Nov

Review-”The Streets of San Francisco: Season 2, Volume 2″

Release Date: November 11, 2008
Publisher: Paramount
Price: $27.99 on Amazon.com (Buy It)
Rating: Not Rated
Run Time: 621 minutes
Special Features: None
Starring: Michael Douglas, Karl Malden
Genre: Crime Drama

If you’ve read a lot of my reviews you probably know that the crime drama is one of my least favorite TV genres. While none of them are particularly bad and I do enjoy them when I have time, I much prefer serialized shows like “Lost” and “24.” “The Streets of San Francisco,” which is being remade for CBS next season, isn’t bad but it isn’t great either. It’s basically a normal crime drama.

The main attraction of “The Streets of San Francisco” was the cast, including a young Michael Douglas. Both Douglas and Malden are great in their roles but their chemistry is a bit lacking. The writing is also a bit problematic, the scripts are never original and the characters aren’t written all that well.

For a show that aired in the ’70s, the audio and visuals are quite good. Like most Paramount TV releases, the back mentions that “some episodes may be edited from their original network versions” but since I was born 12 years after this season aired I obviously have no idea what, if anything has changed. No bonus features are added to this set. This is pretty much standard for older releases and I definitely won’t take any points off for the lack of extras.

“The Streets of San Francisco” isn’t better than your average crime drama but then again it isn’t worse either. Crime dramas will almost always get three stars from me (almost all are average after all) and this is no exception. Still, if you like crime dramas and don’t mind that this is only half a season (12 episodes) go ahead and pick it up.