Black Sails: Season 1

  The Rockford Files get a brief respite this week, as I take a look at three different television series being released to DVD and Blu-Ray today. The first is the pirate series, Black Sails, available now from Anchor Bay. This lushly produced, and cinematically shot eight episode first season is simply stunning in high-definition,…

Airwolf (1984) – Sweet Britches and Firestorm

  Season two of this helicopter thriller starts with a bang for Stringfellow Hawke (Jan-Michael Vincent) and Dominic Santini (Ernest Borgnine). First up, with an airdate of 22 September, 1984, is Sweet Britches, which was written by Bellisario, and features a couple of familiar faces, like Lance LeGault as corrupt sheriff, J.J. Bogan, and Jeff…

Magnum p.i. (1982) – The Elmo Ziller Story and Three Minus Two

  Season two of Magnum p.i. comes to a close with the two episodes this week. First up is The Elmo Ziller Story, which aired 25 March, 1982, and was written by Robert Hamilton. Thomas (Tom Selleck) thinks Higgins (John Hillerman) is him on when he’s asked to protect Elmo Ziller, who looks exactly like…

Airwolf (1984) – Mind of the Machine & To Snare a Wolf

  Season 1 of Airwolf comes to a close with these two episodes. David Carradine guest stars in Mind of the Machine, which aired 7 April, 1984, and was written by T.S. Cook. Carradine plays Dr. Robert Winchester, a scientist and test-pilot who was involved in designing Airwolf when the project was under the control of the…

The Rockford Files (1976) – The Italian Bird Fiasco & Where’s Houston?

  Private investigator Jim Rockford (James Garner) tackles a couple of interesting cases in this week’s installment of The Rockford Files. First up we have The Italian Bird Fiasco, which originally aired 13, February 1976, and was directed by film legend Jackie Cooper. It was written by Edward J. Lasko. The phone gag this time…

Defiance Set Visit

  It’s December and Showcase has conspired to give Sue and I an early Christmas gift. We’ve been invited to the set of one of my favorite shows of the year, Defiance. We’ve been asked to come out, have a look around and chat with some of the cast. (Sadly, we weren’t permitted to take…

Defiance S02E01 – The Opposite of Hallelujah

    Defiance is back tonight on Showcase, and if anyone was worried that wouldn’t be able to wrap you up again in the world and the story will find themselves sadly mistaken. Of course, we know how much I love this show! I watched the preview discs Showcase sent me of the first season…

True Detective – Season 1

Released today on Blu-Ray and DVD from HBO is the first season of the stellar police thriller, True Detective. Created and completely written by Nic Pizzolatto and starring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey with the entire 8 episode series directed by Cary Fukunaga this show is intelligent, dark, captivating and gritty. Set in Louisiana, the series…

Orphan Black S02E03 – Distempers of Learning

Tonight on Space, things seem to be going from bad to worse for Sarah (Tatiana Maslany) and the clone club. Possible SPOILERS below so be warned. (I try to avoid as much as I can, but you can’t avoid them altogether, or this would be a really short article!) Written by Alex Levine, this week…