wasn’t enough eye candy to make NCIS even more successful, they added Lauren Holly as the director of NCIS, and Gibbs’ on-again-off-again love interest. 

     My biggest problem is Ziva.  Mark Harmon as Gibbs is irritating enough.  The whole team lives in fear of Gibbs and his wrath and his badassery, but it never actually comes up.  Gibbs never actually does anything to justify this respectful fear.  And Ziva is the same.  She is a Mossad assassin, ostensibly, who has now been added to the team – she is now the Most Lethal NCIS Member, and she can kill you with a spoon or a fork or a garlic press as soon as look at you…except that she never does.  Whenever Ziva has to subdue some out-of-control suspect, or a soldier on PCP, the guy will come at her, everyone will run down the hall to help, and they will open the doors to find the bad guy subdued and bleeding on the floor.  It’s pretty rare that we get to see Ziva actually kicking any ass at all.  So it’s all just words.

     That means that the only thing the character of Ziva adds to the cast (aside from the admirable hotness of Cote De Pablo of course) is her awkward grasp of English.  She seems to exist solely to butcher common English sayings and have DiNozzo correct her.  She’ll say something like, “you can’t see the jungle for the ferns”, or “does a bear sit in the woods”, and then someone will have to correct her, and I guess it’s supposed to get a laugh.

     The thing is, these DVDs have been re-released by Paramount Home Entertainment (August 2nd) because they have added French dubbing.  That’s fine, except Ziva’s butchered colloquialisms don’t really translate into another language.  She’s the multi-lingual member of the team, the only one who speaks French, and she’s a totally useless character in that language.  Well, not entirely useless.  Her French dubbed voice makes her sound like a ten-year-old Justin Bieber fan.  And that really works here, because every time she talks, it’s either to say something charmingly inept, or to re-assert, yet again, her badass bonafides.  And sounding like a ten-year-old girl when she does is hilarious.  I think, in fact, I like Season Three better in French.  7/10 in French!