"Actor: David Wood"

• North Sea Hijack | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £19.86   |  Saving you £-9.87 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The exciting story of the hijack of an oil rig supply vessel and the subsequent holding to ransom of a drilling rig a production platform and the 700 men aboard.

• Sapphire And Steel - Assignments 1-3 | DVD | (12/08/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £40.99

  One of the oddest shows ever mounted for mainstream UK television, Sapphire & Steel was one of ITV's many short-lived attempts at grabbing the sci-fi cult status of the BBC's Doctor Who. Ex-Man From U.N.C.L.E. David McCallum and ex-Avenger Joanna Lumley play human-looking incarnations of the eponymous substances, mysterious investigators working at the behest of an apparent God of Order and zipping about TARDIS-like to cope with anomalies in the time-stream that manifest as apparent supernatural forces in remote English locales like an isolated farmhouse (Adventure One), a deserted rural railway station (Adventure Two) and a high-rise block of flats (Adventure Three). McCallum and Lumley play their "medium atomic weights" with blank style and a few touches of baffled humour, not to mention visual flair in the case of Lumley's blue fashions and occasional glowing eyes. But the lengthy serial format, strictly limited guest casts and claustrophobic confinement to studio floor sets tend to mean individual serials straggle on with a great deal of repetition, providing longeurs as six or eight-part stories seem to take forever to get moving and then resolve. Shot on video, with a few strange 1970s effects (evil follow-spots, floating pillows), this remains prime cult material, though it's hard to sit still for more than one episode at a time. It will take an extremely devoted fan to get through all three adventures in under six months. On the DVD: Sapphire & Steel on disc has to be reckoned a disappointment when compared with the wealth of extra material included on the Gerry Anderson or Doctor Who DVDs. This set stretches only to a few press releases and a TV Times article from the launch of the series that tries hard to build up a mystique about the show which it would take some years to actually acquire. There are basic bios of the two stars, and some unresonant stills. Image quality-wise, this looks much the same as previous VHS releases: shot on video, with only a few tiny film inserts for Adventure Three (on the roof of a London building), the series' transfer to DVD is plagued by artefacting of various kinds (some of which can just about be passed off as visual effects), but then again so were the original transmissions. The pristine look is especially unfortunate in exposing the extremely ordinary trickery as far less terrifying than the onscreen characters make them out to be. --Kim Newman

• Nixon | DVD | (01/01/2001) from £10.27   |  Saving you £5.72 (55.70%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Nixon takes a riveting look at a complex man whose chance at greatness was ultimately destroyed by his passion for power - when his involvement in conspiracy jeopardized the nation's security and the presidency of the United States! With a phenomenal all-star cast.

• The X Files: Season 5 | DVD | (27/12/2004) from £19.73   |  Saving you £15.26 (77.34%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Mulder continues his search for a cure for Scully's illness even as her genetically altered DNA takes her to the brink of death. Scully's DNA comes into play once again when it proves that she is somehow the mother of a little girl named Emily an incident that could only be related to her abduction years earlier. But in the end it is a young boy named Gibson Praise whose body may actually contain the elusive proof Mulder has been searching for so desperately. Episodes comprise:

• Wind Of Change/The Traitors | DVD | (24/08/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Set against the Notting Hill race riots of the late 1950's The Wind Of Change is a gripping kitchen-sink drama focusing on the relationship between a father (Donald Pleasence) a world-weary yet liberal man who spends all his spare time looking after his rabbits and his rebellious unemployed son Frank (Johnny Briggs). Frank is bigoted racist who believes the black immigrants are taking all the British jobs though he doesn't seem too concerned in trying to get one himself. When Frank and his gang of teddy boys beat up a black man who later dies of his injuries he must face the consequence of his actions...

• A Very Peculiar Practice | DVD | (26/01/2004) from £39.99   |  Saving you £-15.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  A satirical, surreal and acutely observed comedy-drama from the mid-1980s, A Very Peculiar Practice stars Peter Davison, who, following turns as a vet in All Creatures Great and Small and the Doctor in Doctor Who, here plays naïve Dr Stephen Daker, a profoundly nervous new addition to Lowlands University's medical practice. The distinctly eclectic team he meets is headed by the compassionate, incompetent, alcoholic and suicidal "Jock" McCannon (the gloriously theatrical Graham Crowden). Barbara Flynn is marvellous as the manipulative bisexual Dr Rose Marie, and David Troughton as Dr Bob Buzzard personifies the "greed-is-good" ethos of the era. The seven 50-minute episodes here form an overall arc following Daker from sheer terror through romance with behavioural psychologist Lyn Turtle (Amanda Hillwood), to ethical conflict with the sociopathic vice-chancellor (played with relish by John Bird). Increasingly surreal (from strange nuns to stranger dream sequences--the second, even better series was more bizarre still), the series launches an acidic assault on the Thatcherite asset-stripping mentality that was then laying waste not just British universities, but the entire nation. Written with an acute irony by Andrew Davies, whose move into more mainstream adaptations such as Pride and Prejudice (1995) was contemporary TV drama's greatest loss, A Very Peculiar Practice is a television landmark that, alongside The Singing Detective and Edge of Darkness, marks 1986 as one of the finest years in the history of the medium. --Gary S Dalkin

• The X Files: Season 4 | DVD | (27/12/2004) from £16.90   |  Saving you £18.09 (107.04%)   |  RRP £34.99

  In Season 4 of The X-Files, Scully is a bit upset by her on-off terminal cancer and Mulder is supposed to shoot himself in the season finale (did anyone believe that?), but in episode after episode the characters still plod dutifully around atrocity sites tossing off wry witticisms in that bland investigative demeanour out of fashion among TV cops since Dragnet. Perhaps the best achievement of this season is "Home", the most unpleasant horror story ever presented on prime-time US TV. It's not a comfortable show--confronted with this ghastly parade of incest, inbreeding, infanticide and mutilation, you'd think M & S would drop the jokes for once--but shows a willingness to expand the envelope. By contrast, ventures into golem, reincarnation, witchcraft and Invisible Man territory throw up run-of-the-mill body counts, spotlighting another recurrent problem. For heroes, M & S rarely do anything positive: they work out what is happening after all the killer's intended victims have been snuffed ("Kaddish"), let the monster get away ("Sanguinarium") and cause tragedies ("The Field Where I Died"). No wonder they're stuck in the FBI basement where they can do the least damage. The series has settled enough to play variations on earlier hits: following the liver vampire, we have a melanin vampire ("Teliko") and a cancer vampire ("Leonard Betts"), and return engagements for the oily contact lens aliens and the weasely ex-Agent Krycek ("Tunguska"/"Terma"). Occasional detours into send-up or post-modernism are indulged, yielding both the season's best episode ("Small Potatoes") and its most disappointing ("Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man"). "Small Potatoes", with the mimic mutant who tries out Mulder's life and realises what a loser he is (how many other pin-up series heroes get answerphone messages from their favourite phone-sex lines?), works as a genuine sci-fi mystery--for once featuring a mutant who doesn't have to kill people to live--and as character insight. --Kim Newman

• Dirty | DVD | (05/06/2006) from £4.69   |  Saving you £15.30 (326.23%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Cuba Gooding Jr. (Jerry Maguire Pearl Harbor) and Clifton Collins Jr. (Capote Mindhunters) hit the streets as gang members-turned-cops in this raw hard-edged story about a day in the life of two corrupt cops going for one final score. Featuring Cole Hauser (The Cave Pitch Black) and Aimee Garcia (D.E.B.S. Cadet Kelly) Dirty showcases a darker side of the men in blue where cops are as crooked as the criminals they seek to eradicate.

• Muppets from Space / Muppets T | DVD | (10/10/2011) from £19.99   |  Saving you £-10.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Titles Comprise:Muppets From Space: The Muppets are back in a new zany comedy, Muppets from Space. The Muppets embark on a hilarious extra terrestrial adventure in hopes of finding out about Gonzo's family members are aliens from a distant planet!Gonzo then gets a message that his relatives are coming for a visit, from outer space! But when word gets out on Miss Piggy's talk show, UFO Mania, that the friendly aliens are coming, a secret government agency led by K. Edgar Singer (Jeffrey Tambor) captures Gonzo and goes to great lengths to learn when his extra-terrestrial family will arrive.Now only the Muppets, led by Kermit and Miss Piggy, can save Gonzo and make the world safe for a friendly alien invasion!Muppets Take Manhattan: Broadway-bound, the Muppets Take Manhattan by storm in this magical musical about breaking into show business!Fresh out drama school, Kermit, Fozzie Bear and the entire cast of Kermit's musical - Manhattan Melodies - head for the Big Apple with plans to turn their small play into a big hit! All they need now is someone to produce their show! But when no one in town will even meet with them, it's up to Kermit to believe hard enough for all of his friends that the show WILL go on!Cameo guests include Brooke Shields, Art Carney, Joan Rivers, Liza Minnelli and John Landis.

• Holding On | DVD | (01/08/2005) from £20.00   |  Saving you £4.99 (24.95%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Starring David Morrisey this is a tapestry of interwoven personal stories featuring more than 25 characters. All are united by their efforts to survive in London in the 1990s. Starkly contemporary fast-paced and unsentimental occasionally shocking and often funny the tales build towards climaxes that are sometimes cataclysmic sometimes healing.

• The X Files: Season 6 | DVD | (27/12/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Mulder and Scully return from Antarctica to discover they've been reassigned and are no longer a part of The X-Files. Their frustration turns to fear when Cassandra Spender a woman who claims to have been abducted the same night as Mulder's sister reappears with claims of an alien threat. But it is an extraterrestrial artefact found off the coast of Africa which may hold the key to the very origins of life on Earth and which has an unexplained and deadly effect on Mulder. Episod

• Shameless - Series 2 | DVD | (16/01/2006) from £11.98   |  Saving you £15.00 (150.15%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Paul Abbott's Shameless returns to DVD for a second series. Seven months on from the first series and Manchester's favourite son Frank Gallagher is expecting another addition to the clan this time with his agoraphobic lover Sheila. On the back of a fiddled insurance claim the Gallagher children have extended their home into the house next door. Fiona and boyfriend Steve are now hopeful for a bit of privacy; but Lip Ian Debbie Carl and Liam cause havoc everywher

• The Hot Potato | DVD | (10/09/2012) from £5.38   |  Saving you £12.61 (234.39%)   |  RRP £17.99

  London's East End, 1969: Our heroes Kenny (Ray Winstone) and Danny (Jack Huston) come into possession of a mysterious box which turns out to contain a large lump of weapons grade Uranium - a true Hot Potato!Initially unaware of The Hot Potato's true value they very quickly realise the danger they've been exposed to. Ably assisted by Danny's girlfriend, the beautiful Carole (Lois Winstone) and shadowed at every turn by the unshakeable criminal Harry (Colm Meadey), Kenny and Danny reluctantly embark on a quest to offload the potato to the highest bidder. Taking them on an epic journey that criss-crosses Europe, and into the company of an ever increasing assortment of shady and bizarre characters, Hot Potato is an 'Italian Job' tinged crime caper that you won't forget!

• Mean Machine/The Longest Yard | DVD | (06/10/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Mean Machine: From the Producer of Lock Stock and Snatch comes MEAN MACHINE 90 minutes (plus injury time) of no holds barred adrenaline-fuelled soccer action! Vinnie Jones is Danny Meehan a football superstar who had it all: the money the fast cars and the super model girlfriend. But now he's all washed up and when he's put inside for punching a cop things go from bad to worse. The football mad commissioner organises a one-off game - the wardens against the inmates - and he's got to turn a bunch of out-of-shape reprobates into a winning team. If he loses he'll face the wrath of the cons. If he wins it's goodbye to his parole. But one thing's for sure - it'll be one hell of a match. The Longest Yard: In this rough-and-tumble yarn actually filmed on-location at the Georgia State Prison the cons are the heroes and the guards are the heavies. Eddie Albert is the sadistic warden who'll gladly make any sacrifice to push his gaurds' semi-pro football team to a national championship. Reynolds plays one time pro quarterback Paul Crewe now behind bars for leading State Police on a wild chase in a borrowed car. He agrees to organise a prisoners' team to play the guards. The warden intercedes to assure that his goon squad will meet only passive resistance from Crewe's Mean Machine. But the license to pound their hated guards is a big incentive for murderers and thieves to learn strategy.

• Violent Playground | DVD | (16/01/2012) from £6.49   |  Saving you £6.50 (100.15%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Struggle between a Liverpool Juvenile Liaison officer and a young and dangerous pyromaniac.

• The Lady | DVD | (23/04/2012) from £3.89   |  Saving you £16.10 (413.88%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The story of Aung San Suu Kyi as she becomes the core of Burma's democracy movement, and her relationship with her husband, writer Michael Aris.

• Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World (Special Edition) | DVD | (08/02/2006) from £12.13   |  Saving you £12.86 (51.50%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Russell Crowe stars as "Lucky" Jack Aubrey, who pits his crew of the HMS Surprise against a much better armed and ruthless enemy in a chase that takes him all the way to the far side of the world.

• Osmosis Jones | DVD | (18/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  In this combined live action & animation comedy Osmosis Jones is a maverick white blood cell cop, paired with a no-nonsense partner, a cold tablet. The two must protect their human host, Frank, after he eats a potentially deadly infected egg!

• Coraline/Monster House/9 | DVD | (20/09/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Coraline: Neil Gaiman adapts his own fantasy novel for this stop-motion animated adventure from the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas. 11-year old Coraline (Dakota Fanning) must escape an alternate reality where her parents dote on her when this seemingly perfect world starts to turn bad. From Henry Selick the visionary director of The Nightmare Before Christmas and based on Neil Gaiman's best-selling book comes this spectacular stop-motion animated adventure! Coraline Jones (Dakota Fanning) is bored until she finds a secret door and discovers an alternate better version of her life on the other side. When this seemingly perfect world turns dangerous Coraline must use her resourcefulness determination and bravery to save her family. Monster House: Even for a 12-year old D.J. Walters has a particularly overactive imagination. He is convinced that his haggard and crabby neighbor Horace Nebbercracker who terrorizes all the neighborhood kids is responsible for Mrs. Nebbercracker's mysterious disappearance. Any toy that touches Nebbercracker's property promptly disappears swallowed up by the cavernous house in which Horace lives. D.J. has seen it with his own eyes! But no one believes him not even his best friend Chowder. What everyone does not know is D.J. is not imagining things. Everything he's seen is absolutely true and it's about to get much worse than anything D.J could have imagined.... 9: When 9 (The Lord of the Ring's Elijah Wood) first comes to life he finds himself in a post-apocalyptic world. All humans are gone and it is only by chance that he discovers a small community of others like him taking refuge from fearsome machines that roam the earth intent on their extinction. Despite being the neophyte of the group 9 convinces the others that hiding will do them no good. They must take the offensive if they are to survive and they must discover why the machines want to destroy them in the first place. As they'll soon come to learn the very future of civilization may depend on them.

• The Last Sentinel | DVD | (15/02/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The Future Is Riding On One Woman No emotion. No fear. No pain. They were the perfect soldiers to protect civilization - until the drone police became the perfect enemy. With little hope left for mankind Tallis (Don Wilson; Stealing Harvard Batman Forever) an electronically enhanced soldier rescues a rebel beauty (Katee Sackhoff TV's Battlestar Galactica) from a failed resistance mission. A force to be reckoned with she will learn to fight and think like a machine for the final battle to save the human race.