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See the shows that were cancelled before their time with four gripping crime drama episodes in the Brilliant But Cancelled(r) collection. From the producers who would go on to make the television sensations Hill Street Blues, Columbo and Law & Order come these intelligent series that span over forty years of television.
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By Charles H. Levenson (new jersey)
There were reasons why the four crime drama shows on this DVD were "cancelled before thier time"not the least of which was that none of them were particularly good...
"Johnny Staccato"had John Cassevetes as a piano player who moonlights as a sort of private eye..the episode included here"Tempted"had Elizabeth Montgomery,the"Bewitched"girl as the guest star,in some sort of poorly thought-out script about an expensive piece of jewely that may or may not be stolen..Staccato ,the so-called hero is apparently more interested in taking the jewel and the crooked but pretty "Bewitched"girl than doing the right thing and returning the jewel and turning the crooked young thing in to the authorities..No wonder that the audiences in 1959 found this show hard to swallow..but it had nice jazzy music by Elmer Bernstein...too bad the scripts weren't as good
Delvecchio starred Judd Hirsch of"Taxi"fame as a cop who really wants to be a lawyer..Charles Haid ,the director,played his side-kick...In this episode we have John Hillerman,Tom Selleck's"Magnum P.I."sidekick as a quack doctor who so convinces an 18 year old woman that she has stomach cancer that she kills herself..from this point on the script wanders all over the place,from an old cleric's refusal to say a high mass for her because of the nature of her death,to the sub-plot involving her two hot-headed brothers who want to beat the tar out of the doctor for what he'd done..All of the while Delvecchio,who is supposed to know about both police procedures and the law manages to transgress both,without any harm coming to him(in fact,the judgemental script had the quack doctor being beaten and almost killed by the two hot-tempered brothers all to a collective"so what"from Delvecchio and his partner...No wonder this show did not last
Gideon Oliver had Louis Gosseett jr as some sort of a college professor who is also an incredible busy-body,involving himself in areas best left to the police...In this episode(overly long and very draggy)the subject was"satanism",as seen from the vantage point of a script writer who apparently had his head up his butt all of the time he was writing it..The fact that the script writer was none other than Dick Wolfe,responsible for "Law & Order" only beggers the question;how did someone so out of touch with reality ever come up with such a successful show as"Law & Order"?In this moronic script all of the idiot nonsense about pagans and satanists being child-murdering monsters are put on display..Anthony LaPaglia plays some sort of satanic cult leader who murders babies,kills people in order to make snuff films,and behaves like an over-the-top psycho..One of the people LaPaglia has killed is a galpal of Gossett's and he buttinskis his way into the police investigation...I still can't believe that Dick Wolfe wrote this drivel
Touching Evil was apparently a sort of lurid soap opera/crime drama,and as such plopping one isolated episode onto this disc served only to confuse the average viewer,who really had no idea about what was happening or why
NO WONDER THESE SHOWS WERE AXED..AND WHAT CRITIC'S LIKED THEM?
By G. Helm
Good DVD, miss some of these shows that did not last. Wish more old series would come out on DVD. This was a good taste, Gideon Oliver was the best.
By Bennet Pomerantz (Seabrook, Maryland)
Universal television is guilty as in many other studios of releasing one season sets of old shows with limited scope-if they dont sell, there is never a season two released
From Home Media retailing article, Unfinished Business by JESSICA WOLF "Others fared a little better, but were still left by the wayside. Universal Studios Home Entertainment last year released Airwolf: Season One, and it sold nearly 20% of the units of Universal's top TV DVD release for the year, Miami Vice: Season One"
I had hope for this four show one disk special,Brilliant But Cancelled - Crime Dramas . However it seem shoddy release at best, which isnt a good sign. The two of the episodes on this collection are blurred. If you are going to sell a DVD, clean the master copy before copying. There are so many print bubbles on the Johnny Staccato...however the acting is good! The Delvecchio has no opening credits and the copy seems ill fitted for the TV, such as it was miscopied. Touching Evil episode seems as it they just picked an episode from the middle of the bunch, it was more confusing without a backstory.
The Gideon Oliver copy was great but slightly trimmed. However the show lasted ONLY eight 75 mins episode and produced by Law And Order's Dick Wolf. C'mon Universal, you should have gave this an own box set (it was part of the failed mystery movie wheel ABC tried ten years ago-I want a Burt Reynold's B.L. Striker Box set NOW)
Again from the article--"Completists, take note: Not every TV series that begins rolling out on DVD will finish its run. Maybe a first-season set doesn't sell enough copies, or maybe the sales dropoff for the second season is so great that the release door is promptly slammed shut. "
Maybe Universal take heed, You also have many pilots of shows that never made it to series and are sitting on your shelf(as do others like warner Bros, Paramount, etc) with name talent that never made it to series. Gather up a 4-6 episode collection of these with clean masters and put those out. That would be a great Brilliant But Cancelled : The Pilots DVD. I could see that an on going series for your company
I can't say this DVD is a credit with the bad workmanship this has
Bennet Pomerantz, AUDIOWORLD
By Eric Paddon (Morristown, NJ)
Universal probably has the greatest archive of classic television programs compared to any other studio. And sadly, no single studio has more consistently turned out poor quality releases of those programs on DVD, with their consistently defective double sided DVD-18 discs, not to mention shamefully abandoning many titles after just releasing one season (Dragnet, Adam-12, Kojak, Hardy Boys to name but a few).
The "Brilliant But Cancelled-Crime Dramas" DVD, ostensibly Universal's opportunity to show off some high quality project of theirs that let's us see premiere episodes of certain short-lived programs, sadly falls into the same category. While the premiere episode of "Johnny Stacatto" with John Cassavetes is presented in great quality and uncut, the premiere episode of "Delvecchio" (a 1976 drama with Judd Hirsch) fails on three levels. (1) The episode is taken from what looks like a 16mm print, dark and fuzzy (2) the episode is clearly a cut syndicated print of the kind used on A+E in the early 90s as the episode running time is a mere 45 minutes when 48-50 was the norm in those days and (3) there are NO OPENING TITLES OR CREDITS! Instead the episode starts cold with the episode title and the guest cast so the uninitiated has no idea who stars in the program and who the supporting cast consists of.
Jeers again to Universal for another sad and shoddy chapter in their ongoing history of bad quality TV on DVD releases.
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Buy Brilliant But Cancelled - Crime Dramas (Delvecchio/ Gideon Oliver/ Johnny Staccato/ Touching Evil) Now
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