David Suchet returns as Agatha Christie's eccentric Belgian sleuth. Acorn Media productions of Christie's classic novels are always lovingly done, and this set is no exception. All three mysteries are well acted, shot in beautiful locations, and manage to fold in a little dry humor with the ghastly business at hand. "The King of Clubs" involves murder on a film set and just might have something to do with a game of bridge. In "The Dream" Poirot is called in to consult with a wealthy industrialist before a murder has even occurred. One does, of course, and there is also a gratifying call-everyone-together-in-one-room-so-the-detective-can-explain-everything scene. The Incredible Theft has a terrific pre-war flavor, and in this episode it's no mere murder-the very future of England is at stake! Suchet is a perfect Poirot, capturing the detective's faint ridiculousness without losing his very serious distaste for murder. Curl up with a hot cup of tea and enjoy. -Ali Davis.

This BBC series consists of five one-hour cassettes featuring 10 episodes of a masterful odyssey through early art, the Renaissance, and baroque art to romanticism, the age of revolution, and modernism. Lumpy, likable Sister Wendy Beckett guides us on a spirited tour of art through the ages that the entire family can savor and repeatedly enjoy. This woman is a scream-acerbic, astute, and surprisingly earthy. Oh yes, and very, very knowledgeable. Within each 30-minute program are several segments covering much canvas, but always in easily digestible amounts. This is perfect for the artistically deprived, the artfully minded, or anyone with a brain and a sense of humor. -Rochelle O'Gorman.

James Onedin (Peter Gilmore) is a young sea captain who has recently launched his own shipping line. Marrying a woman he barely knew to acquire his first ship, Onedin must fight for survival in the highly competitive shipping industry. His archrival and former employer, Callon, attempts to block Onedin at every turn.

With a total of 144 songs (including repeats) and well over 500 minutes of playing time, this massive boxed set, whose nine discs each contain between 12 and 19 performances, truly is, as host Ed Sullivan famously said, "a really big show. " With some 20 songs between them, the two most important rock acts of the 20th century, Elvis Presley and the Beatles, both of whom received huge career boosts from the Sullivan show (garnering a reported 80 percent audience share and 70 million viewers, respectively), are well represented; so are other genres, like Motown and '60s rock. And wonderful, galvanizing performances by, among others, the Jackson Five (especially "the little fella in front," as Sullivan calls Michael), the Animals, James Brown, Janis Joplin, Jackie Wilson, the Rolling Stones, and even the Association ("Along Comes Mary") are enough to counter the curious inclusion of the Brooklyn Bridge, Jay and the Techniques, and other obscure minor talents. Still, the boxed set (whose DVD bonus features include "trivia tracks" and limited discographies) has serious flaws. Audio and video (color and black and white) are good, but far too many songs are repeated (the Jefferson Airplane's "Crown of Creation" appears twice on the same disc!), while others are obviously truncated; and there's no excuse for programming two songs each by the likes of Dino, Desi and Billy, and Freddie and the Dreamers. In the end, the good music saves the day, but the set's drawbacks keep Ed Sullivan's Rock 'n' Roll Classics from being an essential purchase. -Sam Graham On Sunday nights throughout the '50s and '60s, Ed Sullivan brought pop culture into America's living rooms with th e most influential show of its kind. If you made it there, you had it made because for the first time, the entire county was at home watching. During the course of the show's run, many of the early rock and roll legends were featured in career-defining p erformances. These cultural milestones have been compiled for Ed Sullivan's Rock 'n' Roll Classics, along with archival footage and narration for insight on the artists, their eras, and their classic appearances. [+]

Catherine Cookson Collection Set 3 includes the following: Moth (2 videos) Rag Nymph (2 videos)

This first half of the 1967 original, 26-episode British television series (which aired on PBS two years later and inspired the creation of Masterpiece Theatre) is both literary soap opera and sprawling, Dickensian tale of love, money, and destiny fatefully intertwined. Set in the late Victorian era, the early chapters of The Forsyte Saga (based on several works by John Galsworthy) merrily buzz with a large and hopelessly confusing roster of Forsyte kin, most creaking with age and cackling ridiculously over family gossip. As these elders pass on, a core cast including Eric Porter as Soames, an acquisitive "man of property," Nyree Dawn Porter as the ethereal Irene, and Kenneth More as Jolyon-the family's artistic black sheep-becomes our key players, wrestling with their definitions of "value" (i. e. , that which can be measured versus that which can't), procreating, and stumbling in the dark for happiness. -Tom Keogh The miniseries that started in all! In 1969, a internationally-acclaimed BBC show began airing on the fledgling public broadcasting network. The Forsyte Saga, in telling the remarkable story of a nouveau riche English family, introduced America to a new kind of TV. Millions of Americans devoted the next half-year of their lives to following the frank treatment of all sins, foibles and peccadillos of the Forsytes and their circle. The series was so popular that Masterpiece Theatre was created to meet the new demand for great literary adaptations. With a cast of 150, 2000 separate costumes and over 100 sets, this sprawling yet intimate saga continues to move, provoke and entrance viewers today. [+]

Misguided stepmothers, romantic betrayals, secret marriages-these are not just the makings of modern soap operas; this is what makes the BBC's delightful four-episode miniseries Wives and Daughters come to life. Sweet Molly Gibson (played artfully by Justine Waddell, who communicates more with a squint of her eyes than most actresses can with pages of dialogue) was living life pleasantly when her widowed father (Bill Paterson) decides that, for the good of his daughter, he must remarry. In comes Claire, played to screeching perfection by Francesca Annis. Molly's life is turned upside down by the usually well meaning but off-the-mark Claire, who insists on things being done the proper way. Added to the stew is Claire's beautiful, educated daughter, Cynthia (Keeley Hawes), and the Hamleys, a well-to-do family headed by a squire (Michael Gambon) who is not happy about the romantic interests of his sons. As is typical with BBC miniseries, the quality writing and lush sets add to the overall appeal. Andrew Davies, who adapted Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones's Diary, penned the marvelous screenplay (based on Elizabeth Gaskell's unfinished novel). It's impossible not to compare this to the ever-popular Pride, and Wives and Daughters measures up. -Jenny Brown.

Imagine sitting before your TV circa 1970, watching the premiere episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The premise, while informed by the feminist ethos of the day (hardly of the bra-burning variety, however), is only mildly interesting: woman reluctantly abandons her hopes for hometown marital bliss to relocate to the metropolis of Minneapolis. Initially, though, Mary is a bit too diffident; her boozehound boss, Lou Grant (Ed Asner), is too broadly drawn. There are some great lines ("You've got spunk," Lou tells Mary in their first meeting. "I hate spunk!"). The cast, which includes Cloris Leachman, Valerie Harper, Ted Knight, and Gavin MacLeod, shows promise. But, you may have thought at the time, give it a season and it'll be history. It became history, all right. The Mary Tyler Moore Show developed a richness with each new episode, eventually proving to be one of the most influential sitcoms in TV annals. This seven-video boxed set includes two half-hour episodes from each of the program's seven seasons, including the arguably most talked about episode, "Chuckles Bites the Dust. [+]

In two of the three episodes included here, Belgian detective Hercule Poirot tries to solve a crime before it's even happened. In "Wasps' Nest," it's a murder-but the victim isn't the person you'd expect. In "The Million-Dollar Bond Robbery," it's the theft of American bonds en route from London to New York. But even the most devious criminal mind is no match for Agatha Christie's famous detective. These videos, originally produced for the BBC, are sure to delight old fans and enchant new ones. David Suchet's portrayal gives Poirot a depth of character often missing from other screen versions; Suchet's Poirot is charming, witty, finicky, and sometimes downright testy. Yet he is always compassionate, especially in the more somber "Plymouth Express," in which a mining magnate's daughter is killed for her jewels. The series' producers spared no expense with the set, re-creating mid-1930s London from Poirot's well-appointed art deco apartment to the seedy side streets where bookies and jewel thieves ply their trade. In "The Million-Dollar Bond Robbery," black-and-white footage of Poirot and his associate, Captain Hastings (Hugh Fraser), has even been worked into a historical newsreel of the maiden voyage of the Queen Mary. With details like these, the series brings to life not only one of the most famous detectives in fiction, but also an entire bygone era. [+]

Roots rocked the cultural landscape in the late '70s, creating a new wave of awareness of black history. That wave opened the door for its sequel, Roots: The Next Generations, even more of a star-studded event than the original, with stars like Olivia de Havilland, Henry Fonda, Marlon Brando, and James Earl Jones eager to partake in the tale. The sequel follows the rest of the saga of the family of author Alex Haley, from where Roots ended at the Civil War, up to the 1970s when Haley was researching and writing his earth-shattering family story. While nothing can rival the power of the original Roots' unflinching look at the slave trade and slave life in the early years of this country, the sequel is still full of rich African American history, from Reconstruction, to Jim Crow, to the civil rights movement and the early rumblings of black power. Fonda and de Havilland are respectable in their period-piece roles, but the real power of this sequel is in the more immediate concerns of Haley and his own experience of prejudice while building a stellar reputation as a writer and journalist in the '60s and '70s. One of the most unsettling scenes takes place then, when Haley interviews the head of the American Nazi Party, played with chilling diffidence by Brando. (Brando won an Emmy for this performance. ) Haley is also challenged by his fractious interview with Malcolm X (a gripping Al Freeman Jr. ). Jones launches his acting career playing Haley with nuance and heart, but with a humanizing set of his own demons. [+]