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'The Golden Age of Television'/Criterion
The title is no hyperbole: For a brief period in the 1950s, live television was the vibrant center of original American drama. This collection features eight landmark productions from that short-lived era, from the intimate original "Marty" (1953), written by Paddy Chayefsky and starring Rod Steiger as the lonely working-class butcher, to the original "Days of Wine and Roses" (1958), starring Cliff Robertson and dynamically directed by John Frankenheimer. In between are the bumpkin comedy "No Time for Sergeants" (1955) that made Andy Griffith a star, "Bang the Drum Slowly" (1956) with a pre-stardom Paul Newman learning his craft in front of the camera, "A Wind From the South" (1955) starring Julie Harris, and three brilliant shows by Rod Serling: "Patterns" (1955), his dissection of corporate culture; the poignant "Requiem for a Heavyweight" (1956); and the searing show-business drama "The Comedian" (1957) with Mickey Rooney. These shows are a unique mix of theater, cinema and television, defined by powerful writing and an intense yet intimate storytelling style that transformed technical restrictions into creative opportunities.

These landmark productions are all mastered from kinescope recordings filmed live directly from a TV monitor. It's low-fidelity, and good monitors will reveal the visual distortions of filming from a cathode-ray screen. But the dramas are so involving that you get past the surface weaknesses and into the intensity of the productions. They were all revived and rebroadcast on the 1970s PBS showcase "The Golden Age of Television," and Criterion's release includes the original introductions from this series (featuring interviews with directors, writers and cast members), plus commentary by four directors (originally recorded for the mid-1990s laser disc release) and a fine booklet with essays and notes by TV historian Ron Simon. Three discs in a foldout digipak.
           ©Acorn
Life on Mars: Series 2
"My name is Sam Tyler. I had an accident, and I woke up in 1973. Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time?" The second and final season of the great British time-warp cop drama (not to be confused with the frustrating American TV remake of the same name) finally answers that question. The strong, satisfying conclusion ties up the mysteries with a most unexpected journey that leaves the show with enough enigma to reverberate long after it ends. Eight episodes on four discs in a box set of four thinpak cases, plus behind-the-scenes footage of select episodes and two featurettes: "The Return of Life on Mars" and "The End of Life on Mars."
          ©Warner
Superman: The Complete Animated Series
After the successful revival of "Batman" as a stylized cartoon noir, "Superman" was the logical follow-up. Tim Daly voices both Superman and Clark Kent (the mild-mannered reporter and his secret identity) for this incarnation, produced with the same stylized design but with an altogether sunnier, brighter look, befitting the All-American hero from Krypton, the ultimate immigrant patriot. The show ran for three seasons and 54 episodes. The seven-disc set is collected in a double-wide case with hinged trays and includes all the commentary tracks and featurettes from the previous releases, plus a bonus disc with the exclusive documentary "The Despot Darkseid: A Villain Worthy of Superman."
            ©Paramount
Hogan's Heroes: The Komplete Series, Kommandant's Kollection
Bob Crane is the smart-talking, fun-loving American officer running a local branch of American Intelligence built inside a German POW camp. The sitcom was inspired by "Stalag 17" but played for pure sitcom farce, with Hogan humiliating the Nazi war machine week after week, and the show ran for six hit seasons and earned multiple Emmy nominations. Includes 168 episodes on 27 discs in a box set of paperboard slip-sleeves, plus a bonus disc of exclusive supplements, including an extended version of the pilot, archival clips with the cast (including footage from the Emmy Awards), an episode with a German-dubbed soundtrack, and new interviews with co-star Richard Dawson and producer Albert S. Ruddy.
             ©Fox
It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia: A Very Sunny Christmas
Here's a Christmas gift that only the cast of this decidedly un-PC cable comedy could deliver. This direct-to-DVD special is a dysfunctional holiday party with a twisted "Christmas Carol" tour through holidays past and present, a naked Danny DeVito squirming out of a couch (imagine the birth of a diseased troll) and a Rankin-Bass stop-motion Christmas massacre (complete with severed limbs and bleeding wounds). And they drop F-bombs into pretty much every scene. Includes a seven-minute featurette, deleted scenes and a sing-along, and the Blu-ray edition features an exclusive introduction that looks like it was shot on an archaic home video camera.

Sean Axmaker is a film critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and a DVD columnist for MSN Entertainment, and a contributing writer to GreenCine.com, Turner Classic Movies Online, Parallax View and Asian Cult Cinema, among other publications. You can find links to all of this and more on his shamelessly self-promoting blog

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