Due South: The Complete Series Boxset (Repackaging) [DVD]

I bought this boxset as a replacement for the other one with 13 Discs. The Picture Quality was due to the fact that they crammed 6-7 Stories on one DVD, not to good, to put it carefully. But I gave that one away to a friend as a Birthday gift and it was a great success. So I decided to buy the Repackage,even it was more expensive, but certainly worth every Penny.And the Picture is much better. About the series itself is not much left to say, it is pure and simple great Entertainment and I am not getting tired to watch it over and over again. The Extras are fun, especially the Making of on the last DVD. The only thing that irked me, was the fact that in the last episode of Call of the Wild, we don't get the last kiss of Fraser and Meg Thatcher. I don't know why it was cut out, but if you want to see this, you can watch it on YouTube. Sigh! As I am German, subtitles would have been nice, but this is not really a flaw if one is familiar with the english language. You just have to concentrate hard. My favourite episodes are "Manhunt" (Leslie Nielsen is great), "All the Queen's Horses" (also with Leslie Nielsen), "Mouny on the Bounty 1&2" and of course the already mentioned "Call of the Wild 1&2". As a nice side effect, I also bought both CD's of the series, as the music is also well worth listening. And I love the Song "NorthWest Passage" at the end of the last episode, I instantly looked it up on the Internet,as I never heard of Stanley Rogers. I have 2 of CDs of him now as well. Never heard of him before, as he is not popular in Europe/Germany. Real loss that he passed away due to an airplane crash. Looking forward for nice autumn/winter evenings cuddly on the couch and a wonderful series at hand. Buy this, great value for your money! Since I have seen this jewel in the 90s on German TV, it has not been repeated, which really is a shame. But I don't have to worry about this anymore...

Due South just about beats off the competition to being my all-time favourite TV series - Ray Vecchio (David Marciano) is my joint-favourite fictional character next to Columbo. Naturally, as a guy, the whole 'Fraser's so hot' and 'it's so cute how he gets embarrassed around women!' thing, which provides a big part of the show's appeal to its large female fan base, does nothing for me. It's neither here nor there - it doesn't detract or add much apart from the occasional laugh and an extra dimension to Fraser's (Paul Gross) character. But there's plenty here that places it as nothing short of outstanding in my view. It manages to pull together so many different elements and dimensions (comedy/drama/quirkiness/style) and interweave them masterfully - sometimes very funny, sometimes full of deep and often gritty drama, sometimes very quirky and light-hearted, going for full-blown comedy, not taking itself too seriously, and even then somehow does it with panache, as well as always, like the icing on a cake, topping it off with great music that gives it that final polished touch.

The great thing about Due South is apart from the core aspects such as characters, setting, basic premise, there's no clear formula - each episode is so different in its structure, feel, tone and plot that you can't really make a qualified judgement on the series, in my opinion, until you've seen a good many episodes, if not the whole thing. To illustrate this point, my introduction to the series was watching only one or two random episodes when my brother and his friend happened to be watching them, and I thought it was decent enough, and I got the general gist of the Mountie and his wolf and his detective pal, but that was it, nothing overtly special. But now I've seen the whole series through, twice over the course of a a few years, and it's been cemented as the top dog of TV in my mind. Some series are formulaic, and as a result pretty tedious after so many episodes (an exception to this rule is the excellent 'Columbo', which uses its formula superbly), then there are series that aren't formulaic, and have more variety in its scripts, but often at a compromise to its quality ie. some stories work better than others. But Due South not only is extremely variable, but in whatever setting or context it's put it still manages to maintain consistent quality and style throughout all 3 series, in every single episode, mixing gritty drama with an overall feel-good quality.

The fish-out-of-water scenario is one that works really well and that I am particularly fond of. Not only does it provide plenty of laughs, but the polite hardy mountaineer in a location that is as far removed from his natural environment as is possible, brings with it a fantastically unique premise. The way Fraser tracks criminals, solves cases and helps out the citizens of Chicago who are in need, using snowy mountain wilderness techniques in this concrete bustling metropolis, with the aid of rough and ready city methods from Ray, brings the whole 'urban wilderness' theme to life and really draws you in, especially with the inclusion of Fraser's other sidekick, his equally hardy and out-of-place pet wolf, Diefenbaker. There are some great moments in the first series particularly, where Fraser's father's voice (Gordon Pinsent) is heard as Fraser reads his diaries' accounts of tracking and arresting criminals in the Yukon wilderness, and it's overlaid on shots of the rough and busy night-time Chicago scene, or in Fraser's dilapidated downtown flat, as Fraser seeks to apply his father's knowledge and experience to his own situation or police case. It's a blend of two contrasting situations that works beautifully.

The main theme in Due South, though, is friendship. The chemistry between particularly Fraser and Ray Vecchio in Series 1 and 2, but also Fraser and Ray Kowalski (Callum Keith Rennie) in Series 3, is why I really love this series. The replacement of David Marciano with Callum Keith Rennie in Series 3 wasn't planned, as the series was going to be cancelled and Marciano signed a contract with someone else, so when it was suddenly announced it was coming back they replaced the character in a very clever and ingenious way which I won't go into to avoid spoilers. Some complain that the duet of Fraser and the original Ray worked perfectly and shouldn't have been changed, but I think it makes the series that much better, fuller and more complete. As Paul Gross says on the documentary included in this box-set, it was sad that David left but Callum brought something completely refreshing and brilliant to the show in the same way that if the show had started with Callum and he left, it would be sad to see him go but now we've got this whole new quality in David's character - Callum's arrival reinvented the show, even though it wasn't as if the old partnership was tired and needed reinvigorating - but it added a new dimension to the overall series' story. Both partnerships are similar yet different. The relationship between Fraser and the self-assured, flamboyant and openly moaning Italian-American Ray Vecchio has a dynamic where Ray vocally expresses how he's so often out of his depth and his exasperation with Fraser, and it's very much Ray as the bigger brother to the fish-out-of-water Fraser. This flips then with Fraser and Ray Kowalski - Kowalski is still the tough, street-wise cop, but he's more of a scruffy renegade, more aggressive and more easily provoked to anger, but still a good person at heart. His bewilderment at Fraser's seemingly crazy ways is expressed with a quieter, less dramatic despair than Vecchio. His tenser attitude comes from the fact that he is a lot more insecure than Vecchio or indeed Fraser, and in this instance the dynamic flips, and I see Fraser very much as the bigger brother to Ray, with his classic 'Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray' until he gets Ray's attention which has been drawn by something else, or his frequent advice to Ray through inuit fables. In the end, when you put aside the quality stories, the musical and visual style, and the fish-out-of-water premise that works so well, it's a show about two guys (twice over) with a special and remarkable bond, and their adventures. To paraphrase a quote from the series - when they're on their own they're incomplete, but when they're together they're better than what they are alone.

I primarily decided to review this, though, to give a word on this repackaging, and it is worth it. I don't think it's physically possible to make it any more compact - they've managed to cram 18 discs into three standard-sized DVD cases (6 discs in each case). It's great to have such a brilliant series in such a neat and compact format.

I loved Due South when it was on TV the first time round, and when Alibi started showing it again it took me just one episode to get sucked right back in. I had to buy this boxset, and seem to have picked the right time too - it shot up in price a couple of days after I bought it, maybe due to low stock.

Due South has everything. It has humour, intrigue, romance, poignancy and such an original concept. Paul Gross is wonderful as the mountie, and David Marciano and Callum Keith Rennie both bring their own individual brilliance to the two 'Ray's' in the show, though I prefer David Marciano a little, probably because he was the original. There are some great stand-out episodes, some recurring themes that run through and a whole host of characters - and of course Deifenbaker the deaf wolf - which make the whole programme so rich! It is often quirky, sometimes tense, occasionally tear-jerking but always, always heartwarming.

I have often gone back and watched old shows that I used to love, and been disappointed because they don't stand the test of time. It has been 15 years since I first saw Due South, and it is still as fresh and funny watching it this time round, and I know I will watch it again and again. This set is brilliant too. Packaged very neatly and with some fantastic extras. I got a bit over-excited when I saw that it contained Paul Gross' interview on Noel's House Party. For true Due South (and Paul Gross) fans the moment when Noel's doorbell rang and it was the mountie on the other side was a wonderful moment - and now I have it to keep!

If you liked this series the first time round, or if you've never seen it and just heard all the good things about it, I highly recommend giving Due South another - or a first - go. You won't be disappointed. Thank you kindly. ;)