Customer Reviews

Due South: Season One

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is an amazing deal - there are no extras, just a very basic menu with chapter selections, and very occasionally the picture quality is not so great, but to get the whole 24 episodes for this price is fantastic!

Nicely packaged in a card box, on 4 discs. Fullscreen.

Disc One:
- Pilot Parts 1 & 2
- Free Willie
- Diffenbaker's Day Off
- Manhunt
- They Eat Horses, Don't They?

Disc Two:
- Pizzas and Promises
- Chinatown
- Chicago Holiday, part 1
- Chicago Holiday, part 2
- A Cop, a Mountie, and a Baby
- Gift of the Wheelman

Disc Three:
- You must remember this
- Hawk and Handsaw
- An Eye for an Eye
- The Man Who Knew Too Little
- The Wild Bunch
- THe Blue Line

Disc Four:
- The Deal
- An Invitation to Romance
- Heaven and Earth
- Victoria's Secret - Part 1
- Victoria's Secret - Part 2
- Letting Go

I'm so glad I learned about this Television Series. I never caught it when it was on the air, but I'm loving the first season of episodes. I like unique shows that combine comedy, drama and quirky characters (like Northern Exposure, Gilmore Girls and Monk). Due South fits very well into this category. It's a cop show (complete with car chases.) It has wonderful characters you instantly like. The themes about friendship are strong. And the comedy is deadpan and hilarious. The set-up for the show is that a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police ends up working in Chicago as the unofficial partner of a Chicago Detective. The Canadian is perfect: polite, proper, sweet, gorgeous, brilliant, loyal, proficient and ever-so-serious. The Chicago cop is cynical, bumbling, uncool, intuitive, and a loyal friend. They're the perfect pair, and it's the dynamic between the two of them that makes for great comedy. I highly recommend it anyone looking for a new show that's well written, well directed, well acted & well filmed.

"Due South" comes in two releases for the first season. There is a high priced release missing the two-part series premier and then there is this cheaper release.

What is the difference? This release was mastered from the original broadcast tapes. As such it isn't perfect, but it does contain the pilot episodes. I feel that saving the money in order to get those pilot episodes gives those viewers a chance to see an important background into the main characters.

This set does not contain, and you aren't paying for, closed captioning, languages other than English, or an extensive menu structure. I can live with that to save a lot of money.

Always loved this show (especially the first two seasons) but held off buying it on dvd till now, having read less than complimentary reviews of the versions released. Was amazed to see this item at such a price. A whole season, including the feature length pilot where it should be, single sided discs, with neat packaging. There are downsides, no extras or subtitles (perhaps they think everybody can lip read like Dief), and the picture/sound only seem slightly better than video at times, but at last I can throw out that crateful of videos and enjoy the World's Nicest Man, his frequently embarrassed new friend Vecchio, and the scene stealing wolf, to my heart's content.
Oh, and the music's great too; this series introduced me to Sarah McLachlan and Loreena McKennitt, for which, 'Thank you kindly'...

If you're a fan of the tv series and want only that, this is definitely the way to go. All of season one and the pilot is included! No fancy extras or animated menu screens, but who cares, you get DUE SOUTH ON DVD!! You can select an episode and a scene within that episode, and that's about it. My only complaint is that the visual and sound quality were lacking at times. If you're a fan and really get into the shows you probably won't notice. If the other seasons (when they're released) are of the same quality, I'll be happy.

The first season in a couple of words is simply fantastic. The story of a Mountie and his wolf teaming up with a Chicago detective makes a really interesting story that works. Paul Gross is definitely the right choice to play the lead in this series and Benton Fraser. Some stories are funny and others are touchingly emotional. Even now, this series hasn't aged one bit and it is a shame that it is never talked about much here in the US. Great episodes are in this season, but the DVD is lacking when it comes to content and picture. No special features are to be found on this DVD and the picture quality isn't the best, with streaks appearing for a couple of seconds in about three episodes, but most of the time it is great. But with those small flaws, the episodes are so great, all of the mistakes with the American DVD can be forgiven. This is definitely a great series that is recommend for all.

I was very excited to come across Season 1 at my local Borders Books and Music. I was a late fan, having only seen a few episodes when it was released to syndication, then just as quickly yanked from the air waves. I could finally catch up on what I missed.

Having now seen the first three seasons I would say this is the best of the three (though we are not blessed with any episodes written by Paul Gross, this time out). The relationship, and frustrations, between Fraser and Vecchio can sometimes boarder on hilarious as they learn to adapt to each other. On the other extreme, such as the two part, end of the season
episodes: "Victoria's Secret", you get to witness the tenderness Vecchio feels towards Fraser. His friendship and feelings of guilt help Fraser through one of the worst trials of his life and sets up the great opening episode of season 2. The secondary relationships between Fraser and his wolf, Diefenbaker, Vecchio's younger sister (who has a HUGE crush on Fraser), "Huey & Duey", Fraser and his ghost-father, Robert Fraser, just add to the greatness of this show (you may even grow to love Vecchio's car as much as he does!).

Like many, I was pleased with the cheapier US price, rather then the more expensive international version. However, my only complaint, like so many others, my DVD's do stall or skip from time to time. I have no problem with the transfer, keeping in mind it has been a decade since the show was last aired, and only on occasion do you catch the low quality.I have read the international versions have the same stalling/skipping/scratched DVD problems as these versions.

Don't let the manufacture mess ups stop you from buying these box sets though, the little hic-ups are no big deal in the larger scheme of things. I love having this great show in my DVD collection!

I found out about the domestic release of Due South on Amazon.com, and rushed out to buy all three seasons. The Canadian box sets are $80 Canadian, so buying all four seasons from Canada is an expensive proposition. The American release costs a third of that, and contains the pilot to boot, which wasn't included until the Season 3 box set in Canada.

Due South followed the misguided adventures of Benton Fraser, a constable in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as he tracked his father's killers to Chicago. After closing the case, his Canadian superiors advised him to lie low, so he remains in Chicago as a liaison at the Canadian consulate and works cases with Ray Vecchio, Chicago cop. The Canadian/American and wilderness/city culture clash leads to some humorous moments along the way.

The picture quality is noticeably grainy since it was taken from videotape rather than the masters, but for the great price (I now have all the seasons for less than one season of the Canadian box set), it's a compromise that was worth it. Like the Canadian set, there are no extras, also no closed captioning. Menus are bare bones and include episodes and chapter menus (hardly "interactive" menus as stated on the box). The packaging is a big step from the clunky Canadian design, featuring an attractive foldout cardboard case with large photos of Ray, Benton, and Dief. The DVDs are single sided, meaning easier handling. And all 24 first season episodes are here, including the two-hour pilot and two-part Victoria's Secret, possibly the finest episode of the entire series.

Due South was a unique show that poked fun at Canadians from an "American" perspective. The show was set in Chicago (there are several inserts of Chicago landmarks such as the Sears Tower and El tracks) was filmed in Toronto: note the streetcar tracks and noticeable Toronto financial buildings in some of the rooftop shots, also, the Roy Thomson concert hall is clearly visible in "One Good Man." "American" characters clearly speak with a Canadian accent, in one episode a man mentions Parliamentary law while debating with a "Chicago" alderman, but all in all, a fun tribute to my native city (Chicago) and my adopted one (Toronto). (My favourite surreal moment is in "The Man Who Knew Too Little," where they are supposedly in Michigan [the highway markers are distinctively Ontarian] and mention the town where I grew up).

Although the picture quality is less than stellar, it certainly beats my old videotaped copies that were rapidly deteriorating, and it's wonderful to reconnect with the excellent scripts, jokes, and friendly jabs at Canadian culture (curling, hockey, bilingualism, politeness, etc.). The first two seasons are very family friendly, with limited swearing, violence, and sexual overtones. The third (and fourth, depending on how you count the last season) season was much darker, grittier, and sexually charged, including explicit songs on the soundtrack, and may not be as suitable for family viewing.

True, the US sets are cheaper than the Canada sets (though if you buy the canada sets from Amazon.ca, they're LOTS cheaper than buying them as imports from Amazon.com). True, the Canadian sets have difficult packaging (DVD overlay and spindles that require a lot of pressure before you can pop out the disk without risk of damage). True the first two Canadian season sets use the dreaded "flipper" (2-sided) disks. True what we saw in the US as a third season of 22 (missing four episodes, by the way) was produced and broadcast in Canada as two seasons of 13 each -- and the third and fourth DVD sets are released separately too. (Does the US "third season" set have all 26?) And most ironic truth of all: if I'd known that by waiting, I'd have gotten all three sets cheaper from an American distributor, I'd've taken that route too.

However -- the Canadian sets feature pristine transfers. (I've read that the US sets use videotape as the masters; I'm not sure where this info comes from, but it doesn't make sense that the masters would be any different than what the Alliance sets drew upon, since they license the material.) The Canadian sets feature disks running at the highest speed. (The American disks are single sided because they jam twice the normal amount of eps. per side, and run at a slower speed. That, it seems to me, would account for VHS-like resolution.) The Canadian sets, for whatever it's worth, do feature accurate packaging (the right cast members listed and featured in illustrations). And finally --

-- small thing though it may be --

-- the Caniadian Final (4th) Season set does have a small but utterly delightful extra. Paul Gross does a running commentary for both parts of CALL OF THE WILD. I can live without most commentary tracks I hear, but this is one you'll return to. It's witty, wryly funny and thoughtfully observed.

I won't tell you not to save the dough on the American release, I empathize ... I'll only tell you, the Canadian sets have more vibrant sound and video. And in the end, it's what's ON the DVD that matters the most ... isn't it?

The picture quality on these DVDs is good. Although there are no extras I'm not buying the DVD to hear some guy talk about how much he loved a certain scene. If all you need is the shows themselves with perfectly fine quality sound and image then this is for you. It doesn't do surround sound and it may not be high definition but with the sixty bucks you save you can buy two copies and play the other one on a TV behind you.