issue 03 | October 2013

volume one

Gothic Ad_DVD The Darkside Mag 210x297 v2.indd 1 12/09/2013 14:29

contents

The CTVT Year in Reviewby Hugh David

Legends of Cult TV: Verity Lambert by John Bull

The Death Slot: Blade – The Series by Greg Porter

The Vidiot’s Guide To: The Bottle Show by Mark Bowsher

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Zoetrope: Black Lagoon by Hugh David

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Cult TV Times Vol. Issue 3Cover Art: ©2013 Lauren Skaggs. tuxedos

N. news Z. zoetropeF. features R. reviews C. competition

The Whole Story: Hannibal by Joel Meadows

contents

Breaking Bad: The Complete Seriesby Jayne Nelson

Castle: The Complete Fifth Season by Jayne Nelson

BFI Gothic Season:Dead Of Night by Greg Porter

Arrow:The Complete First Season by Greg Porter

BFI Gothic Season: Robin Redbreast by Greg Porter

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N. news Z. zoetropeF. features R. reviews

The X-Files Movies: Twinpack by Hugh David

Cowboy Bebop: Complete Collection by Dr. Rayna Denison

Space Brothers: The Complete Series by John Bull

Online

C. competition

Doctor Who: 50th Anniversary Special: The Day of the Doctor 3D Cinema Screening by Hugh David

Event

Cult TV Times Vol. Issue 3

Published by Boomstick MediaPublisher: Neville KingEditor: Hugh David (hugh@culttvtimes.com)Art Director: Thomas Ludewig (viraflay@googlemail.com)Web Guru: Gareth Edwards (gareth@culttvtimes.com)For advertising queries please contact: advertising@culttvtimes.com© Cult TV Times: November 2013

Last issue I said let’s talk about sex on-screen this issue. There’s been a lot of it around lately, but most of it has either been gratuitous or about pseudo-characterisation, painfully so. Still, it’s great to see shows like Lost Girl, Maison Close and Masters of Sex moving forward in more adult ways, in classic formats like the fantasy and historical series. Instead, let’s talk a little about endings and beginnings.I have a serious confession to make, especially as the editor of CTVT: I have

not watched the final seasons of most of my favourite shows over the last 25 years. The list is long: Homicide (although I did watch the final TV movie), NYPD Blue, Buffy, Angel, Babylon 5 (although I did catch the finale late on Channel 4 one Thursday night), Star Trek: Voyager, Farscape, Battlestar Galactica (remake), Lost, Without a Trace, and In Plain Sight are just some of the shows I have yet to finish. Clearly, I have a problem with closure; I don’t want to say goodbye, but also, British TV airings of several of these often made it impossible to keep up. Thankfully, DVD, Blu-ray and Netflix are around to help now, but sets often sit on my shelf or playlist while I move on to new shows.This was not a problem when I was younger. I watched the season finales

of The A-Team, Magnum, Cheers, Crime Story, Miami Vice, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine before succumbing to what must be some sort of deeply-rooted issue. It is almost as if some sort of switch was thrown in my head; admittedly the finales above are hardly the finest episodes of their respective series, so maybe I’ve been avoiding possibly unsatisfying ends? Or is there something more at work here?All of this reflection has been prompted by the ridiculous levels of scrutiny

and vitriol heaped upon the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor, whose 3D cinema screening is reviewed in this issue. So few shows that aren’t soaps have lasted this long; what exactly did people expect or want from this episode, that they should spew forth such hatred?There are, as there have always been, many people opposed to the

existence of Doctor Who; indeed, since its birth, as Mark Gatiss & co. so beautifully reminded us in the sublime An Adventure in Space and Time. They have forced it to change to survive, or killed off, more than once before. For all the money it has placed in the BBC’s coffers, it has been an embarrassment to many in that venerable institution for much of those 50 years. And yet it is still here with us now. Maybe, in the end, because it offers more than mere finality, or the status quo; it offers hope of change and renewal, of future stories still to be told to audiences not yet born. That, at this time and place, is a very good thing indeed.

Hugh David [ Editor ]

"No endings, only new beginnings...”

On the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who, John Bull profiles its founding producer

Verity Lambert

Verity LambertImage courtesy of Mirrorpic

n the 30th November 1958 the latest episode of Armchair Theatre began its broadcast on ITV. Featuring a different TV play each week, the series had become a firm fixture of Sunday night television, particularly since Canadian producer Sydney Newman took over in 1956.

Newman, a man always looking to push the boundaries of television, had shifted Armchair away from classical adaptations towards new works, often by younger writers. That night’s broadcast was no exception with The Underground, written by James Forsyth and starring Donald Houston and Gareth Jones, telling the story of a group of survivors who had found shelter in the London Underground after a nuclear apocalypse.

As was often the case with TV at the time, Armchair was not recorded but broadcast live. This could sometimes prove taxing for both cast and crew but all seemed to be going to plan that night until about half way through. Then disaster struck.

“During transmission, a little group of us was talking on camera while awaiting the arrival of Gareth Jones's character,” the actor Peter Bowles, who was also in the cast, would later recall. “We could see him coming up towards us, but we saw him fall. We had no idea what had happened, but he certainly wasn't coming our way.”

Finding themselves suddenly Jones-less, the cast improvised their way through the scene whilst unbeknownst to them off camera, at just 33, Peter Jones died of a fatal heart attack. Behind the scenes, in the few precious minutes granted by an advert break, Newman and his small production team raced to deal with perhaps the worst crisis a live broadcast could face - the death of a lead actor mid-show.

“Shoot it like a football match!” Newman told the director, fellow Canadian Ted Kotcheff, meaning that the actors should be left to improvise whilst the cameras on the floor attempted to follow the action. This was a hard format to pull off, as it required quick thinking and decisions from the gallery. The trouble was that with Kotcheff frantically rewriting the script to remove Jones’ character he had no time to take control himself. Instead, the responsibility for running the production would have

o Verity Lambert

Image courtesy of

Mirrorpic

to fall entirely on the shoulders of his inexperienced twenty-three year old production assistant.

Luckily for both Newman and Kotcheff, that production assistant was Verity Lambert. As would soon become her trademark, the responsibility was shouldered, the challenge risen to, The Underground completed.

Few people can claim to have left as indelible a print on British television as Verity Lambert. In a career that would last over forty-five years she would play a critical role in bringing a wealth of classic British serials to the screen, and one truly global phenomenon - Doctor Who.

The daughter of a London accountant, Verity entered the world of television via one of the few routes available to women at the time, or at least to those for whom acting held no interest - secretarial work. Blessed with a good education and eighteen months of secretarial school she was able to find work in the press office at Grenada in 1956 and then shortly after as a shorthand typist at ABC. Several further secretarial moves soon followed, as Lambert tried to engineer a move away from administration towards production. Her break finally came in 1958 with her appointment as a production assistant on Armchair Theatre.

It is here that Lambert’s story may have ended. British television at the time was very much an “old boy’s network” and Verity was emphatically not an “old boy.” Like many other women hoping to find a career in television she faced significant resistance to her quest for advancement, despite her conspicuous ability. By 1961, despite leaving and rejoining ABC, she was still working as a production assistant; her requests to direct were rebuffed with the explanation that there were enough women directors within television already. Facing what appeared to be an unbreakable glass ceiling, Verity reluctantly began plans to abandon the world of television completely.

Verity’s luck, however, was finally about to change. In London the BBC was undergoing something of a revolution. Prompted by the arrival on the scene of ITV, the broadcaster was on a mission to find a new balance between public interest broadcasting and populism. To help it achieve this it headhunted Sydney Newman from ABC and made him Head of Drama in December 1962. Newman arrived with both a willingness to shake up the established order and a number of ideas, one of which was for a new children’s programme which would mix education with adventure. By early 1963 this idea had been given form: Doctor Who.

Lambert was not Newman’s first choice to produce Doctor Who. Newman offered it to several producers already on the BBC’s payroll but to a man they turned it down. In truth, Newman was one of the few people who thought the series was a good idea. He soon realised that he would not only need to bring in some new blood, but someone who wouldn’t be fazed by the task of delivering

There are few people who can claim to have left as indelible a print on British television as Verity Lambert.”

Carole Anne Ford as Susan and William Hartnell as The DoctorDoctor Who1963-Present

a new type of programme and would be prepared to fight to bring it to screen. And then Newman remembered Verity.

“I remembered Verity as being bright and, to use the phrase, full of piss and vinegar!” he would tell Doctor Who Magazine in 1993. “She was gutsy and she used to fight and argue with me, even though she was not at a very high level as a production assistant.”

Newman called Verity and asked her what she knew about children. “Absolutely nothing,” she replied, with her usual honesty. He hired her anyway.

Though she neither wrote nor directed it, Verity Lambert’s role in the creation of Doctor Who is impossible to understate. Those first months of production soon proved that Newman’s instincts were correct; the series found little backing within the BBC, and Verity was forced to fight to bring it to screen. Indeed fighting to bring it in on time, on budget and in line with Newman’s vision almost proved too tough a goal to complete. Newman was famously so disappointed with the version of An Unearthly Child presented to him in September 1963 that he ordered Lambert and director Waris Hussein to reshoot it (Hussein later recalled that, over dinner, Newman confessed that he’d come very close to firing them both). Luckily, their second attempt was much more to his liking, and Doctor Who finally made its screen debut on 23rd November 1963.

With Doctor Who, Lambert’s achievement was not just in getting the series to screen, but in leading it through its infancy. Between 1963 and 1965 she produced eighty-six episodes and shepherded it through a difficult period in which it struggled to find both its character and its tone. She played a crucial role in moving it away from its educational roots into a more solidly dramatic series, and worked hard to support both the cast and writers through what was always a difficult and stressful production. Lambert also worked hard to keep production values high, despite the low budget, insisting that the show would be judged as much on quality of the effects and scenery that it featured as it would on its scripts (“Verity Lambert Syndrome” became something of an in-joke within the BBC, to describe productions requiring a large number of props and sets). By the time she produced her last episode (the incredible stand-alone

Mission to the Unknown) Lambert had helped to define both the Doctor and the universe he inhabited in a way that is still recognisable fifty years later.

Doctor Who, however, marked the beginning of Verity’s career, not the end. By 1965 she was keen to find a new challenge, and had her eye on producing a new series at the BBC. Newman was happy to oblige, offering her the chance to helm Adam Adamant Lives!, a new comedy adventure he had been developing with Tony Williamson. Although all involved - including Lambert - would later deny it, Adamant, which featured a revived Victorian adventurer solving crimes in swinging sixties London, seemed to be an attempt to cash in on the success of The Avengers. In this it was limitedly successful, running for 29 episodes before cancellation in 1967.

Between 1967 and 1974 Lambert continued to build a reputation as a successful television producer and, perhaps more importantly, one who could shepherd potentially tricky shows through production. Leaving “Auntie” in 1969 to go freelance she produced Budgie and Between the Wars for LWT. She then worked once more with the BBC to bring their six part suffragette drama Shoulder to Shoulder to the screen.

In 1974, with her star riding high, she was appointed Head of Drama at Thames Television. Thames and the other independents were struggling to emulate the drama revolution that had been kicked off by her mentor Sydney Newman ten years earlier at the BBC. Now they turned to Newman’s protégé in the hope that she could help them restore the balance. In her time in charge at Thames (and later as Chief Executive of their Euston Films subsidiary), Lambert proved that she was an inspired choice for the role, demonstrating the same boldness and talent for commissioning as her mentor.

Popular hits like The Sweeney, Minder and Rumpole of the Bailey all happened on her watch. Meanwhile series like Quatermass, Widows, The Naked Civil Servant, Rock Follies and the now-frequently-over-looked political masterpiece Bill Brand showed that Lambert believed you could push the boundaries of drama and still be successful. The ratings, and flow of BAFTAs to Thames, seemed to prove she was right.

By the eighties Lambert was looking to move on again, and a brief period at Thorn EMI followed. Television though was where her real talent lay, and by 1985 she was in charge of her own independent television company, Cinema Verity, and looking to return to small screen work. Proving once more that she could read the desires and trends of TV audiences May to December and So Haunt Me both followed for the BBC in the late eighties and early nineties. Once again though, she also proved she was not afraid to push bolder projects; Bill Brand may be largely be forgotten [although now available on DVD from Network – Ed.], but another of Lambert’s political dramas most certainly isn’t - Alan Bleasdale’s GBH, produced for Channel 4. Perhaps fittingly given the dark and brutal nature of the drama, the production was suitably fraught. Bleasdale reacted badly to Lambert’s hands-on approach, particularly after she presented him with an extensive list of script edits.

“All week he sat glaring at me, getting redder and redder in the face,” she would later recall in an interview with the Guardian. “Later he rang Peter Ansorge at Channel 4 in the middle of the night, saying, 'I'm going to kill her.' He told me later he'd really meant it.”

The nineties also brought that rarest of televisual experiences - a Lambert failure in the form of the infamous soap opera Eldorado. A rare mis-step, it is perhaps best treated as evidence of just how hard it can be to produce boundary-pushing television, and thus something that highlights just how impressive Lambert’s

record was overall. Both she and Cinema Verity would soon bounce back, most notably introducing a whole new generation of television viewers to her ability to craft out a quirky prime-time drama with Jonathan Creek.

Verity Lambert passed away from cancer on the 22nd November 2007, almost exactly 44 years to the day since the first ever broadcast of Doctor Who. She will forever remain a key part of its history, just as it remains an important part of hers, displaying an affection for both the show and its characters that endured long after her on tenure as producer had finished. In the early nineties she talked briefly with the BBC about bringing the series back as a Cinema Verity production, indicating that she hoped to see Peter Cook in the lead role, but Cook’s death and the ongoing negotiations over the US/BBC partnership that would eventually result in the 8th Doctor’s single TV movie outing meant that it was not to be. When Doctor Who finally returned to the BBC under the guidance of Russell T. Davies, however, she was one of the first to profess her delight, commenting that she felt the new series captured perfectly the spirt of the original. She expressed particular delight at Billie Piper’s turn as Rose; both actress and character, she said, felt “real.”

In that statement lies a hint at the main reason why Verity Lambert is a true legend of Cult TV. Heresy though it may sound to some, Doctor Who was a great achievement, but it was not her greatest.

She carved out a career based entirely on her talent at a time when television seemed as if it was actively set up to prevent women doing exactly that. This meant not only working in an environment that must have been, at times, overwhelmingly chauvinistic, but also putting up with repeated suggestions - sometimes to her face - that, as a young and successful woman, she must have “slept her way to the top.” That she not only endured this, but conquered it, is an enormous testament to her character. Verity Lambert broke down boundaries and made over forty years’ worth of excellent television in the process, all without most people spotting she was doing it.

When Verity died, obituaries appeared in all of the major papers, and almost universally they lamented the passing of one of television’s greatest producers. Not one of its greatest female producers, just one of its greatest. It is this that is her greatest achievement.

She carved out a career based entirely on her talent at a time when television seemed as if it was actively set up to prevent women doing exactly that.”

Region: U.K. ] Format: Blu-ray ] Review by: Jayne Nelson

Breaking Bad: The Complete Series

Official Synopsis

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment cooks up a full batch on November 25 when Breaking Bad: The Complete Series comes to Blu-ray™ in its entirety. One of the most explosive series ever to air on television, the 16-disc set is this year’s must-have gift for the holiday season, complete with all 62 episodes and more than 55 hours of special features. Starring three-time Emmy® winner Bryan Cranston (Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series) alongside two-time Emmy® winner Aaron Paul (Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series), the critically acclaimed drama from Sony Pictures Television boasts one of television’s most radical storylines, giving viewers a glimpse into the life of how far a man might go in order to take care of the ones he loves.

Review - Jayne's Release of the Year

Some facts and figures for you to begin with: 47 per cent of inmates in American jails are there for drug offences. This means that federal prisons are operating at nearly 40 per cent above capacity. And astonishingly, almost a quarter of people imprisoned across the globe are in the U.S.A.,

“It's no wonder that television shows about drugs have made such a huge impression on the psyche of a country already reeling from their real-life impact.”

but the country accounts for a mere five per cent of the world's population. It's no wonder, then, that television shows

about drugs have made such a huge impression on the psyche of a country already reeling from their real-life impact. Breaking Bad, The Wire and, to a lesser extent, Weeds, have all tackled the up-sides and down-sides of the illegal drugs industry and the way they can shape lives, through different formats. Weeds chose black comedy. The Wire chose shocking verisimil-itude. Breaking Bad, meanwhile, decided a Shakespearean hyper-reality was the best approach. Perhaps this explains why it's become the biggest success of the three; The Wire may well be the better document of our times, but Breaking Bad is the one that has seeped into popular culture by flitting so cheekily between serious drama and theatrical indulgence. Nobody in their right mind could argue that

the show is realistic – far from it. Everything you see on screen is ludicrous, from the way everyman chemistry teacher turned meth-maker Walter White (a chameleonic Bryan Cranston) rises through the ranks of the criminal classes

to become an almost mythological entity known as “Heisenberg”, to the manufacture of the meth itself, deliberately depicted incorrectly to prevent people trying to create it at home. The show's aforementioned hyper-reality is boosted by its sun-drenched location in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with gleaming red deserts standing in for the grimy city street-corners we grew accustomed to in The Wire. There's something about all the sunlight that makes Breaking Bad seem like a fairy tale, but unlike most children's stories it doesn't ram a moral message down the audience's throat. You can take whatever you want to take from each episode. Some might deduce that life as a drug dealer

looks inviting; after all, the show leaves no room for doubt that you can grow impossibly rich in the meth trade. One episode even features characters rolling around on millions of dollars that are stacked high in a storage unit, just for the hell of it (and yes, we'd do the same ourselves). Others might watch the show and assume that drugs are for mugs – a heart-wrenching overdose in second-season episode Phoenix puts paid to the myth that meth is glamorous, as do the two junkies in Peekaboo who neglect their baby son while Jesse (Aaron Paul) watches their behaviour in horror. Other viewers might simply view the show as a tragedy, feeling empathy with both Walt and Jesse as they have to deal with unexpected trials during their journey to the top; episodes such as Fly, directed by Looper's Rian Johnson, give them both the chance to soliloquise in true Shakespeare fashion, baring their souls to the world. Or you could see the entire series as a comedy: there are countless chuckles to be had amid the devastation, including pizzas tossed onto roofs (a beautiful moment that gets its own featurette – it only took one take!), the hilarity of a stroke-hit drugs kingpin ringing a bell to tell us that he's angry, to an unusual use for a tortoise that we won't ruin here. However you view it, this show can do it all.

... The Wire may well be the better document of our times, but Breaking Bad is the one that has seeped into popular culture...”

You have to wonder if the AMC network – their slogan is “Something More”, and they definitely deliver on that – had any idea what they were commissioning when former X-Files writer-pro-ducer Vince Gilligan approached them with the show in 2008. And all this on a channel that gets edited according to the tastes of each affiliate that airs it; one episode, Cat's In The Bag, gleefully showed us in minute detail what happens if you annihilate a human corpse using hydrofluoric acid, yet bleeped out the word “God” from “Goddamn”. That's moral consistency for you.So what is it in the end that makes Breaking Bad

so good? Characters, of course. The admittedly interesting machinations of the meth trade, with all the violence, bloodshed and law-breaking that it entails, are simply the backdrop to the two main characters and their psychological (and physical) traumas. Across the course of five seasons, Bryan Cranston has proved he's one of the best actors working in the business today, as he so carefully shaped the mild-mannered, occasionally homicidal Walter White into one of the best characters appearing in the business today. Similarly, Aaron Paul has brilliantly breathed life into Walt's troubled meth-partner Jesse Pinkman, a character who would horrify us in one episode before leaving us desperate to give him a hug the next. Gilligan and his writing team have not only managed to weave a complex, gripping and ultimately satisfying story around these guys, they've made them icons. Expect Walt in particular to hit the top ten of numerous “Greatest TV Show Characters Of All Time” polls for the next 20 years. We could also go on about the rest of the cast,

from Anna Gunn's riveting performance as Walt's long-suffering, Lady Macbeth-style wife Skyler, to Dean J. Norris as Walt's brother-in-law Hank ( fittingly, a DEA agent) – let alone Bob Odenkirk's glorious depiction of sleazy lawyer Saul Goodman, now set for a spin-off show of his own. But we shouldn't have to explain all this; just watch it.

Across the course of five seasons Bryan Cranston has proved he's one of the best actors working in the business today...”

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Breaking Bad is a show you can't afford to miss if you want to understand the American psyche of today. And boy, is it a ***damn blast.

Video & Audio

Anyone who has seen any of the previous individual series releases will know what to expect, with the video quality going from good to great and back again over the course of the show. Even if it isn’t in the top tier of Sony transfers (and, as expected from the inventors of Blu-ray, they’ve done some stunners over the years), it’s not going to be any kind of deal-breaker. The audio, however, is terrific throughout, often active, focused, even – appropriately enough – intense in places.

Extras

All featurettes on the earlier U.K. releases are present and correct. Unfortunately, that means that Sony have just repackaged discs from earlier releases, so anyone holding out for the many extras that failed to make their way over from the U.S. editions for the Season 4 set (and the odd one here and there elsewhere) to turn up now will be disappointed. However, there is still such a plethora of extras across all five, including commentaries, interviews, cast & crew discussions, storyboards, behind-the-scenes, deleted scenes, gag reels, alternate ending, final season table read, and a 2 hour making-of the final season documentary, you’ll be sat in front of these for a good few days..

Summary

One of the most important shows in television history, Breaking Bad is a demonic treatise on family, greed and power but with drugs, deaths and explosions thrown in. Few modern drama series are fit to shine its shoes. Hell, most aren't even fit to be walked on by them. ❙

Title: Breaking Bad: The Complete Series Label: Sony Pictures Home EntertainmentRelease date: 25 November 2013Format: Blu-ray (also available on DVD)Video format: 1080pAspect Ratio: 1.78:1Soundtracks: : DTS-HD MA 5.1: English, German (all) French (S1-3), Spanish (S1,2), Italian (S5). Subtitle(s): English HOH; various depending on season release. Runtime: 2,949 minutesNo. of discs: 16Packaging: Collectible replica barrel with commemorative memorabilia or slipcaseRegion Coding: Region BRating: 18

HIDING BEHIND THE SOFAWho’s 50 Scariest Moments!

MAD DOCTORTom Baker InterviewedREGENERATION GAMEThe Changing Faceof The Time LordTHE LOST EPISODESAmazing New Discoveries From The ArchivesCOMPLETE GUIDE TO THE CLASSIC BBC SERIES!

01_DrWho_cover.indd 1

5/11/13 21:10:27On sale NOW! And available online

On sale 19/12/13

Just in case you’ve been travelling in time and missed it, November 2013 marked the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who. With

this in mind the gang at The Dark Side produced a fabulous one-off special celebrating this momentous event. 50 Years of Doctor Who is a 68-page full colour magazine from the Dark Side team that is now in sale in shops for just £3.99. This publication is a particular treat for those serious fans of the show who want to know lots of little-known facts about the earlier years and so-called lost episodes. It’s also an essential read for Dark Side regulars because we have some great stuff in there on the popular Peter Cushing Amicus movies. The magazine is now on sale at W.H. Smith and other newsagents across the country, and you can also buy copies direct from us at the editorial address - 29 Cheyham Way, South Cheam, Surrey SM2 7HX - for £5 including postage.

The latest issue of The Dark Side contains a feast of festive frights to celebrate the Christmas season. We’re delving in to the

horrifying history of BBC’s classic Ghost Stories For Christmas series as well as looking at other memorably spooky shows produced especially to send goosebumps down the spine of yule-tide viewers. The BFI are releasing some of the greatest horror films ever made as part of their Gothic season and we’ll be looking at them too, as well as paying tribute to the late Tony Hinds, who was one of the key players in the Hammer Films team. Top critic Mark Kermode will be chatting about The Exorcist and former porn star Robert Kerman will be recounting his expe-riences making Cannibal Holocaust, one of the nastiest of the so-called ‘Video Nasties.’ We’re in the shops on the 19th of December, so make a Christmas date with The Dark Side and really get those slaybells ringing!

CHRISTMAS TREATS FROM GHOULISH PUBLISHING

thedarksidemagazine.com

Region: U.K. ] Format: DVD/Blu-ray ] Review by: Dr. R.Denison

Cowboy Bebop: Complete Collection

Official Synopsis

The crew of the Bebop is once again ready to clean up space by bringing bad guys to justice and trying to make some cash while doing it! Back on DVD at last and remastered from the same masters as the high-definition Blu-Ray the complete series is now bundled together in a limited edition slipcase and containing bonus content never available outside of Japan before including the "Ein's Summer Holiday" short and a 40 page booklet. Join the always-cool Spike Spiegel, investigative genius Jet Black, the alluring Faye Valentine, the amazing (but weird) Ed and the super-smart Welsh Corgi named Ein as they try to make a buck in the year 2071. How do they do it? They're bounty hunters.

Review - Rayna's Release of the Year

Sometimes anime isn’t just anime. Sometimes it transcends the medium and the format (in this case television) to become the best of global entertainment. Cowboy Bebop is one of those rare anime stars. Even fifteen years after its initial airing in Japan, Cowboy Bebop still looks and sounds like the very best of science fiction (helped in no small part by its remastering for Blu-Ray and DVD). It is an eclectic mixture of

Fifteen years after its initial airing in Japan, Cowboy Bebop still looks and sounds like the very best of science fiction...”

cyberpunk science fiction, practically reverberating with all the stylistic elements that made everything from Blade Runner to Ghost in the Shell cool, combined with two other genres likewise stylish and substantial: film noir and parodic comedy. These genres combine across the twenty-six episodes (or "sessions")of the series (and its later film) in the production of an effortlessly cool series about the space-hopping bounty hunters who call the spaceship Bebop home. The characters are introduced, and their backgrounds

elucidated, with a pre-planned deliberateness that seems so lacking in many contemporary anime. Spike Spiegel, the lead bounty hunter (ex-“Syndicate” member and martial arts enthusiast) is on board acting as the focus for the show’s action sequences. Even now those space battles, martial arts fights and down-and-dirty shoot-outs are a true pleasure to watch. The best series of Spike fights, and the most stylish, is to be found in Session #20, Pierrot le Fou (Dokeshi no Chinkonka in Japanese) in which Spike is pitted against an insane, medically enhanced assassin. Glorious uses of highlighting and lighting are employed throughout the episode’s fights, especially at night, the neon, streetlight colours and deep, dark shadows creating a beautifully skewed, off-kilter atmosphere. For those new to Cowboy Bebop, Spike’s fellow

bounty hunters are Jet Black, the owner of the Bebop,

and the predictably unpredictable Faye Valentine, a gorgeous, outlandish bounty hunter. Along the way they pick up “Ed” a young, computer genius weirdo who talks in third person (and, though you wouldn’t guess it, is a girl) and the universe’s smartest and cutest Welsh Corgi, who they name Ein. Even dog haters will love Ein’s pogo bouncing after eating magic mushrooms in Session #17 Mushroom Samba.The slow and measured character development

across the series is balanced against a finely-drawn set of parodies and standalone episodes. Toys in the Attic (Session #11), for example, offers an extended (and funny) joke about the things left unattended at the back of the fridge, filtered through references to Ridley Scott’s Alien. Trucker movie parody Heavy Metal Queen (Session #12) likewise features great riffs on the American road movie, alongside some of the best space-flight sequences ever produced in anime. It is the attention to detail in the series’ genre mixing and the diamond-sharp screenwriting that really differ-entiates Bebop from its anime and live-action rivals. There are wonderful uses of anime’s usual formulaic repetitions – repeated shots of the “gate” that allows interplanetary space travel provide an epic scope and scale to proceedings; the repeated appearance of a group of three griping retirees is Shakespearean in comedic effect; but these repeated appearances of props create a consistency across episodes that unarguably demonstrates the care and attention to detail that director ShinichiroWatanabe and his crew lavished on the show.

Video & Audio

As well as the great remastering on the audio, the visuals stand up against today’s computer shaded and generated imagery with aplomb. However, nothing is perfect, and there are some creaky moments in Cowboy Bebop’s pans and tilts, which jerk between frames rather than smoothly flowing. Likewise, the sound isn’t all that flexible on the DVDs; to change between Japanese and

The slow and measured character development across the series is balanced against a finely-drawn set of parodies and standalone episodes.”

English, you have to go into the “set up” menus, rather than being able to change using your remote as you watch episodes. The subtitles also suffer from a little haloing, rather than having really crisp outlines.These are, however, minor quibbles in an anime

show more than a decade old, and are nowhere to be seen on the blu-rays, which are simply sublime. The HD remastering of audio and video has room to breathe across the four discs, and if every once in a while a limitation of the original materials becomes noticeable, it never affects the overall quality and enjoyment of seeing & hearing the show look brand spanking new.

Extras

The extras on this collection are refreshingly plen-tiful,going far further than the basic opening and closing credit sequences. The inclusion of voice actor commentaries from both the Japanese and American dubs is a particular delight, especially those chaired by Dai Sato, who fans will know

It is the attention to detail in the series’ genre mixing and the diamond-sharp screenwriting that really differentiates Bebop from its anime and live-action rivals.”

21

was one of the key screenwriters for Cowboy Bebop (plus other popular shows like Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex and East of Eden). He’s knowledgeable and observant about the show’s production, and encourages the voice actors to recollect their days on set, getting funny and insightful anecdotes from his previous co-workers. The DVD and Blu-ray sets come beautifully packaged in limited edition slipcases with 40 page booklets as well, although the DVD has the bonus of presenting the entire series in a Betamax-styled case, a superb nod to Session #19: Speak Like a Child by the bods at Anime Limited.

Summary

Although an aging beauty, Cowboy Bebop remains one of the best anime shows of all time. It may be smart, sophisticated and silly by turns, but the Bebop is never anything less than the most capable craft in the anime space race. ❙

Title: Cowboy Bebop : Complete Collection Label: Anime Ltd.Release date: 25/10/2013Format: DVD & Blu-rayVideo format: PAL/1080pSoundtracks: Japanese, English DD 5.1 (DVD); DTS-HD MA 5.1: Japense, English (Blu-ray)Subtitles: EnglishNo. of discs: 6 x DVD-9/4 x BD-50sPackaging: Limited Edition Slipcase, postcards, 40 page booklet; DVD has special Betamax casing.Region Coding: Region 2Rating: BBFC 15