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HTF DVD REVIEW: The Streets of San Francisco, Season 2, Volume 2 (1 Viewer)

Matt Hough

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The Streets of San Francisco: Season 2, Volume 2
Directed by Seymour Robbie et al

Studio: Paramount
Year: 1973-1974
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Running Time: 621 minutes
Rating: NR
Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 mono English, Spanish
Subtitles: English, Spanish
MSRP: $ 42.99

Release Date: November 11, 2008
Review Date: October 29, 2008


The Series

3.5/5

The second season of Quinn Martin’s The Streets of San Francisco was the watershed year for the series. Not only did the ratings leap appreciably, but the series was recognized by three primary Emmy nominations: Best Dramatic Series, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actor. Though it didn’t win in any of those categories, the show really seemed to have found its audience during this second season and was turning out very involving, highly watchable episodes.

The series is actually a fairly standard crime drama. There are only two real mysteries among the twelve episodes represented on this three disc set with shows from the second half of season two, both of them fairly routine and easily solved. However, all of the plots feature solid police work by thorough professionals who are less flashy than some other prime time police detectives but who get the job done and often with some welcome joviality. The team is led by twenty year veteran of the force Lieutenant Mike Stone (Karl Malden) with college educated Steve Keller (Michael Douglas) as his eager-to-please partner. Together the two men investigate cases ranging from runaways from an abusive uncle involved in a homicide to Stone‘s being framed for murdering an undercover cop.

Producer Quinn Martin always kept a steady stream of top notch Hollywood talent employed in guest roles in his shows. Among the guest stars in season 2’s second half of episodes are Jeanette Nolan, Barry Livingstone, Larry Wilcox, Kent Smith, Ruth McDevitt, Denver Pyle, Burt Mustin, William Smith, Denny Miller, Tyne Daly, Ida Lupino, Jock Mahoney, Don Stroud, Charles Martin Smith, Celeste Holm, Nick Nolte, Claude Akins, Lola Falana, Barry Sullivan, Glenn Corbett, Sam Elliott, Jim Davis, Noah Beery, Robert Hooks, Harold Gould, Greg Mullavey, and Rosemary Murphy.

As usual with Quinn Martin productions, the episodes fall into a very traditional pattern: four acts and an epilog. Here is the rundown of the twelve episodes from this second half of season two:

1 - The Runaways
2 - Winterkill
3 - Most Feared in the Jungle
4 - Commitment
5 - Chapel of the Damned
6 - Blockade
7 - Crossfire
8 - A String of Puppets
9 - Inferno
10 - The Hard Breed
11 - Rampage
12 - Death and the Favored Few


Video Quality

4/5

The show’s original 1.33:1 aspect ratio is faithfully delivered in these DVD transfers. Though there are random white specks and an occasional bit of debris, most of the episodes feature a warm color palette with excellent flesh tones and very good sharpness. The lack of anamorphic enhancement results in some mild aliasing in a couple of episodes, but it’s never intrusive. Each episode has been divided into 7 chapters.

Audio Quality

3/5

The Dolby Digital 2.0 mono track is decoded by Dolby Prologic into the center channel. Though dialog is clear, occasionally high pitched voices and other sound effects do exhibit some distortion. There were a couple of instances of flutter in the track, too. In all, a fairly typical audio track for its era.

Special Features

0/5

Apart from previews of other Paramount TV releases such as Perry Mason - 50th Anniversary Edition, Mannix, Cannon, and Jake & the Fat Man, there are no bonuses with the set.


In Conclusion

3.5/5 (not an average)

The second half of Season 2 of Quinn Martin’s The Streets of San Francisco is every bit as entertaining as the first half. It’s an above average police drama that fans will enjoy seeing again looking very nice indeed for a show of its age.


Matt Hough
Charlotte, NC
 

Rex Bachmann

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MattH. wrote (post #1):


"Run them" where? Isn't it curious that American tv-viewers will normally complain to high heaven about the ever creeping advance of commercialism in their contemporary tv-programming environment and go to great and sometimes expensive technological lengths to circumvent it, yet "pine" to see commercials from long dead programs in their homevideo viewing? A stymying contradiction. Oy vey! (Okay, I know the AE commercials postdated the show, but still . . .)
 

Corey3rd

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I dare you to find a moment in all my columns that I have whined about commercials. My reviews always make note if they have the vintage ads featuring cast or characters. That's the reason to grab the Beverly Hillbillies sets.

The AE commercials played on Malden's character from Streets.

And without commercials, we wouldn't have TV. They pay for the programming so you can't complain. Why not pine to see the ads that were made for the show? Was there an episode of Hogan's Heroes more freakish than Carol Channing sneaking in the camp to sell Dream Whip to the boys?
 

Rex Bachmann

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Corey3rd wrote (post #4):


Here you've lost me again. I don't know the first thing about the trivia of Hogan's Heroes. When I became old enough to have the choice to see it in syndication, I looked at it once or twice, and found it to be dumb, dumb, dumb, unfunny, and offputting, the Gilligan's Island/McHale's Navy of WW II Nazi concentration-camp humor. So, your references are going over my head (and into the wild blue yonder, where they belong).
 

Corey3rd

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Rex Bachmann said:
Corey3rd wrote (post #4):

I'm unclear what you are claiming here. By "the reason to grab the Beverly Hillbillies sets", do you mean specifically for the---[ahem!]---"vintage" commercials? (Oy!)

Seeing how he Hillbillies are on TVLand and WGN, the average viewer has zero reason to spring for the second season set. However the advantage of the DVD set is the original sponsor ads and the sponsor codas that featured references to the episode. It's what makes them special vs. just duping them off TV.

So you have zero sense of how a network pays for a show using advertising revenue? That in the early days a single sponsor paid to produce the show and get it on the network? They would have their name in the credits and have the stars produce spots? How Groucho Marx had the sponsor's name on the set? Of course years later when it appeared in syndication, all references to the original sponsor were scrubbed? But if Kelloggs hadn't sponsored the Andy Griffith show, they wouldn't be whistling down to the fishing hole.

Hogan's Heroes is not about a Concentration camp.
 

Rick Thompson

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The new set of "Streets" sounds good. I'll put it on my list of Paramount shows to buy after they fix the botch they made of "The Fugitive" season two.

Until then, I'm boycotting CBS/Paramount.
 

TravisR

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That makes no sense to me. I can understand boycotting The Fugitive set but boycotting their other classic TV offerings just helps them sell worse and makes the studio think there's an even smaller market for classic TV.
 

Stephen Bowie

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Or, you can look at it as taking money out of your wallet to pay for more replacement scores. It's truly a glass half full / half empty situation -- there's no right answer.

Regarding Rex's question: Yes, "The FBI" followed the formula of emphasizing the (sometimes sympathetic) villain's point of view, even more rigidly than "Streets." One of the "FBI" writers described the QM crime show formula to me as a "V pattern": alternating scenes between the criminals and the police, who converge only in the final act.
 

Rex Bachmann

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Corey3rd wrote (post #6):


Alright, then, a "prisoner-of-war camp", though, by almost all accounts, with a few showcase exceptions, there was no practical difference under the Nazi regime. Laugh that one off.
 

TravisR

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If there's no controversy (like a replaced musical score) and a release doesn't sell, the only conclusion that Paramount will come to is that no one is interested in the title. I don't care what people do or don't do with their money but if they boycott a release that they want over another title, they'll eventually end up cutting off their nose to spite their face.
 

Corey3rd

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Billy Wilder found humor in the subject matter of Allied troops in a POW camp.

Unless they were positioned in the show like the Hillbillies sponsor moments any ads featuring the stars should be in the bonus feature section.
 

Rex Bachmann

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Corey3rd wrote (post #12):


Stalag 17 was not an adle-pated, silly sitcom. Humor within drama is one thing; inanity is another. One confronts the evil with irony in the face of helplessness, while the other utterly trivializes it.
 

Matt Hough

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That review copy came in today. I likely won't be getting to it until next weekend, but that review is upcoming.
 

Aryn Leroux

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Sounds Good, I look forward to giving it a read.
htf_images_smilies_smile.gif
 

Corey3rd

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Jakob the Liar and Life Is Beautiful plus The Day the Clown Cried

Quit hating on Hogan.

But back to the goodness of tossing in an American Express ad with Karl. The guy was able to get plenty of extra days out of that hat and trenchcoat. It belongs on the set as much as the Flintstones Fruity Peebles ads.

I'm more up to watching this boxset since Paramount shows are no longer on RTN.
 

jdee28

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Unfortunately, I think you're going to have a very long wait before they ever fix what they did to The Fugitive Season Two...
 

Rex Bachmann

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Corey3rd wrote (post #17):




I'll be sure to keep you in mind the next time I sit down to watch an SoSF-episode along with a bowl of milk and my "Flinstones Fruity Peebles". :crazy:
 

Corey3rd

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You're hating on Hogan.

and disrespecting Karl since you have no desire to see his AmEx ads.

Best part of this collection so far is seeing Charles Martin Smith as a roadside rapist/murderer. He could have been a menace to Candy Clark.
 

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