Television really doesn't come much better than this. Criminally ignored by far, far too many people, The Wire has proven itself to be that rarest of things: an intelligent, clever, character-driven show, that's lasted more than one season.This boxset brings together all the episodes from the maiden series of The Wire, spread across thirteen episodes. Yet those episodes, unlike ...

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: Dominic West, John Doman, Wendell Pierce, Lance Reddick, Deirdre Lovejoy
Directed By: Brad Anderson, Clark Johnson, Clément Virgo, Edward Bianchi, Gloria Muzio

Picking up after the dramatic events of its maiden season, the second series of The Wire achieves something really rather special: it even manages to outclass the first.For those fresh to the show, surely the best, most intelligent piece of scripted drama to emerge from America in the last decade, the actual premise is fairly simple. Across the thirteen episodes of its season, it charts ...

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: Dominic West, John Doman, Wendell Pierce, Lance Reddick, Deirdre Lovejoy
Directed By: Daniel Attias, Edward Bianchi, Elodie Keene, Ernest R. Dickerson, Rob Bailey

Corruption is rife throughout The Wire: The Complete Third Season, which picks up the further adventures of the Baltimore Major Crimes Unit as they continue to wage war on drugs. Only as this is The Wire, that's just the beginnings of their problems. Once again, the show that's rightly being acclaimed as one of America's finest and most intelligent dramas covers the story from all ...

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: Dominic West, Idris Elba, Michael K. Williams, Sonja Sohn

Glenn Close continues the exodus of terrific movie actors and actresses who are finding the more fulfilling and meaty roles on the smaller screen. And with Damages, she's struck gold in an engrossing legal thriller. Close plays Patty Hewes, an experienced and high profile litigator. She's then joined by the eager, and considerably more wet-behind-the-ears Ellen Parsons (played by Rose ...

Manufacturer: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Starring: Glenn Close, Rose Byrne, Ted Danson, Zeljko Ivanek, Tate Donovan
Directed By: Mario Van Peebles

The further adventures of Los Angeles' Counter Terrorism Unit's finest initially sees Kiefer Sutherland's Jack Bauer in a Chinese prison and not in good shape. But, this being 24, it's not too long before the breakneck plot has revved into gear, and the wheels are turning again on a frantic real-time ride that's thoroughly in the tradition of what's become television's finest thriller. ...

Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Starring: Kiefer Sutherland, Carlos Bernard, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Dennis Haysbert, James Morrison

How would the modern face of policing cope in the land of The Sweeney? That's the question posed by Life on Mars, as DI Sam Tyler (John Simm) a modern cop transported back to 1973 after a nasty car accident. There, he finds himself dealing with the significantly rougher attitudes and behaviours of "old-school" British policing, as exemplified by his new boss, DCI Gene Hunt (Philip ...

Manufacturer: Contender Home Entertainment Group
Starring: John Simm, Philip Glenister, Ashley Pharoah, Bharat Nalluri, Claire Parker (IV)

Love him or hate him, it’s good to have Jack Bauer back on our screens. Played with sneer and menace by Kiefer Sutherland, the ruthless ex-Counter Terrorism Unit agent is the kind of guy you’re glad is on your side, and this time, 24: Redemption finds him facing up to demons of his own. Set between the sixth and seventh seasons of 24, Redemption transports Jack ...

Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Starring: Kiefer Sutherland
Directed By: Jon Cassar

Season two of the television phenomenon that is Lost is where the questions, in many senses, started to be asked. Picking up directly after that first season cliffhanger, it sets off at a belting pace, continuing the adventures of a group of people stranded on a desert island following a place crash. Only, as becomes increasingly clear, the island is a mysterious place, and the survivors ...

Manufacturer: Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Starring: Naveen Andrews, Matthew Fox, Jorge Garcia, Josh Holloway, Daniel Dae Kim
Directed By: Adam Davidson, Alan Taylor, Deran Sarafian, Eric Laneuville, Jack Bender

Such a simple idea--yet so fiendishly complex in the execution. 24, as surely everyone knows by now, is a thriller that takes place over 24 hours, midnight to midnight, in 24 one-hour episodes (well, 45-minute episodes if you extract the ad breaks). Everything to take place in real time--on-screen and off-screen time the same--which means no flash-backs, no flash-forwards, no nice handy ...

Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Starring: Kiefer Sutherland, Carlos Bernard, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Dennis Haysbert, James Morrison

The second of the BBC's well-regarded serialisations of John Le Carré's espionage bestsellers, Smiley's People is slightly less compulsively watchable than Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy if only because Tinker, Tailor had a much stronger plot premise (who is the mole in British Intelligence?) than Smiley's People, which takes a very long time to come into focus. Retired ...

Manufacturer: 2 Entertain Video
Starring: Alec Guinness, Michael Gough, Dudley Sutton, Michael Elphick, Ingrid Pitt