TVSquad

If you need one example as to how 1950s television was different than 2000s television, here it is: this show ran for three years and they made 117 episodes.

This is a complete set in the most literal of ways. It has every single episode of the show, and they got them not just by digging into studio archives but by also asking fans for help. This set was originally going to be a "best of" set because they didn't have all of the episodes. But fans actually filled in the gaps with episodes that they had on tape for one reason or another. So now this is truly a set that was "completed." So you get to see every episode of a show that was rather groundbreaking.

And you also get to see where the cult classic Police Squad! got a lot of its structure.

M Squad is a film noir-ish detective show set in Chicago. The main character is Lt. Frank Ballinger, played by movie tough guy Lee Marvin. Throughout the three seasons you get to see a lot of actors who went on to big things, including Burt Reynolds, Don Rickles, DeForest Kelley (several episodes), Angie Dickinson, Rose Marie, James Coburn, Leonard Nimoy, and many more.

Packaging/Design: What happens when you have a set that houses 117 episodes on 15 DVDs? You get a freakin' big set. It's accordion style, and you open the box (inside of another box) and it just keeps stretching out more and more and more. Your arms won't be long enough to open the set completely, so use a table. Each DVD has a different picture of Marvin on it.

Audio/Video/Menus: Some of the episodes aren't the best quality, but you have to expect that in a 50 year old show, especially one where some episodes were provided by fans. But all of the episodes are watchable. The menus are pretty basic (play all, play each episode individually, etc), but that's not a negative at all.

Extras/Features: No commentaries, and there's no episode guide at all (just a list of the episode titles and what DVD they're on) and that's a shame (you'll have to use the web to find out info about the eps). But the set does come with an extra DVD that has the music from the show, including the theme song by Count Basie and episode music by people like John Williams.

About that Police Squad! comparison: it's really funny to watch this show and realize where Zucker, Abrahams and the gang got the ideas for the show. Leslie Nielsen played Lt. Frank Drebin, whose name is very close to M Squad's Lt. Frank Ballinger. The theme songs (M Squad's theme song kicks in several episodes into the series) are very similar, and both heroes narrate the show in the very same way, only Nielsen did it for laughs. Even the openings are the same, with the car screeching to a halt, the hero jumping out and exchanging gunfire with someone. There's even a guy at the police station who works in the lab! I didn't realize how based on the serious M Squad the humorous Police Squad! was.

This is M Squad's opening. Compare it to the Police Squad! opening that follows:

Anyway, this is a cool set to have, especially if this is a show you've been curious about but never thought you'd ever see on DVD. Here it is!