"Actor: Elizabeth Rider"

• Waking the Dead Series 1-9 Box Set | DVD | (02/05/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £119.99

  All episodes of this tense British crime drama series starring Trevor Eve Tara Fitzgerald Claire Goose and Sue Johnson. The programme follows the work of a special police team who investigate cold cases usually murders that took place a number of years ago and were never solved. The team uses evidence which has just come to light as well as contemporary technology to examine previous evidence.

• Lynda La Plante's Civvies | DVD | (03/06/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In a time when waves of soldiers are returning from Afghanistan and Iraq Civvies is a shocking violent unflinching drama that puts you in the front line on the home front as powerful unforgiving and true as when first broadcast in the early 90s. Frank Dillon is retiring from the Army after 15 years with only £5 000 which won't last and the physical and psychological scars which will. He'd rather drink with the boys and go out looking for a fight than return home to the family he loves so much it hurts. But what he and his mates have gone through what they've seen what they've done is something no one else will understand; and so they turn to each other - when the doors close when the pubs open when revenge is the answer when the scars are healing. As they struggle to find their feet in the world always lurking in the darkness is Barry Newman an East End gangster who is one of the few to see potential in hard men trained to kill. Whether they can avoid the darkness and stay in the light will be seen as we see life in Civvies. Special Features: Lynda La Plante Biography Cast Filmographies Subtitles

• The Lakes | DVD | (06/10/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The Lakes brought writer Jimmy McGovern and actor John Simm a great deal of critical praise in 1997. Following a particularly dry period for British TV drama, the show's realistic characterisations and their painfully honest decisions hit audiences hard. Simm is a twentysomething trapped in a life of compulsive gambling, theft and being on the dole in Liverpool. On a whim he heads north to the Lake District. He expects to find the countryside quietude where his hidden poetical leanings might find a home, but instead gets caught up in a community like any other. Lies, temptation and tragedy beset every household just as much as the big city. The focus of Series 1 is Danny's relationship with Emma (Emma Cunniffe) and the consequences of having a child. As time races by, his link to the Lakes becomes an exercise in torment when the eyes of blame fall easily upon him after the accidental deaths of four schoolgirls. Stoking the flames of a series of secondary explosions in waiting are a pair of affairs, one adulterous, the other complicated by religion. On the DVD: The Lakes Series 1 comes with two separate commentary tracks for the very first episode. In interviews, John Simm fondly recalls how cold the lake water was and director David Blair recalls putting him in it. It's a shame the two weren't recorded together. It's also a shame that's all there is in this package. Even a few cast biographies would have been welcome. Picture is 4:3 and stereo sound is as you'd expect from 1990s UK TV. --Paul Tonks

• Roughnecks - Starship Troopers Chronicles - Vol. 1 - The Pluto Campaign | DVD | (07/05/2001) from £4.96   |  Saving you £15.03 (303.02%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Roughnecks is the computer-animated TV spin-off from director Paul Verhoeven's live-action sci-fi shoot-'em-up Starship Troopers. Verhoeven had already seen his Robocop movie spun-off into animated television with mixed results, so when it came to Starship Troopers he wanted Roughnecks to be a little different (the director acted as Executive Producer on the series). The style of computer animation here recalls, if anything, the little green soldiers from the Toy Story movies. Backed by an unending techno-based score (despite which the series has won several awards for sound editing), the 20-minute episodes are like viewing brilliantly conceived "cut scenes" from computer games. The series concept begins by taking the movie's characters, giving them different origins---and then forgets about a bug home-world in favour of a mobile threat that can appear anywhere. With souped-up combat suits that better acknowledge Robert Heinlein's original novel, the technological look and feel also owes a significant debt to Aliens. This first collection edits together the opening five episodes to make a 100-minute self-contained movie about a crawling infestation on Pluto. You'll know where shows start and end by the narration. The story is all to do with set-up as we meet the titular Roughnecks: Rico, Dizzy, Doc, Jenkins, Higgins and Razak. Between missions of rescue and mercy, a love triangle is established, Rico's heroics and Higgins' cowardice are explored and more bugs are wasted than you can possibly keep count of. The finale's discovery of "Bug City" will test anyone for arachnophobia. --Paul Tonks

• Roughnecks - Starship Troopers Chronicles - Vol. 2 - The Tesca Campaign | DVD | (21/01/2002) from £6.88   |  Saving you £13.11 (190.55%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In Volume 2 of Roughnecks--Starship Troopers Chronicles, Johnny Rico, Lieutenant Razak and their computer-animated squad embark on the Tesca campaign, once again fighting the bugs in all their myriad forms, shooting anything that moves and generally causing chaos and mayhem. Inspired by Robert Heinlein's sci-fi classic and executive-produced by Paul Verhoeven, who made the big-screen version, Roughnecks is cutting-edge TV animation that's more for grown-ups than kids. The neat equipment, combat suits and weapons are as deadly as they are cool, and even though the extreme gore and violence of the movie has been toned down the endless threat from all manner of nasty bugs is still pretty terrifying (the Giant Spider Bug, for example, really is the stuff of nightmares). As with Volume 1, the five 20-minute episodes are here spliced together into a movie-length feature, which makes for a satisfyingly lengthy story arc instead of the more usual self-contained individual episodes. The show's structure also allows for plenty of character development: this time the squad are joined by an alien "skinny" called T'Phai who, as might be expected, has to work hard to bond with the rest of the team and earn their respect. Like all good war stories, at its heart Roughnecks celebrates that "Band of Brothers"-style bonding in extreme circumstances which we viewers can only experience vicariously. On the DVD: The 4:3 picture is good, although it's better to watch with the lights off to see all the detail in the moody (i.e., "dark") CG animation. The 5.1 sound shows off explosions and gunfire, but also the almost incessant techno soundtrack. There's a good commentary from cast and crew members, who talk about their various movie inspirations (from the D-Day landing sequence of Saving Private Ryan to, of course, Aliens) and their desire to parallel real war situations. There's also a photo gallery of the human actors and a trailer. This is a stylish show, and a good DVD.--Mark Walker