Special Category

For nine seasons and several TV-movies afterwards, Raymond Burr was Los Angeles based defense attorney Perry Mason. This character's verbal gymnasitcs and uncanny hounding for evidence makes his famous winning streaks seem not just plausible but rather entertaining to behold. His adventures have been well-reviewed by myself and my reviewing compadre Gino on this very site (https://upcomingdiscs.com/?s=perry+mason).

Well, it is that time of the year when we must see what the blood suckers, shape shifters, wolves and the faeries are up to. No, I am not talking about the State of the Union address; I’m talking about the latest season of True Blood. Season Five to be exact. In these twelve episodes, we again travel to the land of Bon Temps, Louisiana and see exactly what delicious trouble and dastardly deeds our characters can get themselves tied up in.

Jersey Shore finally comes to an end. Of course, there are spinoffs and TV specials and TMZ reports and aaaarggh! We're never going to escape them are we?! This is an Uncensored version of the season so instead of 'beeps' we get to hear the versatility of the f-word and other assorted curse words that are flung across rooms and dance floors as these bronzed oddities continue their bitter stalemate against maturity and class.

 Worlds Away is the tale of a young woman named Mia who happens across a debilitated circus, where she is enchanted by the performance of an Aerialist. Mid-performance, both she and the aerialist are sucked into a parallel universe that is littered with strange, seemingly supernatural circuses. Both are lead from performance to performance in an attempt to escape, or at least find each other.

(I have covered the first season on this site already so this review shall begin with that one then segway into new write-up for Season 2):

A successful writing team, who also happen to be a married couple, are the creators of an award-winning show in the UK that has just completed after four seasons. An American network wishes to create a US version of the show. The couple are flown to LA, put up in a lavish mansion and are introduced to the Hollywood method of creating television…and it nearly destroys them.

In the same fashion as Batman Begins, Casino Royale the 21st Bond film ït starts over the franchise with a new outlook. Daniel Craig stars as James Bond in this film based on the 1953 novel by Ian Fleming, which hopes to rejuvenate the series by getting rid of some of franchise trademarks as well as the gadgets they supply. Grossing nearly 600 million dollars worldwide, Casino Royale was commercially a great success, but does the new bond fall short of past expectations, or does this reboot on the series provide for good cinema?

I’ll say this about a program that has remained  consistent in quality for twenty seasons…it makes for challenging reviews. Talking about each season of Gunsmoke is difficult in that you either write briefly to try to avoid redundancies, but might seem too hasty, or you have to labour over each episode, in which case, you’re only going to have hardcore fans paying attention. Since this website has touched on previous seasons: ( https://upcomingdiscs.com/?s=gunsmoke ) I shall opt for the former option, and hope y’all out there catch that I’m not being hasty…but respect a show that warrants no fresh complaints after 7 years a-runnin’ thus far.

Stemming from a backdoor pilot episode within the series Girlfriends, The Game is a comedy series about a woman (played by Tia Mowry Hardict) who gave up her career as a doctor in light of the success of her boyfriend's being a star athlete (this is the first pang of misogyny, with more to come). This is the show's fifth season, which is its second after being canceled by CW and revived by BET.

So you say Shipping Wars was not enough Waring for you? Are you back for more? Alright, let us dig through the review pile and get some more action for you reality show freaks. How about Hamster Wars? Okay, okay perhaps Paper Airplane Wars? Never mind, I can not stand paper cuts. Ah I have the perfect one here, a spinoff of one of the most popular reality shows out there. Its name is Storage Wars: Texas. Well yee-haw and get me my cowboy hat. This might be a hootenanny after all.

This is the eighth and final season of this slightly offbeat crime drama. Nothing has brought me more joy than seeing that instantly recognizable CBS packaging that is used for older programs being revived onto DVD releases such as Perry Mason or Barnaby Jones. Now Mannix has the opportunity to wow me as I have been before. Will this be a pleasant experience or surprisingly disappointing?