I’m pleased with this collection of all episodes (as well as the pilot) of one of my all-time favorite shows. The picture quality and audio are both good (much better than my old taped-off-tv videos!). The price is exceptional for an 11-disk set. The only feature it lacks is closed captioning.

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3E5WFZHEG6EPM One morning Princess Monkey signed onto Amazon looking for something else . . . maybe it was the Baxton Studio Fabiana Tan Futon-Style Convertible Sofa with an Asian Flair. . . when in the upper right hand corner of the screen, smiling out at her, was Paul Gross. Amazon knew she was a big fan of his work because she had purchased the complete set of “Slings & Arrows: The Complete Collection” weeks before. “What is this?” she wondered, clicking on that face. “Hmmm . . .$24.98 for the Complete Due South Series and Due South: Call of the Wild. Who can quibble with a deal like that?” Even though she knew she was succumbing to impulse buying . . . that wonderfully wicked temptation that Amazon is so skilled at offering . . . Princess Monkey clicked “add to cart.” Within a few days, Princess Monkey ambled out to the mailbox and inside was a box with the familiar Amazon logo. She raced back to her house, ripped open the box, and popped the first DVD into her 27″ DTV Dolby Digital television set. A series done in the 1990s by our neighbors to the North, filmed in a 1:33:1 ratio, Princess Monkey found the quality of the DVD to be excellent with no evidence of pixelation to distract her from one of her favorite television series of all time.

For those of you who haven’t seen a single episode of Due South and need some clues as to what kind of show this is, I’ll give it a shot. I wouldn’t be surprised if this show was cancelled simply because it doesn’t fit neatly into a particular category and would be hard to pitch to execs.

My teenaged kids’ favorite character is Diefenbaker, the beautiful dog you see on the cover. He’s deaf, supposedly can read lips, and has engaging storylines that center around him. Working with animals in a production is extremely difficult to do. I’m impressed by Diefenbaker and always look forward to his presence in the show. He’s described as wolf that decided to live with Fraser (the mountie) and went deaf when he saved Fraser’s life in a water rescue. This is a comedy and I find it easy to set aside any quibbles with the chances of this happening, although it’s my understanding that sometimes people who own sled dogs and live in the far north have wolves interact with their dogs and even become somewhat friendly toward the people if they’re fed. Diefenbaker is a big step up from the dog heroes I enjoyed as a child. He is very much as fully realized a character as any of the other leads.

My favorite character is Fraser. I’ve always had a fondness for the innocent, brave and ultra-polite stereotypical image of ‘Mounties’ and Fraser doesn’t disappoint with his sometimes comical adherence to the strict letter of the law and his rarely fallible capability to track down bad guys in any terrain. I believe his mother was a librarian if I remember correctly, or maybe it was a grandparent. This is the excuse the writers use to turn Fraser into a kind of living encyclopedia. The pilot says it all as Fraser brings in the bad guy in a bad storm by sled for illegal fishing. You have to see the show to get the punchline, and how he ends up in Chicago is a fun set up.

Vecchio, Fraser’s Chicago partner, is the jaded cop on the verge of being a screw-up that offsets Fraser’s straight role. He loves his car too much, loves his clothes too much and doesn’t do much to fight crime until Fraser comes along. At his heart Vecchio wants to do well but clearly hasn’t an idea of how to go about it. He’s too much of an adult to have Fraser become his role model, but by their interactions and Vecchio’s increasing success in crime fighting he quickly develops into a force to be reckoned with. He’s not exactly comic relief. His role is more complex than that. Every character, including Vecchio’s sister, is comical and exaggerated in some way, but they also have a heart that we all aspire to find within ourselves that’s unbreakable and untaintable. The writers play with this idea a great deal, tempting these iconic characters to sully themselves, but they don’t, and it’s a beautiful thing.

Fun secondary characters abound, including the ghosts of the fathers of Fraser and Vecchio. The writers rarely miss an opportunity to make a side character make us want to laugh even as the viewer becomes engaged in the crime-solving storyline. The crimes aren’t particularly campy, nor is the crime-solving. It’s more of a dry comedy with some serious moments. It is extremely family friendly with very limited violence, although some very young children may be concerned or disturbed about animals in danger, especially the horses/slaughterhouse episode where there are hanging carcasses and they may correctly interpret that those are meant to depict horse carcasses.

I have no complaints about the quality of the DVDs themselves. The case is solid and holds the DVDs well. There weren’t any loose on arrival.