"Actor: Alex James"

• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Season 3 | DVD | (23/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £84.99

  Deep Space Nine's third series begins eventfully, with Sisko promoted to captain and being gifted a prototype warship equipped with a cloaking device, while Odo learns where he came from. In the two-part opening tale, this clever gambit is played to hook viewers into the idea of DS9 becoming an ongoing mystery/conflict show. Why the sudden intense format tweaking? Mostly this was to ensure the show continued to thrive when a really rather greedy production hierarchy fast-tracked Voyager onto the air mid-season (cue unnecessary crossover episode with Tuvok). Of greater concern was ratings thief Babylon 5, which played its counter-Trek cards at precisely the right time. Fortunately the result (initially at least) was a genuine boost for DS9. Cast members seemed to have hit their stride and played off one another more assuredly than before. For example, Odo's character took several additional interesting twists, especially in his relationship with Kira. Rene Auberjonois had a very good year, directing two episodes to boot. Avery Brooks had begun this trend with the previous year's penultimate show. The real surprise was seeing Jonathan Frakes's name working behind the camera on three occasions, because he also appeared on screen in his alternate rogue Riker role, when Thomas dramatically steals the Defiant. Other welcome cameos that aided the feeling of casual camaraderie included the return of Lwaxana Troi, as well as first appearances by Quark's Mum, the spooky Founder Leader, the lovely Leeta and the sneaky Eddington. Clint Howard--a cult Trek figure--was briefly welcomed back, and with the many faces of Jeffrey Combs another was born. Stories progressed the complicated Bajoran/Cardassian healing process, while simultaneously brewing potential conflicts far worse than the behind-the-scenes ratings war. --Paul Tonks

• Arizona Dream | DVD | (30/08/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Johnny Depp plays Axel a young drifter caught between the dreams of youth and the responsibilities of adulthood. Enticed back to his Arizona hometown the oddball residents take more than a passing interest in him. His wheeler-dealer uncle badgers him to take over the Cadillac salesroom. What's more Axel becomes the pinnacle of risque love triangle with a wealthy widow and her stepdaughter...

• A Gunfight | DVD | (03/09/2001) from £7.46   |  Saving you £-4.47 (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  Tickets are sold for a win-or-die gunfight between two legendary gunmen.

• Angel: Complete Season 3 | DVD | (18/10/2004) from £13.99   |  Saving you £66.00 (471.77%)   |  RRP £79.99

  In the third series of Angel the titular vampire with a soul was forced to stand alone thanks to the (temporary) death of his beloved Buffy and her show's move to a new network, with no crossover between the two allowed. He returns from seeking peace in a demon-haunted monastery to find the LA Angel Investigations team fighting supernatural crime in his absence. Fred is still haunted by the nightmare dimension from which they rescued her; Cordelia's visions get ever more painful and debilitating. The schemes of the evil law firm Wolfram and Hart become every more imaginative and dragon lady Lilah Morgan becomes even more of an enemy when lusting after Angel. Unbelievably, Darla, Angel's vampire sire and lover, turns up, pregnant with his child and is tortured by inexplicable motherly feelings as well as a raging thirst for human blood. For a few episodes things go pretty well--but Angel's enemies, both those he has made in his quest for redemption and those he made when he was unadulterated evil, are still out there. Stephanie Romanov comes into her silky own in this series, making Lilah Morgan all the more seductively evil because she is clear about the choices she has made; the satanic law-firm of Wolfram and Hart are this show's most inspired creation. As the series moves to its close, Wesley (Alexis Denisof) has hard choices to make. The devastating climax is compulsive viewing and this series also contains one of the most impressive single episodes of the entire show: in "Waiting in the Wings" writer, director and creator Joss Whedon comes up with a classic ghost story as Angel and his crew go to the ballet and find a performance that is literally timeless. On the DVD: Angel, Series 3 DVD box set is generously stocked with extra features--a season overview, commentaries on three episodes, a documentary on the way scripts are transferred to screen, and an overview of the story of the doomed vampire Darla. Of especial interest to fans are two deleted scenes--one from the ballet episode "Waiting in the Wings", in which Amy Acker (Fred) and Alexis Denisof (Wesley) dance a pas de deux at once touching and hilarious, and the other a hilarious scene from "Cordy", the cute situation comedy in which Cordelia stars in an alternate universe. --Roz Kaveney

• Bad Girls - Series 4 | DVD | (09/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  All sixteen fully uncut episodes of the fourth season of conflicts crises chaos and camaraderie from inside HMP Larkhall...

• Bride Of Chucky | DVD | (11/03/2002) from £12.48   |  Saving you £-2.49 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Ten years ago, after a heated pursuit, psycho killer Charles

• Flash Gordon Space Soldiers | DVD | (10/03/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Buster Crabbe stars as Flash Gordon in this classic 1930s serial presented for the first time on DVD. Humanity is doomed to destruction! A distant planet has broken its orbit and is headed straight toward the Earth. While Dr. Hans Zarkov works feverishly to finish a rocket ship of his own design internationally renowned polo player and Yale graduate Flash Gordon is a passenger on a small plane where he meets fellow passenger Dale Arden. When a meteor storm destroys their aircraft Flash and Dale bail out and land near Zarkov's ship. The great scientist enlists them to join him on his quest to save Earth and the heroic trio blasts off into space to rendezvous with the runaway planet Mongo. Featuring all 13 episodes of the exciting serial series.

• Angel: Complete Season 2 | DVD | (18/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £79.99

  It is with this second series that Angel, the darker Los Angeles mean-streets spin-off from Buffy, comes entirely into its own. Angel, the vampire with a soul and rather too much hair gel, is driven partly by his need for atonement and partly by his anger at the manipulations of the satanic law firm Wolfram and Hart, especially the morally equivocal Lindsey (Christian Kane). At the end of the previous season, they set his emotional destruction in motion by bringing back from hell Darla, the vampire who turned him, whom he loved for centuries and then killed to save Buffy. Julie Benz's soft-voiced passion--"God doesn't want you, but I still do"--makes her a perfect tragic foil for David Boreanaz's "billowy coat King of Pain" hero and mid-season offers further cause for Angel's despairing rage at his failure to save Darla from being turned vampire again. There is a nice balance of comedy, horror and the starkly tragic here--fake swamis, accursed shrouds, sexually abused telekinetic assassins all come into the mix along with Angel's gang of sidekicks--pedantic Wesley, abrasive Gunn, flighty clairvoyant Cordelia--and a new and wonderfully improbable character who starts as a running joke and becomes so much more--the Host (Andy Hallett), a green demon with red horns, eyes and hair, who sees into the souls of those who sing karaoke at his bar. And in a four-part finale, the group's friendship with the green karaoke demon Lorne sends them off to his home dimension to rescue Cordelia, right wrongs and acquire an important new character. On the DVD: Angel, Season 2 on disc presents all the episodes in their original 16x9 widescreen format (2.35:1), which enables viewers to see shots as they were originally conceived, for example in impressive moments like the march of the four vampires through a burning Shanghai or the climaxes of the mediaeval Pylea sequence. The sound is a sumptuous Dolby Surround 2.0. The first Pylea episode, "Over the Rainbow", has a commentary by its director Fred Keller; the 1959 flashback episode "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?" has a commentary by writer Tim Minnear. There are also featurettes on the set designs--specifically concentrating on the huge hotel set which dominates Season 2. --Roz Kaveney

• Sharpe's Revenge | DVD | (15/01/2007) from £4.98   |  Saving you £3.01 (60.44%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Sean Bean is swashbuckling British officer Richard Sharpe in the visually stunning film Sharpe's Revenge.After the last battle has been fought the Peninsula war is finally over for Britain and its allies but the action does not end here for Sharpe. He is set up once again by his long-time enemy the French spy Ducos and finds himself accused of stealing Napoleon's treasures.Having been abandoned by his beautiful wife Jane who returns to England and persecuted by both the British and French Sharpe boldly goes in search of both truth and revenge embarking on a perilous journey across post-war France with the help of his loyal friends Frederickson and Harper.

• Blur - Starshaped | DVD | (04/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £11.99

  Tracklist: 1. Intermission 2. Can't Explain 3. There's No Other Way 4. Luminous 5. She's So High 6. Colin Zeal 7. Pop Scene 8. When Will We Be Married 9. Sunday Sunday 10. Wassailing Song 11. Coping 12. Day Upon Day 13. For Tomorrow 14. Postman Pat Theme 15. Chemical World 16. Advert 17. Commercial Break 18. Sunday Sunday

• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Season 6 | DVD | (08/12/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £84.99

  Deep Space Nine's sixth series began ambitiously with a six-part story arc devoted to the Dominion War. This was a brave move in many ways, but a sensible one too. Whereas other SF shows wouldn't commit to showing the impact of war (Babylon 5), here there were numerous visible sacrifices. Characters were frequently kidnapped and held prisoner, allowing screen time for other members of the ever-growing cast (at its peak there were as many as 18 individuals with speaking roles per episode). This year also introduced the idea of Starfleet Intelligence and its sinister Section 31; alliances were built only to crumble almost immediately; Sisko led a suicide mission and at long last his destiny as the Emissary took a serious turn. Amid all this sturm und drang the writers felt it necessary to inject some levity. In fact, there was so much comedic sidetracking this year it actually seemed sometimes as if they were afraid of the series’ dark tone. Witness: Quark undergoing a temporary sex change, leading a Magnificent Seven-style band of Ferengi (with a cameo from Iggy Pop), Morn's non-speaking character being sorely missed, the blend of Troi and Guinan into 60's crooner Vic Fontaine and, in one fan favourite episode ("Far Beyond the Stars"), Sisko having visions of himself and the crew as 1950s staff writers on pulp magazine Incredible Tales. There were also cute reconciliations amongst Worf's extended family (leading to Trek's first cast wedding), and even the revelation of Bashir's genetically enhanced origins quickly became a subject for easy jokes. Any of these events would have been satisfactorily cute if the war had ended and the show had moved on. But confusing the viewer, every so often the battle would be rejoined mid-episode. The clinching proof that no grand design was really at work was in the sudden and brutal dispatch of Dax. Actress Terry Farrell gave sufficient forewarning of having had enough of the show, but specifically asked not to be killed off. Despite all the jarring humour scattered about after the strong opening, the show seemed unable to avoid reverting to shock tactics for its finale. All of which hardly made the promised final year seem a particularly enticing prospect. --Paul Tonks

• Angel: Complete Season 1 | DVD | (18/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £79.99

  Taking the Spin-off genre to the extreme, Angel attempts to replicate the success of Buffy by taking the heartthrob as the lead. Spin-off shows rarely match the success of their parent programmes, especially in the superhero/fantasy genre (cf. The Girl From UNCLE, The Bionic Woman, The Green Hornet--Frasier being the notable exception). Characters who were perfectly useful as supporting figures dwindle when forced in the spotlight, and Angel takes a special risk by building an entire series around a character who is: (a) supposed to be a mystery man; (b) a vampire who once spent half a season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a dastardly villain who killed without remorse; and (c) played by David Boreanaz, who is well up on handsome and broody but still can't do an Irish accent to save his life and is visibly learning this acting lark as the series progresses. The premise is that Angel, the vampire with a soul, has finally admitted he'll never get it together with Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), unless a reunion crossover episode or two are scheduled. He moves to Los Angeles, a city haunted not only by demons and vampires but lawyers and agents. Angel sets up as a private investigator and solves cases with a supernatural aspect, partnered with Doyle (Glenn Quinn), a half-demon with a proper Irish accent and the useful psychic ability to know when someone is in trouble (thereby predicting any given week's plot), and Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), another Buffy refugee here trying to reinvent herself as a struggling big-city single girl. Far less consistent than its parent show, but also not saddled with quite so much of a continuing story arc, Angel has a very different feel, cued by its effective semi-Goth violin theme tune and lots of film noir-ish LA street scenes, with a dose of cynical inside-the-entertainment-industry stuff. It has its share of familiar ideas (such as a Fight Club episode) and simply daft premises (a demon-centred show which allegorises the debate about female circumcision , for example). Angel alienated a lot of initial fans by killing off its most appealing regular a third of the way into the run, dusting off hideous English comic stereotype Wesley the Watcher (Alex Denisof) as a replacement. However, it also comes up with some ingenious moments: in a two-parter guest-starring sometime Buffy villainess Faith (Eliza Dushku), the show finally delivers something scary and emotionally powerful as Angel proves he can solve cases his ex-girlfriend can't. Meanwhile, the last couple of episodes--which beef up a satanic law firm as regular foes and resurrect a long-dead character as a major troublemaker for the future--go from promising to delivering. --Kim NewmanOn the DVD: the DVD set is only moderately generous with features, compared to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series DVDs. There are two episodes with commentaries--creators Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt discussing the series' genesis and "City Of ". Added to this Jane Espenson, the resident queen of farce, talks us through the haunted apartment episode "Rm w/a Vu". Also included are four featurettes--introductions to the characters of Angel and Cordelia, a series one overview and a discussion of the show's demons--scripts for the two Faith episodes, cast biographies and a gallery of stills and blue-prints. Most importantly, given the way Angel was butchered by Channel 4 for an inappropriately early time slot, the show's violence and strong language are offered uncut. Presented in English and French Dolby Surround Sound 2.0 and with an aspect ratio of approx 1.33:1 --Roz Kaveney

• Midsomer Murders - Sauce For The Goose | DVD | (07/08/2006) from £5.99   |  Saving you £11.00 (183.64%)   |  RRP £16.99

  David Arquette (Scream) and Jonny Lee Miller (Canterbury Tales) head a stellar cast in this wonderful prequel to Lonesome Dove by the same writer of Brokeback Mountain. Based on Larry McMurty's novel in Dead man's Walk Gus (Arquette) and Call (Miller) are young men coming of age in the days when Texas was still an independent republic. We follow the two men as they embark on their first great adventure. They sign up as Texas Rangers under the command of Caleb Cobb an unpredictable bandit who wants to seize Santa Fe from the Mexicans. This untamed frontier and the wild men who live there - the Indians defending it with unrelenting savagery the Texans attempting to seize and 'civilize' it and the Mexicans threatened by both - are at the heart of this gripping story.

• The Ring Two / The Ring - Special Edition | DVD | (03/07/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  The Ring (Dir. Gore Verbinski 2002):It begins as just another urban legend - the whispered tale of nightmarish videotape that causes anyone who watches it to die seven days later. But when four teenagers all meet with mysterious deaths exactly one week after watching just such a tape investigative reporter Rachel Keller tracks down the video...and watches it. Now the legend is coming true the clock is ticking and Rachel has just seven days to unravel the mystery of The Ring

• Otello - Verdi | DVD | (12/04/2004) from £15.85   |  Saving you £1.14 (7.19%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Filmed at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1995 this rendition of Verdi's 'Otello' is beautifully crafted by leading stars Placido Domingo and Renee Fleming. This was the first major success for Fleming at the Met and as this release illustrates she tackled the character of Desdemona wonderfully.

• Arthur's Quest | DVD | (03/09/2001) from £5.98   |  Saving you £-2.99 (-100.00%)   |  RRP £2.99

  To safeguard his liege from the clutches of evil sorceress Morgana Merlin transports the young King Arthur into modern day America...

• Angel: Complete Season 5 | DVD | (21/02/2005) from £49.99   |  Saving you £30.00 (60.01%)   |  RRP £79.99

  Lives were upended--and some co-opted--in the fifth and final season of Angel, as the denizens of Angel Investigations found themselves taking on one of their scariest endeavors ever: corporate life. After making a literal deal with the devil (or something distinctly devil-like), Angel (David Boreanaz) moved his team from their crumbling hotel to the high-rise digs of law-firm-from-hell Wolfram & Hart, his reasoning being they could better fight the forces of evil from the inside, and with more resources to boot. Clever maneuvering or easy rationalization? A few members of Angel's team accused him of selling out (as did a number of viewers), but as with most of the show's previous four seasons, Angel somehow took a dubious premise and mined it for gold. And with one core cast member gone (Charisma Carpenter, whose Cordelia was immersed in a deep coma), it seemed as if the show, from within and without, would suddenly fall apart--that is, until Angel's longtime nemesis Spike (James Marsters) showed up, fresh from his sacrificial roasting at the series finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Let the vampire games begin! With Buffy off the air, fans flocked to Angel's last season to get their fix of Joss Whedon's "Buffyverse" in any form they could, and the addition of Spike was a shrewd one, albeit not enough to keep the show from getting canceled. And for the first half of the season, the creative forces behind the show seemed to be toying ruthlessly with the audience. Spike was around, but not entirely corporeal; Angel himself became sullen and withdrawn; and most horrifically, sweetheart scientist Fred (Amy Acker) and former watcher Wesley (Alexis Denisof) underwent traumas that would test even the most devoted viewer. However, just when you'd be about to throw in the towel, things started changing for the better--Spike became a permanent fixture (both in the flesh and on the show), Angel's secret motives were revealed, and the introduction of demon warrior Illyria, who proved to be the show's answer to Buffy's sardonic demon-made-human Anya, was a welcome breath of fresh air. Creatively, Angel also came up with some of its best episodes, including "Smile Time" (where Angel is turned into a puppet – really!) and "You're Welcome" (the show's 100th episode, which marked the bittersweet return of Carpenter's Cordelia). The ending of the series was deliberately ambiguous, and not everyone made it through alive, but in going out kicking, it was a proper sendoff for a show that always fought the good fight. --Mark Englehart

• She Always Gets Her Man | DVD | (16/11/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The ladies of the Kensington Residential Club For Women have a problem - she's petite has long blonde hair hourglass figure and has a nasty habit of turning every man's head who sees her. Sally is the shy sweet and not-so-innocent cousin of Betty Tate who has come to visit her in London from the small village of Twickelberry. It's not long before every man in London is swooning at Sally's feet something Betty and her fellow residence of the woman's club are not going to stand for. In an attempt to distract the gold digging Sally the women hire an actor to play an aristocratic millionaire leaving the other men of London free to pursue however when the actor begins to take his role a little to literally Betty and her friends must cancel the performance before it's too late.

• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Season 7 | DVD | (22/12/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £84.99

  The seventh and final series of Deep Space Nine came down to loose ends, tying some existing ones together and allowing others to unravel. Symptomatic of the unwillingness to let DS9 go was the immediate arrival of a replacement Dax, though poor Nichole deBoer as Ezri Dax had to have known she'd already missed the boat. Her appearance encouraged last-minute romances to blossom, with Bashir finally getting some action, Odo finally getting together with Kira and Sisko finally proposing to Kassidy. Another contributing cute factor were numerous trips to the Holosuite wherein the all-knowing Vic Fontaine dished out philosophical advice. That was when the crew weren't in there to play baseball against the Vulcans or when Nog wasn't commiserating about the loss of a leg. Oh yes, and don't forget the war! There was an early announcement that the show would attempt a 10-part resolution to the Dominion War, but viewers could be forgiven for forgetting all about it with so much sentimental distraction. When the horrors of war did resurface, they at least injected a few surprises into the mix. Odo and his ambiguously "evil" Founders were hit with a melting disease, prompting a backstabbing race for the power of developing and owning a cure. The original baddie Cardassians finally settled on the Federation's side. Contrary to these interesting twists, however, were the unexpected turns taken by matters relating to Sisko's spiritual destiny. Suddenly the mystery of the wormhole and an entire religious belief system was reduced to the problem of translating correctly the words of a sacred book. The struggle to join with some evil aliens significantly diluted the attempt at resolving what had begun seven years before in the show's pilot episode. Ultimately, Sisko's destiny, as with all those who'd followed him to the open-ended climax, was to be decided elsewhere. In a move that was either bold and daring--or possibly born of desperation for not having thought things through properly--the show's storylines were to be continued in a series of spin-off books. --Paul Tonks

• Piranhas | DVD | (19/01/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Dr. Baines' genetically altered piranha are virtually unstoppablethey can survive in salt water and they thrive on human flesh. When Maggie (Alexandra Paul Baywatch) and Paul (William Katt Carrie) accidentally release them into the Lost River these ferocious predators threaten to destroy everything and everyone in their path. With only a rickety raft to keep the piranha at bay Maggie and Paul must reach Lost River Lake in time to warn its residents and close its dam before the vicious piranha reach the ocean and spawn.