Pretty Little Liars: The Complete Series Box Set

DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:

Although over forty years old, ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ is still the very best series about the relationships between masters and servants in a wealthy Edwardian-era household. By today’s TV production standards, this looks and feels like a low-budget stage-play. But stick with it. That aspect will fade into insignificance as you begin to get to know and care about the all-too-human characters, and their complex relationships. You will begin to appreciate the fine, nuanced and poignant storytelling, and the pure human emotional truth being portrayed. Both masters and servants are portrayed sympathetically, but not uncritically.

‘Downton Abbey,’ which deals with the same basic subject matter, is, by comparison, ‘eye candy,’ a happy-face fantasy, historically dishonest — a shameless glorification and whitewash of the British aristocracy. Forget ‘Downton Abbey.’ ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ (this original series from the ‘70s) is the real thing, or as close as TV has ever come to artistic and historical integrity.

– Robert P.

It was fun to watch this series again, & see the episodes that I missed or had mostly forgotten. I did have to look online for some definitions, particularly when a certain food was mentioned. The closed captions were a great help. The only thing I would have changed or added would have been to add Alastair Cook’s intros for each episode–either by tacking them on to the beginning of each episode, or putting them in the bonus part of each disc. The 4 part series about the making of Upstairs Downstairs was nice, & so were the extra interviews of a few cast members. I don’t care much for commentaries, mostly because you have to play the episodes again to hear them.

-Amazon Customer

The Complete Series Upstairs, Downstairs is a beloved drama set between 1903-1930 in Great Britain at the London mansion of an aristocratic family and their staff of domestic servants. It contains 68 episodes on 20 DVDs, plus one DVD with quite a few bonus features The first season comprises 13 episodes and the first episodes seem spare, especially in the dialog–more like stage plays than video dramas of today’s miniseries. Later episodes lose that stagey-ness and become very involved dramas. Since the original series broadcast in the US did not include the black-and-white episodes, I was not familiar with the development of the series and how it grew from a rather simple initial season to rather involved arcs. For that ALONE, I’d recommend this set of DVD’s because seeing them all in series is fascinating. And I saw entirely new episodes (for me) as I’d missed a lot of the first seasons, being off at college and without a television for some years.

I was also able to look at the opening titles with the drawings from “Punch” (A British humor magazine) and admire how the producers selected amazingly apt drawings to fit the particular episode.

Some of the initial episodes, sadly, are recorded only in black and white due to a technicians’ strike in the early 70’s. It doesn’t actually detract from the enjoyment, just makes it a bit sad we can’t see the sets and costuming as they were filmed. The black & white are sharp and clear, but the color episodes can be somewhat lower in resolution. The colors can be dim as well, but it doesn’t detract. The cropping is often odd. This is not a perfect conversion from the television to DVD, but it’s adequate and probably a lot has to do with changes in technologies since the 70’s and the early days of television-to-DVD remastering.

– Joanna D.

DVD Wholesale Main Features:

Actors: Various
Directors: Various
Format: Box set, Color, NTSC
Language: English
Region: Region 1
Number of discs: 36
Studio: WarnerBrothers
DVD Release Date: July 25, 2017
ASIN: B01LTHO0NK