TV NEWS ON SEPTEMBER 1

http://blog.sitcomsonline.com/2012/09/digital-digest-donna-reed-show-season-5.html Welcome to Digital Digest! This week, the news is painfully slow... but we've got a double review weekend with our reviews of The Streets of San Francisco - Season 4 (Volume 1 and Volume 2) as well as Kojak - Season Five. And if you've been following our blog for the past few weeks, you'll know that we have a new blog feature which we're going to unveil this week... keep reading and you'll find our new feature, Follow Me, at the end of today's blog! DIGITAL NEWS We've stumbled upon a very slow news week this week, but there has been one major highlight for fans one of the "original" classic sitcoms. This week, Mary Owen announced on the We Love The Donna Reed Show Facebook page that the fifth season of The Donna Reed Show is scheduled to be released on December 4. Of course, Owen is certainly "in the know" on these issues... after all, she is the daughter of Donna Reed and she is also the one who licensed the DVD rights to MPI! Still, we must stress that while we have no doubt that this set will likely be released soon, MPI has been known to slightly delay some DVD releases, and the December 4 date may not be set in stone yet. But we'll let you know more when we know more! New content has been added to Amazon Prime, and this time, it includes recent episodes of popular NBC series! This week, it was announced that Parks and Recreation, Parenthood, and Friday Night Lights, and more would be added to the service... and they're already available! If you subscribe to the service, which costs about $80 a year (or half that amount if you have a college/university e-mail address), you can watch unlimited streaming episodes of these series. Fans of the classic sitcom Family Ties are waiting to get the final two seasons on DVD, and although we'd like to say that we have good news to report on this, we don't... but you can buy digital copies of the episodes on iTunes! This actually appeared on the service a few weeks ago, but you can finish out your collection with episodes to keep through iTunes. Of course, if you want a streaming option, the episodes are also still available on Netflix. UPCOMING WEEK PREVIEW Tuesday (September 4) brings a flood of DVDs to the market, including a bit of the old and new. We'll start with the new. One of my favorite series (and to be honest, it took me a long time to warm up to it) returns to DVD and Blu-ray, with The Office - Season Eight (DVD, DVD/Blu-ray/Ultraviolet). Another NBC favorite heads to DVD with Parks and Recreation - Season Four. The CBS series 2 Broke Girls debuts on DVD with 2 Broke Girls - The Complete First Season (DVD, Blu-ray). HBO has How to Make it in America - The Complete Second Season (DVD, Blu-ray). We wrap up the new with ABC's release of Grey's Anatomy - The Complete Eighth Season. Now onto the old! Most of it comes from Mill Creek and their releases from the Carsey-Werner library. These releases include Roseanne - The Complete Fifth Season, Roseanne - The Complete Sixth Season, That '70s Show - The Complete Fifth Season, That '70s Show - The Complete Sixth Season, and Grounded for Life - The Complete Series We will have reviews for most (if not all) of these sets in the next few days. BLOG FEATURE REVIEW Blog DVD Review: The Streets of San Francisco - Season 4, Volume 1 and Volume 2 (CBS, $39.98 each) by skees53 Lt. Mike Stone (Karl Malden) and Inspector Steve Keller (Michael Douglas) are back together again one final time in The Streets of San Francisco - Season 4, Volumes 1 and 2! While the fourth season isn't the final season of the series, it is the last season to feature Stone and Keller as the team working together to solve crimes in San Francisco, as the fifth (and final) season saw Douglas leaving the series to go on to bigger things in his own career. But before we get to that season, we still have this season of the classic team of Stone and Keller as the men solving crimes on the streets of San Francisco on these two volumes of the fourth season! As we've done with many other recent DVD season sets split into volumes (with both released on the same day), we're combining both volumes into one review. The sets are pretty similar, and we'll be careful to make any distinctions between each volume. Volume 1 begins with "Poisoned Snow," where a narcotics officer has had too much and puts some cocaine out on the street laced with cyanide. Mark Hamill guest stars. A sniper targets a high-rise building and agrees to stop, for a price, in "The Glass Dart Board." In "No Place to Hide," drug smugglers in a maximum security prison are working to get the wives of the inmates to do their dirty work... or else. In "Men Will Die," the head of a rape survivor organization is out for revenge, and it could be deadly. Vera Miles guest stars. Robert Hegyes and Maurice Evans guest star in "School of Fear," where a former teacher (Evans) realizes he has had enough of delinquent students after an ex-colleague is murdered by one, and decides to take delinquent students hostage in his a school of his own. Meredith Baxter and Gerald McRaney guest star in "Deadly Silence," where Stone's life is at risk after he kills a robber. In "Murder by Proxy," Stone and Keller investigate what a shady land developer may have to do with a neighborhood besieged by robbery and murder. John Ritter and Sorrell Booke guest star. A jewelry store owner is killed by a group of sailors in "Trail of Terror." A jewel heist that resulted in the death of a cop is complicated when a pathological liar who claims to have witnessed the crime in "Web of Lies." Stone and Killer believe that a radio show host (Larry Hagman) killed is pregnant girlfriend in "Dead Air." A missing crate of guns intensifies an investigation of a deadly gang rivalry in "Merchants of Death." In "The Cat's Paw," Stone's latest case mixes too much business with pleasure. Volume 2 begins with "Spooks for Sale," where Stone and Keller are put in the middle of a burglary case involving high-tech espionage and rival businessmen. Tom Selleck guest stars. Stone and Keller investigate the murder of a teacher in "Most Likely to Succeed." In "Police Buff," a wannabe cop with a police scanner becomes a vigilante... with deadly results. Robert Reed guest stars in "The Honorable Profession," where a doctor treats a mortally wounded cop... except he is an imposture and Stone's only witness. A bishop is shot in "Requiem for Murder," but the case is complicated when he protects the shooter. A cop goes undercover as a bookie after his gambler brother is killed by a hitman in "Underground." In "Judgement Day," a string of murdered judges leads to the son of a disbarred lawyer. Stone's investigation of retired circus brothers turns him into a clown in "Clown of Death." In "Superstar," a tough New York City cop comes to San Francisco to pursue his partner's killer. An undocumented immigrant is suspected of killing an immigration officer in "Alien Country." The season ends with "Runaway," where a hunt for a criminal is impeded by the fugitive's teen daughter, who is also searching for her long-lost father. The episodes appear to be unedited, with runtimes as follows: Volume 1 Disc 1: 1. "Poisoned Snow" (50:03) 2. "The Glass Dart Board" (50:05) 3. "No Place to Hide" (50:05) 4. "Men Will Die" (50:02) Disc 2: 5. "School of Fear" (50:04) 6. "Deadly Silence" (50:36) 7. "Murder by Proxy" (50:35) 8. "Trail of Terror" (50:37) Disc 3: 9. "Web of Lies" (50:34) 10. "Dead Air" (50:31) 11. "Merchants of Death" (50:03) 12. "The Cat's Paw" (50:36) Volume 2 Disc 1: 1. "Spooks for Sale" (50:35) 2. "Most Likely to Succeed" (50:35) 3. "Police Buff" (50:35) 4. "Honorable Profession" (50:23) Disc 2: 5. "Requiem for Murder" (50:32) 6. "Underground" (50:34) 7. "Judgment Day" (50:33) 8. "Clown of Death" (50:35) Disc 3: 9. "Superstar" (50:37) 10. "Alien Country" (50:35) 11. "Runaway" (50:34) We've got a Viva case for the sets once again (which I'm sure will continue for the final season when that one is released in a few weeks), with each set featuring a different photo of Stone and Keller on the cover. Volume 1 uses a red color scheme for the background behind the series title, while Volume 2 uses a blue color scheme. The back of each case describes the episodes on each volume, and gives a few episode snapshots. Inside each case, you'll find the three discs, which have no artwork other than the series logo on a gray background. Episode titles, descriptions, and airdates are printed inside the case, as is typical for CBS releases. The menus on the set are like the previous releases. The main menu on both volumes has Stone and Keller on them, with videos playing in the background along with the theme song. Options from the main menu include Play All, Episodes, and Subtitles. Once you select Episodes, you get an animated transition to the list of episodes, which has an episode snapshot in the background. Chapters are placed throughout each episode at all of the appropriate places. Once again, I feel that CBS has hit audio and video perfection (or close to it) with these episodes. While the episodes aren't perfect (what is?), they do look really good and I don't think that there is really anything to complain about. Of course, the entire series has been remastered in HD, and these episodes really show that. The mono audio is very loud and clear, without any real issues. And each episode contains English subtitles. We don't have any special features yet again for the series. Once again, we have two more decent releases of a season of the series, but of course, we're still without special features. But it is great to see that they have truly cleaned up these episodes to as close to perfection as is likely even possible. We're only a few weeks away from the fifth (and final) season of the series, so it won't be long until we'll have the entire series on DVD. The fifth season has already been remastered into HD, so I don't believe that there will be any problem with quality on that set either. That there were some reunion movies for this series well after the final season, so hopefully we'll see those somewhere along the way as well. If you're a fan of '70s police dramas, you're certain to enjoy this set.