New TV on DVD: ER, My Two Dads, Man From U.N.C.L.E., East of Eden
The boob-tube version of Steinbeck's classic starring Jane Seymour is especially worth checking out.
'ER - The Complete Tenth Season' -
Warner Home Video
Considering how long it took 1969 Harvard Medical School grad Michael Crichton to get his drama about his grueling hospital experience on camera, it's amazing that ER is still going strong. (It beat 30 Rock last week, 8.7 million viewers to 6.3 million.) And the week's big DVD release is ER: The Complete Tenth Season ($49.98). Considering how vehemently he hated the place (the real one, not the TV one), even when I interviewed him a quarter-century later, when he simultaneously had the Number One TV show, movie, and book on the charts (a feat only equaled by Tim Allen), it's amazing how beloved and lovable the ER milieu became. The tenth is an excellent season to feast on, marred by John Carter's boring, jarring sojourn in Africa yet enlivened by the addition of Dr. Neela. Another reanimated dinosaur roars into view: My Two Dads: The Complete First Season ($34.99), Paul Reiser's high-concept, poorly marketed, late '80s sitcom about a teenage girl whose mom is out of the picture, so she's raised by two guys who might be her father, right-wing money guy Reiser and left-wing artsy guy Greg Evigan, wearing a sensitive beard like the dad on Family Ties. If you can endure the period sweaters and big female hairstyles, it's aged pretty well. You seldom go wrong buying anything from Shout Factory -- they're a video art museum. I wish I could say that the 1983 reunion movie (aired on TV), The Return of the Man From U.N.C.L.E. ($19.99) was on a par with the classic spy series, but it's a cut below, despite the presence of not-that-decayed stars Robert Vaughn and David McCallum, plus The Avengers's Patrick MacNee (who told me he tried and tried to get gorgeous serial dater costar Diana Rigg to quit being dear platonic friends and go to bed with him, but she just smiled and said, "You're not intelligent enough."). It won't bitterly disappoint, but you're better off spending ten times as much for The Man From U.N.C.L.E: The Complete Series ($199.99). One question: how come it's called "United Network Command for Law and Enforcement?" Why not just "Law Enforcement?" In yet another reanimated TV marvel, the James Dean movie classic becomes a sprawling, six-plus hour Jane Seymour miniseries in East of Eden ($59.99), which packs in more of John Steinbeck's book but still pales compared to the weirder, tighter flick (whose star Julie Harris told me James Dean almost killed himself leaping off the Ferris wheel, because he wasn't wearing glasses and couldn't see the ground -- he was blind as a bat without them, like John Lennon, who was equally image-conscious). Still, the TV version won an Emmy for art direction -- it's glossy -- and Golden Globes for best miniseries and best actress. Though the Globes were laughed at back then, before their telecast started influencing the Oscars. Most Popular Stories
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