Callan — Set 2
The Fourth Season
Acorn Media releasing a Thames Television production (now a part of FremantleMedia Enterprises,) originally broadcast on England’s ITV. Four standard definition DVDs containing thirteen episodes, full-screen 4x3 aspect ratio, shot on in a mix of PAL (studio) and film (location) sources. Total run time, about 11 hours, 3 minutes, with an average program time of 51 minutes. Dolby Digital sound, monaural audio. Not captioned or subtitled. Larger slip-case holds four half-thickness DVD cases, each with one disc. Episodes 5 and 11 have an interview-style live commentary from Edward Woodward (Callan) recorded for the DVDs.
Each disc takes approximately 26 seconds from loading the disc to either a skipable Acorn Media trailer showing highlights of English television (first disc) or to the menu (remaining discs.)
Suggested retail price for this set is $59.99. Please also note a warning from Acorn Media: contains nudity and violent situations.
The Program — •••½
Callan is something of a strange bird. What Acorn Media calls Set Two consists of the thirteen episodes that made up the fourth broadcast season of Callan. These originally aired in March through May of 1972. This season was also the second season to be produced in color. Callan stars Edward Woodward in the title role, with Russell Hunter, William Squire, and Geoffrey Chater.
Callan, the title character, is not a nice man; a professional killer for the English “Section” responsible for counter-intelligence. He and his associates spend their time playing cat-and-mouse with various agents, diplomats, defectors from foreign countries, and possible defectors from England. Most of the people with whom he works are not ‘nice men,’ either. Set in the late 1960s and early 1970s, most episodes have a primary story, but are still a part of broader story-‘arcs’ that span two or more episodes. It is also an exploration of what it is to be in the English civil service, as well as some of the psychological issues of being professional ‘not nice men.’
I find it curious as I watch these episodes that at times, I find myself sometimes almost getting bored with them — except they’re quite fascinating in their own right, and a bit later, I’m spinning up the next episode and looking forward to it.
The Video — ••½
How to evaluate the video quality? Consider that this was shot on a mix of 2-inch quadrature video tape and film (for location work.) Film was transferred to tape, and then the whole mess was edited with stone-knives and bear-skins. Fancy machines did exist to control machines for editing, but there is a very good chance that this may have been edited by painting fine iron-filings suspended in carbon tetrachloride on the tape to show the video head paths, find the vertical retrace with a microscope, and then literally cut and splice the tape. The tape machines themselves were bordering on nightmarish; requiring regular and extensive maintenance. The late generation Image Orthicon or early generation Vidicon tube cameras had major limitations and artifacts — image retention, comets, and, of course, dealing with trying to keep three rastering sensor-tubes in registration, not unlike dealing with a three-tube video projector — except without the easy methods for maintaining that registration, and quite a lot of drift as they ‘warmed up.’
[Major qualifier alert!] Overall, the picture is excellent, in an archival sense, for video of the time. While it shows smearing, drop-outs, head-switch noise, and the like, it is still quite a good picture, and maintains the integrity of what the production designers intended. While some of this could have been cleaned up via some extensive time in a colorist’s suite (much of the English television of the era often seems to have a yellow-green bias,) and with some good noise-reduction processing, it perhaps defeats the purpose. This was the television of the era, and even with its flaws — or perhaps because of its flaws — reveals how they worked within the limits, or pushed the limits, to deliver the story in the manner that they wished. I suspect, for example, that with the color cast, it may have been in response to the performance of the phosphors used in the displays of the early 1970s. Picture quality also tends to vary, perhaps due to the age and use of the elements themselves.
The location shooting was done on a relatively high speed, probably 16mm, reversal film. As such, the out-of-doors shots show a great deal of film-grain and/or color noise from the primitive film-chains of the era — and a lack of the smearing, comet-trails, and ghosting from the imaging tubes. As always, one picks the best tools for the job, accepting or working with the various compromises that must be made.
In short, the picture is perfectly suited toward the job — just do not ask too much of it, such as watching it on a huge screen and expecting it to look like HDTV — it ain’t. However, it does not interfere with the telling of the story. Even printed on the back of the box: “[d]ue to the age of these programs and the improved resolution that DVD provides, you may notice occasional flaws in the image and audio on this DVD presentation that were beyond our ability to correct from the original materials.”
The Audio — ••½
Like the video, the audio is a relic of its time. Monaural, and produced for working within the limits of the PAL broadcast space, it is generally not bad. There are some bits of high frequency and/or other noise here and there. Also, given that there was probably little-to-no dialog re-recording, the fact that the audio recording itself is invisible, is fairly impressive. It does, however, result in some odd shifts in dialog quality here and there. However, apart from some of the accents, the dialog is generally fairly intelligible.
Extras
Two of the episodes, numbers 5 and 11, have interviews with Edward Woodward (Callan,) recorded in parallel with the program. Subjects range from the other actors, the stories, comparisons of teleplay production between the 1970s and today, to fiddly-bits about how certain shots were constructed. Also included is a biography of Edward Woodward. I suspect that while some might have argued for more, cooler heads may have prevailed in trying to not spread too little content over too much time.
The advertised Woodward biography is on Disc 1, and consists of about 9 still pages, including a sketch of what Mr. Woodward has done, where he won his awards, and a ‘selected filmography.’
In The End — •••½
I had no idea what to expect — not really — when I received this set. Technical limitations of the era aside, I’ve quite enjoyed watching this program. It does tend to ask the viewer to think about what he or she is watching. It does not try to insult the visitor by explaining everything, which does add for some complication: ‘for those who came in late,’ it is a catch-as-catch-can; just try to catch up quickly. Not having seen any of the other three series, I was able to catch up fairly quickly on my own.
The Fourth Season
Acorn Media releasing a Thames Television production (now a part of FremantleMedia Enterprises,) originally broadcast on England’s ITV. Four standard definition DVDs containing thirteen episodes, full-screen 4x3 aspect ratio, shot on in a mix of PAL (studio) and film (location) sources. Total run time, about 11 hours, 3 minutes, with an average program time of 51 minutes. Dolby Digital sound, monaural audio. Not captioned or subtitled. Larger slip-case holds four half-thickness DVD cases, each with one disc. Episodes 5 and 11 have an interview-style live commentary from Edward Woodward (Callan) recorded for the DVDs.
Each disc takes approximately 26 seconds from loading the disc to either a skipable Acorn Media trailer showing highlights of English television (first disc) or to the menu (remaining discs.)
Suggested retail price for this set is $59.99. Please also note a warning from Acorn Media: contains nudity and violent situations.
The Program — •••½
Callan is something of a strange bird. What Acorn Media calls Set Two consists of the thirteen episodes that made up the fourth broadcast season of Callan. These originally aired in March through May of 1972. This season was also the second season to be produced in color. Callan stars Edward Woodward in the title role, with Russell Hunter, William Squire, and Geoffrey Chater.
Callan, the title character, is not a nice man; a professional killer for the English “Section” responsible for counter-intelligence. He and his associates spend their time playing cat-and-mouse with various agents, diplomats, defectors from foreign countries, and possible defectors from England. Most of the people with whom he works are not ‘nice men,’ either. Set in the late 1960s and early 1970s, most episodes have a primary story, but are still a part of broader story-‘arcs’ that span two or more episodes. It is also an exploration of what it is to be in the English civil service, as well as some of the psychological issues of being professional ‘not nice men.’
I find it curious as I watch these episodes that at times, I find myself sometimes almost getting bored with them — except they’re quite fascinating in their own right, and a bit later, I’m spinning up the next episode and looking forward to it.
The Video — ••½
How to evaluate the video quality? Consider that this was shot on a mix of 2-inch quadrature video tape and film (for location work.) Film was transferred to tape, and then the whole mess was edited with stone-knives and bear-skins. Fancy machines did exist to control machines for editing, but there is a very good chance that this may have been edited by painting fine iron-filings suspended in carbon tetrachloride on the tape to show the video head paths, find the vertical retrace with a microscope, and then literally cut and splice the tape. The tape machines themselves were bordering on nightmarish; requiring regular and extensive maintenance. The late generation Image Orthicon or early generation Vidicon tube cameras had major limitations and artifacts — image retention, comets, and, of course, dealing with trying to keep three rastering sensor-tubes in registration, not unlike dealing with a three-tube video projector — except without the easy methods for maintaining that registration, and quite a lot of drift as they ‘warmed up.’
[Major qualifier alert!] Overall, the picture is excellent, in an archival sense, for video of the time. While it shows smearing, drop-outs, head-switch noise, and the like, it is still quite a good picture, and maintains the integrity of what the production designers intended. While some of this could have been cleaned up via some extensive time in a colorist’s suite (much of the English television of the era often seems to have a yellow-green bias,) and with some good noise-reduction processing, it perhaps defeats the purpose. This was the television of the era, and even with its flaws — or perhaps because of its flaws — reveals how they worked within the limits, or pushed the limits, to deliver the story in the manner that they wished. I suspect, for example, that with the color cast, it may have been in response to the performance of the phosphors used in the displays of the early 1970s. Picture quality also tends to vary, perhaps due to the age and use of the elements themselves.
The location shooting was done on a relatively high speed, probably 16mm, reversal film. As such, the out-of-doors shots show a great deal of film-grain and/or color noise from the primitive film-chains of the era — and a lack of the smearing, comet-trails, and ghosting from the imaging tubes. As always, one picks the best tools for the job, accepting or working with the various compromises that must be made.
In short, the picture is perfectly suited toward the job — just do not ask too much of it, such as watching it on a huge screen and expecting it to look like HDTV — it ain’t. However, it does not interfere with the telling of the story. Even printed on the back of the box: “[d]ue to the age of these programs and the improved resolution that DVD provides, you may notice occasional flaws in the image and audio on this DVD presentation that were beyond our ability to correct from the original materials.”
The Audio — ••½
Like the video, the audio is a relic of its time. Monaural, and produced for working within the limits of the PAL broadcast space, it is generally not bad. There are some bits of high frequency and/or other noise here and there. Also, given that there was probably little-to-no dialog re-recording, the fact that the audio recording itself is invisible, is fairly impressive. It does, however, result in some odd shifts in dialog quality here and there. However, apart from some of the accents, the dialog is generally fairly intelligible.
Extras
Two of the episodes, numbers 5 and 11, have interviews with Edward Woodward (Callan,) recorded in parallel with the program. Subjects range from the other actors, the stories, comparisons of teleplay production between the 1970s and today, to fiddly-bits about how certain shots were constructed. Also included is a biography of Edward Woodward. I suspect that while some might have argued for more, cooler heads may have prevailed in trying to not spread too little content over too much time.
The advertised Woodward biography is on Disc 1, and consists of about 9 still pages, including a sketch of what Mr. Woodward has done, where he won his awards, and a ‘selected filmography.’
In The End — •••½
I had no idea what to expect — not really — when I received this set. Technical limitations of the era aside, I’ve quite enjoyed watching this program. It does tend to ask the viewer to think about what he or she is watching. It does not try to insult the visitor by explaining everything, which does add for some complication: ‘for those who came in late,’ it is a catch-as-catch-can; just try to catch up quickly. Not having seen any of the other three series, I was able to catch up fairly quickly on my own.
