Jason King The Complete Series - The Memorable TV DVD Review

When Peter Wyngarde appeared as one of a trio of investigators in the very groovy ITC Series Department S in 1968 his character, flambouyant novelist Jason King was intended to be the least used character of the three, such was King's impact that he quickly became the focus and Wyngarde an unlikely sex symbol with his dodgy facial hair and even dodgier clothes (this was the sixties though), when Department S ended it was enevitable that King would get his own series, which he did of course...

Jason King hit the screens in 1971 and the format saw King travelling the world looking for inspiration for his books and managing to get involved in adventure and damsel in distress saving along the way. ITC (The Incorporated Television Company) had been founded by the legendary TV mogul Lew Grade to make programmes for his ATV network and ITV but also with an eye on the American market, his action adventure series, of which Jason King is one, have become TV classics, all shot on film and with big name actors the formats all tended to be pretty interchangeable, stock scenes were used across the series, in fact footage of a white jaguar plummeting off the top of a cliff can be seen in pretty much every production.

This is actually one of the things that makes the shows so attractive, they have a cohesiveness that means you know exactly what you are getting, backlots made to look like European locales, rear projection driving scenes, up and coming names and a huge amount of brillaint fun.

Jason King the series runs to 26 episodes and features such great British names as Ingrid Pitt, Alfred Marks, Dennis Price, John Le Mesurier, Yootha Joyce, Michele Dotrice, Kate O'Mara, Isla Blair, Felicity Kendal, Anton Rodgers and Madeline Smith. As always Umbrella have come up trumps with a quality box set that not only looks good but also has a great collection of extras. Don't miss it.

ANY SPECIAL FEATURES?

Bonus episodes of Department S and The Baron, both featuring Wyngarde; Four audio commentaries, two with Peter Wyngarde (Variations on a Theme and Flamingoes Only Fly on Tuesday ), one from director Roy Ward Baker on Wanna Buy A Television Series and one from director Cyril Frankel on An Author in Search of Two Characters; Theres also another of the excellent reprints of the original ITC publicity brochure to accompany the series; Textless title sequence, extensive production notes; cast and crew profiles; a look at some original Jason King memorabelia, photo galleries and the original ITC Pressbook, story info and scripts as DVD-Rom PDF's.