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Greed, big houses, big hair…it’s either the 80’s or
“Falcon Crest: The Complete First Season”. The popular series
finally arrives on DVD. Set in wine country in Tuscany Valley
in Northern California among the rich and powerful “Falcon
Crest” quickly replaced “Dynasty” (which replaced “Dallas”)
as the near and dear soap opera on TV which was a surprise
given that it was created by Earl Hamner, Jr. who created
“The Waltons” and “Apple’s Way” and at one time wrote for
“The Twilight Zone”. ***
When the head of the Falcon Crest winery Jason Gioberti
(Harry Townes) is accidentally killed on the job, Angela
Channing (Jane Wyman) takes command of the organization
causing rivalries between the various family members (Robert
Foxworth, Susan Sullivan, William r. Moses, Dana Sparks,
Abby Dalton and Lorenzo Lamas among others). ---
Image & Sound:
Quite honestly Warner has been doing less than a stellar
job with many of their vintage TV shows—instead of improving
with age, these series are getting worse and Warner hasn’t
done the digital clean up necessary nor have they pulled
the correct source (often using syndicated versions of the
episodes). While I hesitate to recommend a bootleg there
are sources for the entire series run of “Falcon Crest”
that look as good if not slightly better that are from other
source materials and they are often the uncut versions NOT
the syndicated cuts. ***
Colors have faded, detail is decent some of the time
but most of the time we have to contend with soft, fuzzy
images and this isn’t a soft and fuzzy type of show. There’s
also a fair amount of video noise and edge enhancement marring
the image. ***
Sadly, this has become rote for Warner when it comes
to their hour long dramas from the 70’s, 80’s and even in
some cases the 90’s. Considering the wealth of material
they have to work with this is just inexcusable. ***
Audio is the only salvation here and it isn’t much
of one; dialogue comes across clearly most of the time but
the presentation does a disservice to everything else on
the soundtrack. ---
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