2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Defense Rests, May 29, 2007
Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, Ziv Television Programs was one of the biggest suppliers of syndicated television programs to the fledgling commercial television broadcast industry. Arguably, its best remembered shows are "The Cisco Kid," the first television series to be filmed in color, "Highway Patrol" with Broderick Crawford and "Sea Hunt" with Lloyd Bridges. But the company was responsible for numerous shows -- some good, some not so good -- and most of these shows lasted just a season or two. "Lock Up" was a two year series with a total of 78 episodes, broadcast from 1959 through 1961 and starred Macdonald Carey as real life defense attorney Herbert L. Maris, along with series regular John Doucette as Lt. Weston. Maris took on cases of defendants whose situations usually looked to be hopeless. For a series with an attorney as its protagonist, there is very little time spent in court; each episode focuses mostly on Maris' investigation into the facts of each case. While Carey portrays Maris in a competent, no nonsense fashion, I actually enjoyed supporting star John Doucette's portrayal as the police lieutenant more so. Doucette was usually cast as a "heavy" throughout his career, but given the opportunity to play the "good guy," he shows that he was a versatile actor, especially during some occasional light comic moments. "Lock Up" isn't a great show and it's easy to see why it lasted only two seasons. But it's competently written, acted, and produced and, overall, an entertaining view.
This release, from Timeless Media, follows two other releases from Alpha Video,
Lock-Up and
Lock-Up, Volume 2 which Amazon also carries. Apparently, some of the episodes from this series may have fallen into the public domain and so these two companies are currently offering selected episodes. Unfortunately, the visual quality of the episodes included in this release are only fair; they were obviously taken from a video tape source, which includes some noticeable audio hiss. While watchable, I'd have to say that the episodes offered on the Alpha releases are marginally better. Further, Timeless continues its practice of playing the show's opening credits only once when the DVD loads, just before the episode selection menu. The actual episodes, five on each of the two DVDs, do not include the opening title sequence but do include end credits, at least on those episodes that I've watched.
Considering the relative rarity of "Lock Up" on DVD and the bargain price offered by Amazon, I'd ordinarily give a release like this one four stars, but the so-so visual presentation loses a star. I hope that one day I will be proven wrong, but I'm not optimistic that a show like "Lock Up" will ever see an official release. So these lesser quality releases will have to suffice, at least for the present, for those who want to see many of these "lost" shows from the 1950s and early 1960s.
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