"Actor: Joe Fabiani"

• Department S: The Complete Series | Blu Ray | (02/10/2017) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  All 28 episodes of the crimefighting drama series about an elite branch of Interpol agents who take on the cases no-one else can solve. A trio of ace investigators led by suavely assured novelist Jason King (Peter Wyngarde), hard-nosed professional Stewart Sullivan (Joel Fabiani) and coolly efficient computer expert Annabelle Hurst (Rosemary Nichols) try to outdo each other as they seek to solve the cases baffling police forces throughout Europe. Episodes comprise: 'Six Days', 'The Trojan Tanker', 'A Cellar Full of Silence', 'The Pied Piper of Hambletown', 'One of Our Aircraft Is Empty', 'The Man in the Elegant Room', 'Handicap Dead', 'Black Out', 'Who Plays the Dummy', 'The Treasure of the Costa Del Sol', 'The Man Who Got a New Face', 'Les Fleurs Du Mal', 'The Shift That Never Was', 'The Man from 'X', 'Dead Men Die Twice', 'The Perfect Operation', 'The Duplicated Man', 'The Mysterious Man in the Flying Machine', 'Death On Reflection', 'The Last Train to Redbridge', 'A Small War of Nerves', 'The Bones of Byrom Blain', 'Spencer Bodily Is Sixty Years Old', 'The Ghost of Mary Burnham', 'A Fish Out of Water', 'The Soup of the Day', 'A Ticket to Nowhere' and 'The Double Death of Charlie Crippen'.

• Department S - Series 1-2 - Complete | DVD | (21/04/2008) from £36.77   |  Saving you £23.22 (63.15%)   |  RRP £59.99

  Handling cases that are too baffling to be solved by normal police routine - It's all in a day's work for Department S - a shadowy Interpol department that specialises in the inexplicable and the illogical. Its small core of operatives include flamboyant novelist Jason King (Peter Wyngarde) who uses his overactive imagination and droll wit to help solve the most difficult of cases Stewart Sullivan (Joel Fabiani) a man of action who's not afraid to get his hands dirty and Annabelle Hurst (Rosemary Nicols) as the gorgeous computer expert with an eye for detail. This box set contains all 28 episodes.

• Snake Eyes | DVD | (05/02/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Brian De Palma's 1998 thriller is largely an exercise in airing out his orchestral, oversized visual style (think of his Blowout, Body Double or Raising Cain) for the heck of it. The far-fetched story featuresNicolasCage as a crooked police detective attending a championship boxing match at which the Secretary of Defence is assassinated. The unfortunate Secretary's right-hand man (Gary Sinise) happens to be Cage's old friend, a fact that complicates the cop's efforts to reconstruct the crime from conflicting accounts--a directorial strategy bearing similarities to Kurosawa's Rashomon. The outrageousness of the scenario essentially gives DePalma permission to construct a baroque cathedral of spectacular camera stunts, which (he well knows) are inevitably more interesting than the hoary conspiracy plot. (The opening scene alone, which runs on for a number of minutes and consists of one, unbroken shot that moves in from the street, following Cage up and down stairs and in and out of rooms until finally ending ringside at the match, is breathtaking.) The shifting points of view--based on the contradictory statements of witnesses--also give De Palma licence to get creative with camera angles and scene rearrangements. The script bogs down in the third act but De Palma is just revving up for a big, operatic finish that is absolutely gratuitous but undeniably impressive. Yes, it's style over substance in Snake Eyes but what style you're talking about.--Tom Keogh

• Department S - Vol. 1 - Episodes 1 And 2 - Six Days / The Trojan Tanker | DVD | (10/07/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The hit of the 1969-1970 season, Department S was an attempt on the part of television company ITC to create a "with-it" follow-up to the The Saint and Man in a Suitcase series which were starting to look staid by then. The department of the title is notionally part of Interpol, a group managed by the first of many black TV top cops (here Denis Albana Peters), and assigned all the bizarre cases The Avengers hadn't handled. Often they would come up against modern variations on the classic "locked-room" or "paradox" mysteries so favoured in crime fiction, mysteries which verge on the sort of phenomena The X Files would later specialise in (except no aliens appear in Department S). The supposed leads are Action-Man-type Stewart Sullivan (Joel Fabiani) and English-rose computer whiz Annabelle Hurst (Rosemary Nichols), but the break-out character is the flamboyant Jason King (Peter Wyngarde), a mystery writer and puzzle-solver notable for his Fu Manchu facial hair and an enormous wardrobe of safari suits, ruffled shirts, flared trousers and velvet jackets. King was the only male character on TV to be as fashion-conscious as the Avengers girls, and his preening peacock attitudes--along with the scripts' above-average mysteries--made this essential viewing for the Age of Aquarius. Volume One includes the following episodes: "Six Days", in which a missing airliner turns up but the passengers have no idea that they've lost six days, with Peter Bowles; and "The Trojan Tanker", in which a mystery woman is found in a luxury suite concealed inside an oil tanker, with Simon (Doomwatch) Oates. --Kim Newman

• Starsky And Hutch - The Complete Second Season | DVD | (19/07/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Starsky & Hutch: The Complete Second Season proves the 1970s series, in its sophomore year, both codified its earliest strengths while continuing to evolve into a sharper, wittier and often darker show. Contributing to those improvements were the stars themselves: David Soul (who plays maverick police detective, intellectual and health nut Ken Hutchinson) and Paul Michael Glaser (as Hutch's more impulsive, junk-food-junkie partner Dave Starsky), each of whom directed exemplary episodes in the second series. The series' creators also struck a more entertaining balance between the comic and dramatic possibilities inherent in Starsky and Hutch's bluntly honest, fraternal relationship. A number of stories placed the guys in intentionally funny undercover situations: as garish gamblers in the two-part opener "The Las Vegas Strangler"; entertainment directors (named Hack and Zack) on a luxury cruise ship in "Murder at Sea"; gigolo-like dance aficionados in the playfully-titled "Tap Dancing Her Way Right Back into Your Hearts"; and, most amusingly, stunt men in "Murder on Stage 17". Those are all good shows, and the duo often bicker within them, to great comic effect, like an old married couple. But it's the relentlessly tougher episodes that prove each character's mettle and demonstrate the depth of Starsky and Hutch's mutual trust. Among these is the powerful "Gillian", in which Starsky discovers Hutch's classy new girlfriend is a prostitute and breaks the news to his shattered friend. Somewhat lighter but just as revealing is "Little Girl Lost", starring a young Kristy McNichol as an orphaned street urchin whom Hutch, lately in a misanthropic, anti-Christmas mood, takes into his home. Glaser's directorial debut, the harrowing "Bloodbath", gives Soul a lot of room for an intensely physical and psychological performance as Hutch scurries to find his kidnapped partner. Soul returns the favour with "Survival", in which Starsky desperately seeks his missing pal, trapped and slowly dying beneath a car wreck. All in all, a very good series, with (of course) Antonio Fargas still sharp as sidekick Huggy Bear. --Tom Keogh

• Tune In Tomorrow | DVD | (06/09/2004) from £9.43   |  Saving you £3.56 (27.40%)   |  RRP £12.99

  When radio reporter Martin (Reeves) falls for his sexy aunt Julia (Hershey) the station's zany soap opera writer Pedro (Falk) decides to play Cupid and broadcast the details! Courtship soon turns to chaos with Martin's love life in shambles Julia in disgrace and irate listeners rioting in the streets. Everyone will have to tune in tomorrow to discover how it all turns out!

• Snake Eyes / Bringing Out The Dead | DVD | (10/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Snake Eyes (Dir. Brian De Palma 1998): An explosive highly entertaining action thriller Snake Eyes teams Nicolas Cage with Gary Sinise; Cage is an Atlantic City cop who along with an arena full of spectators at a championship prize-fight is eyewitness to a political assassination! Determined to quickly solve the crime he immediately launches an intensive investigation... then learns that a search for answers will only uncover yet more questions in an ever-wideni

• The President's Mistress | DVD | (03/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  A government agent finds himself in the middle of a deadly struggle when he discovers that his murdered sister was both mistress of the President of the United States and a Soviet agent.

• Face/Off / Snake Eyes / Bringing Out The Dead | DVD | (25/10/2004) from £26.98   |  Saving you £-6.99 (-35.00%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Face Off (Dir. John Woo 1997): Oscar-winning superstar Nicolas Cage and screen icon John Travolta battle head to head in 'Face/Off' the ultimate cat and mouse thriller directed by the world's most acclaimed action film director John Woo. To avenge the senseless murder of his son FBI agent Sean Archer undergoes a radical new surgery allowing him to switch faces with the comatose terrorist Castor Troy and assumes Sean's identity the real Sean is thrust into an unimaginable nightmare fighting not only for his life but also those of his wife and daughter! Brilliant performances and mind-numbing visual effects make Face/Off the explosive stylish action thriller you've got to see to believe! Snake Eyes (Dir. Brian De Palma 1998): An explosive highly entertaining action thriller Snake Eyes teams Nicolas Cage with big-screen favourite Gary Sinise. Cage is an Atlantic City cop who along with an arena full of spectators at a championship prize-fight is eyewitness to a political assassination! Determined to quickly solve the crime he immediately launches an intensive investigation... then learns that a search for answers will only uncover yet more questions in an ever-widening web of conspiracy intrigue and danger! Bringing Out The Dead (Dir. Martin Scorsese 1999): Nicholas Cage plays EMS paramedic Frank Pierce. It is the early 1990's and New York has not yet undergone its renaissance of recent years. Surrounded by the injured and the dying Frank is dwelling in an urban night-world crumbling under the accumulated weight of too many years of saving and losing lives. The film follows Frank over the course of fifty-six hours in his life - two days and three nights on the job - as he reaches the very brink of spiritual collapse and redemption.