"Actor: Gillian"

• Gillian Weir: The King of Instruments (BBC 1989: bonus CD included) | DVD | (14/09/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Midsomer Murders - Dark Autumn | DVD | (11/10/2004) from £8.92   |  Saving you £8.07 (90.47%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Postman Dave Cutler is murdered on his early morning rounds in the tiny hamlet of Goodman's Land. The brutal killing rocks the community where WPC Jay Nash is more used to dealing with traffic cones than slashed throats. With WPC Nash's help Barnaby and Troy discover that the postman offered more than just a postal service to the female villagers - and that there are several jealous husbands or jilted lovers who might have wanted him dead. When a woman's body is found on the

• The X Files: Existence | DVD | (05/11/2001) from £6.55   |  Saving you £9.44 (59.00%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The pretentiously titled Existence is another two-part X-Files yarn glued together to make a feature-length episode. Here the story concerns the birth of Scully's perhaps-alien-tinged child and proves the old maxim that you should stop watching any series when the characters start having babies. By now, newbie Robert Patrick is settled into the role of Agent Doggett, Scully's new partner on the X-Files, but David Duchovny's contract negotiations have enabled Fox Mulder, no longer in the FBI, to come back and hang about the delivery, clashing and then bonding with his replacement. The action content comes from a mild-mannered alien abductee transformed into an unstoppable killing machine, ripping through everything as he tries to prevent the upcoming nativity for reasons that (as ever) don't quite become clear. Also in the support cast are semi-regular Nicholas Lea as lurking plot-explaining conspirator Alex Krycek, and the more welcome Annabeth Gish, whose interestingly spiritual Agent Monica Reyes is being worked up as a replacement for Scully when Gillian Anderson gets out of her contract. Weirdly, The X-Files is in pretty good shape for a show that's been running this long--the performances and the direction are still strong, and outside the "continuing story" shows individual episodes hold up well. But this dreary muddle of running about (plus the odd decapitation) and agonised rumination (blathery philosophical musings about the miracle of life and childbirth) does not represent the series' strengths, suggesting that the best thing that could happen would be to get shot of the long-time stars and their played-out characters to make room for a revitalised show starring Patrick and Gish. On the DVD: The full-screen print, with the extra detail of the DVD image and Dolby Digital, allow you to pick up a lot more than from the murky telecasts. "Alex Krycek Revealed" Parts 1 and 2, a couple of character profiles, turn out to be very snippet-like Fox TV promo pieces, with some interview footage and behind-the-scenes stuff amid the usual teaser clips.--Kim Newman

• A Horseman Riding By - Part 3 The Profiteers | DVD | (13/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The war has cast a dark shadow over the valley with men of its men killed in action and Paul worries because of the opportunism that has erupted. He is adament that his trees should not be cut down for the Army and is appalled by people making a profit from the war. Featuring Episodes The Profiteers The Bad Season The Service The Old And The New

• Robot Overlords Steel Book | Blu Ray | (10/08/2015) from £9.99   |  Saving you £15.00 (150.15%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Limited Edition Steelbook Earth has been conquered by robots from a distant galaxy. survivors are confined to their houses and must wear electronic implants risking incineration by robot sentries if they venture outside.

• La Traviata - Verdi | DVD | (13/06/2005) from £22.13   |  Saving you £2.86 (11.40%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The famous performance of Verdi's romantic tragedy captures one of the most sensational debuts in operatic history. Singing Violetta for the first time was the young Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu whose remarkable interpretation reached the front pages of the world's press and led the BBC immediately to film the production. Equally notable was the masterly conducting of Sir Georg Solti and director Richard Eyre's stylish staging. This DVD and highlights CD present the definitive record of a momentous occasion.

• The Guilty | DVD | (29/09/2003) from £11.10   |  Saving you £2.89 (26.04%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Callum Crane is a young lawyer waiting for his appointment to the bench. Unfortunately he forces himself on his secretary while drunk and his life is about to collapse. There is a way out though - and that is to get an ex-con to kill the secretary. Even worse - the ex-con is about to tell Callum that he is Callum's son...

• The X Files: Season 9 | DVD | (07/06/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  With so many promises to fulfil and questions left unanswered, the ninth and final series of The X-Files was inevitably going to short-change some of its audience. Mulder is missing, Scully is in and out with various baby concerns, Reyes frequently seems like she's only along for the ride and Doggett seems so right in the role that some fans wondered if he should have appeared sooner. Other cult cameos flitted across the screen in an attempt to keep viewers transfixed. Lucy Lawless, Cary Elwes and Robert Patrick's real-life wife were interesting diversions, but when Burt Reynolds appeared to be none other than God himself, it was apparent that nothing at all was sacred in this last year. Standalone episodes (for example, on Satanic possession and a Brady Bunch psycho) proved to be amongst the least interesting of the show's efforts. No doubt because everyone was focussing on the all-important arc story episodes. Was there more than one alien faction? Were they all in collusion? Who had control of the black oil virus? Who had been in charge of the abductions? More importantly, would Mulder and Scully finally get in bed together? Scattered through the 19 episodes (the fewest of any season), were answers to some of these points. Then as much as possible that remained was packed into the two-hour finale. After 200 episodes, it's just possible that The X-Files overstayed its welcome; nonetheless it will always be remembered for being the most influential TV product of the 1990s. And since this is science-fiction, don't assume it's completely dead either. --Paul Tonks

• A Horseman Riding By - Part 2 | DVD | (09/08/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Paul Craddock is now Squire of Shallowford although Lord Gilroy his neighbour isn't impressed with his management style. Paul is married with a son but unfortunately his wife has left him to return to London her beloved suffragette movement. Episodes comprise: The Hollow Victory The Last Hot Summer Call To Arms Death Of A Hero

• The X-Files: The Truth | DVD | (27/01/2003) from £21.58   |  Saving you £-5.59 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The guest cast list for The X-Files: The Truth runs almost to the first commercial break, suggesting how many plot strands this season-and-series finale needs to make room for, with many old characters (including ghostly appearances for the dead ones) popping up. Mulder (David Duchovny), teasingly absent for the final season, is suddenly back, accused of murdering a super-soldier who isn't supposed to be able to die. He faces a military tribunal, defended by AD Skinner (Mitch Pileggi), as guest stars trot out testimony that fills the double-length episode with explanations recapping nine years of confusion as creator Chris Carter tries to spatchcock his impromptu conspiracy theories into a real plot. Last-season regulars Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish are shunted aside as Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Mulder get to dodge a last-scene explosion and wind up in a pretty silly clinch-with-philosophy in the face of vaguely imminent apocalypse. Seriously, if the franchise is to continue on the big screen, how about ditching the embarrassing alien conspiracy mess and doing a monster story? On the DVD: The X-Files: The Truth comes to disc with a lovely widescreen transfer, a 13-minute "Reflections on the Truth" featurette that, though it hits the self-congratulation button a couple too many times, has a little more meat than the puff pieces included on previous releases, and a bonus episode ("William") that is unfortunately another of the maudlin ones, this time resolving the plotline about Scully's super-baby. --Kim Newman

• The X Files: Season 5 | DVD | (14/10/2002) from £22.98   |  Saving you £12.01 (34.30%)   |  RRP £34.99

  The fifth season of The X-Files is the one in which the ongoing alien conspiracy arc really takes over, building towards box-office glory for the inevitable cinematic leap in The X-Files Movie (1998). The series opener "Redux" begins with Mulder having been framed for everything going. Scully finally sees a UFO ("The Red and the Black") before being presented with a potential daughter (the two-part "Christmas Carol" and "Emily"). By "The End", there's an enormous tangle of threads for the big-screen adaptation to unravel (or not, as it turned out). Cigarette Smoking Man is being hunted, playing every side against the middle, as well as chasing after information on Mulder's sister. Krycek is back, too, as is an old flame for Mulder in the shape of Agent Diana Fowley. If that wasn't enough to goad viewers into the cinema, there was the Lone Gunmen's 1989-set back story ("Unusual Suspects", with Richard Belzer playing his Homicide: Life on the Streets character), a musical number in the black and white Frankenstein homage "Post Modern Prometheus", and scripts co-written by Stephen King ("Chinga"), William Gibson ("Kill Switch"), and even Darren McGavin (who had inspired the show as Kolchak: The Night Stalker) in "Travellers". On the DVD: The X-Files, Season 5 extras include Chris Carter's commentary over "Post Modern Prometheus", which reveals the decision making behind shooting in black and white as well as the problems it caused. A second commentary is from writer/coproducer John Shiban on "Pine Bluff Variant", where he openly admits the influence of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Across the six discs (only 20 episodes because of the movie of course) you get credits for every episode, their TV promo spots, deleted and international versions of several scenes (some with commentary from Carter), and a couple of TV featurettes. The best of these is "The Truth About Season 5", talking to an excited Dean Haglund (Langly) amongst other crew members.--Paul Tonks

• Salome | DVD | (09/09/2002) from £20.00   |  Saving you £17.99 (89.95%)   |  RRP £37.99

  A one-act production performed at The Royal Opera House Covent Garden with Maria Ewing in the lead role ably supported by Michael Devlin and Kenneth Riegel. The Orchestra of The Royal Opera House is conducted by Edward Downes. Directed by Derek Bailey. English subtitles.

• X Files Season 4 Boxset | DVD | (22/04/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £89.99

  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

• Dawn Anna | DVD | (17/04/2006) from £5.98   |  Saving you £14.01 (234.28%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A True-Life Story Of Love Loss And Triumph. Based on the life of Dawn Anna Townsend the mother of one of the students killed in the Columbine High School massacre. Times have been stormy but single mother Dawn Anna finally sees blue skies. She has four loving kids meets a wonderful new man and finds an ideal job teaching math and coaching volleyball. Then illness strikes threatening not only Dawn's new way of life but life itself. Following harrowing brain surgery Da

• Straightheads | DVD | (13/06/2011) from £7.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Two lovers spiral into violence for the sake of their own self-preservation in this dark and disturbing thriller.

• The X Files: Deadalive | DVD | (06/08/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  This release consists of two episodes--"This is Not Happening" and "Deadalive"--of the eighth series of The X-Files spliced together into a feature-length story. With David Duchovny contracted only to do a certain percentage of shows this year, Robert Patrick was brought in as Agent John Doggett, partnering Gillian Anderson's Agent Scully while Duchovny's Mulder is off being tortured by alien-abductors in what looks like an industrial dentist's chair. This story comes about two-thirds of the way through the arc and sets up Duchovny's return to the show--though he literally has to die and come back to get back on the case. It's an unfortunate paradox that most X-Files stand-alone releases concentrate on the dreary alien-abduction/conspiracy episodes which carry the greater storyline of the show, giving the misleading impression that the series is a drearily solemn, badly plotted, straight-faced but stupid sci-fi soap opera. Always skipped over are the far more interesting, entertaining and impressive stand-alone supernatural mysteries or strange comic exercises. Though Duchovny is mostly lying in a hospital bed with oatmeal all over his face, Anderson--whose character is pregnant this series, another dull sub-plot--still gives an amazingly committed performance and gets terrific support from Patrick, whose character has shaken up a lot of what was settled or stale about the show, and the always-underrated Mitch Pileggi as Assistant Director Skinner. The story features several wild-eyed UFO guru types (including Roy Thinnes, once star of The Invaders) and returned abductees transformed into un-killable alien zombies. It's as well made as ever, with ominous shadows and the odd smart line, but you need to have been paying very close attention for seven years to understand what's going on. With Duchovny a potential escapee and Anderson perhaps in line to follow, this episode brings on the excellent Annabeth Gish as Agent Monica Reyes, a specialist in bizarre rituals, who is being effectively set up to partner Patrick in a post-Mulder-and-Scully X-Files that might well keep the franchise going on forever Star Trek-fashion. --Kim Newman

• The Tide Of Life | DVD | (14/04/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Catherine Cookson's heart-rending tale of Emily Kennedy and her relationship with three different men.

• Footballer's Wives - Series 2 | DVD | (27/12/2010) from £10.99   |  Saving you £9.00 (45.00%)   |  RRP £19.99

  They're young they're rich and they've got everything that money and fame can buy. They should be having the time of their lives. But the reality is very different. 'Footballer's Wives' is an exciting new drama from the team that brought you 'Bad Girls'.

• Follyfoot Series 1 | DVD | (13/08/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Young Dora is sent to stay with her uncle on his farm in rural England while her parents travel overseas for a year. Seeing as she has a love for horses her uncle suggests she visit Follyfoot Farm which is a part of his estate that looks after unwanted and unloved horses. It is only here that Dora feels truly happy but what will happen when her parents return? Episodes Comprise: 1. Dora 2. Steve 3. Gypsy 4. Shadow 5. One White Foot Charley 6. The Charity Horse 7. Know-All's Nag 8. Moonstone 9. Stryker's Good Deed 10. Mr. She-Knows 11. The Standstiil Horse 12. Birthday at Follyfoot 13. A Day in the Sun

• You Are What You Eat | DVD | (28/12/2004) from £6.49   |  Saving you £13.50 (67.50%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In the hugely successful Channel Four series 'You Are What You Eat' Dr Gillian McKeith changed the lives of some of Britain's worst eaters. Now it's your turn to get up close and personal with the shock doc of nutrition as she guides you through her Healthy Eating and Fitness Plan. This unique 2 disc DVD details every step of the journey to better health through an easy-to-follow series of questionnaires nutritional information list of common ailments tasty recipes and some gentl