Television

By Natasha Samreny

Fans of Airwolf will recognize the DVD as a version of the movie that launched 1980s TV series of the same name. For those who aren't familiar with the show, director Don Bellisario also created Magnum, P.I., JAG, Quantum Leap and more recently NCIS.

Grey's Anatomy had one heck of a year in its seventh season. The season begins with the aftermath of the shooting in the hospital that closed out the previous year. It's taken a toll, particularly on Dr. Webber who is catching a ton of heat for the incident. But it isn't that story arc that dominated the talk of the 2010-11 season over at ABC. It was the long anticipated and critically acclaimed musical episode that stole the spotlight this year.

"It is with profound praise and gratitude that I welcome you new police officers, proud that you have answered the call to service and today join the ranks of New York's finest."

Guess who else answered the call. Tom Selleck has traded in his bright fire-engine-red Ferrari and Hawaiian sun and surf for a desk job at the New York Police Department. And oh, what a desk job it is. CBS has scored a homerun with its freshmen drama series Blue Bloods. It might just have been the best new show of the 2010-11 season.

This has been a huge time for the classic series Hawaii Five-0. The show has enjoyed a rebirth with a brand new version of the show that ended up being one of the best rated new shows of the last television season. The DVD releases have continued to the point where we find ourselves seeing the second to last season now out on DVD. The final season is expected to arrive next year, and we'll be closing the books on one incarnation of the show and continuing on in the same tradition with the new series. It's a good time to be a Hawaii Five-0 fan.

"Within the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit are rapid response teams known as RED CELLS. These nontraditional teams operate outside the bureaucracy of and report solely to the Director of the FBI. "

It started as a back-door pilot last year on an April episode of Criminal Minds called The Flight. We are introduced to the Red Cell Team. The team is headed by one Sam Cooper, played by Forest Whitaker. Sam's talent is that he can really get inside of a killer's head.

“Ride into this world all alone. God takes your soul. You're on your own.
The crow flies straight, a perfect line on the devil's back until you die.
Gotta look this life in the eye”.

When these guys send a message, they don’t use Western Union.

"A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another. If these minds love one another, the home will be as beautiful as a flower garden. But if these minds get out of harmony with one other, it is like a storm that plays havoc with the garden."

To the point, Criminal Minds is very compelling television. Ever since The Silence Of The Lambs and perhaps long before, we have been fascinated by serial killers and the profilers who try to get inside their heads.

"Every story has a beginning, but ours doesn't start the way you might think. Sure, it begins on a street that looks like most and with a family that was, for the most part, normal...ordinary."

Superheroes are big business these days. I'm not just talking the blockbuster tentpole films, either. Television has enjoyed a bit of a resurgence thanks to shows like Heroes. All we've been waiting for was someone to come up with a fresh take on the whole thing.

A Mini-series is probably the hardest thing to review for me. Movies are fairly easy, even the ones that exceed two hours. Television series since they are episodic in nature, one can watch a few, come back and watch a few more. Video Games despite taking triple the effort of an average movie are easy because they are interactive. But most mini-series are usually 3-4 hours long and really can not be broken up. Well for today’s review, multiply that duration by two and we have the Thomas Hardy Collection.

"You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension -- a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into the Twilight Zone."

We finally come to the last year of the original show's run. The hour-long episode experiment didn't last, and the show returned to its traditional half-hour format.