Any more word on the official DVDs? It would be nice.
In the meantime, earlier in the year, I broke down and got a set of the bootlegs from the lowest price dealer, which may have been a mistake. Some of the episodes were unwatchable, including The Saga of Waco Williams, and many that we watched successfully no longer work. This may not be the case for the pricer sets. We did manage to view 50 or sixty episodes, though the quality of the recording varied from very good to poor. This might vary according to the distributor.
On the plus side, I was impressed at how well most of them hold up. A few that I'd either never seen or can't remember seeing strike me as classic. Particularly "Two Beggars on Horseback," with Bret and Bart racing to get to a bank to cash checks. I think it rivals "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres." Another two brother epsiode, "A Game of Chance" was also first rate. The first season is relatively straight until the appearance of Samantha Crawford, and later, Dandy Jim Buckly. I was surprised to find that the funniest episode of the first season (IMHO) was Bart's encounter with Samantha in "The Savage Hills." Besides several excellent episodes I had seen and taped off TVLand during their Maverick Marathon a few years ago (like the wonderful "A Fellow's Brother" and "Greenbacks Unlimited," I was most pleasantly surprised by William Reynold's subtle comic performance in very clever Garner episode, "A Cure for Johnny Rain." The story is very clever, but it relies on Reynold's ability to sell the Wodehousian premise with changes of expression. It's too bad he didn't get more chances to show off his light comic skills.
Overall, a landmark series that should be released. Clever scripts, memorable performances, great lead characters, numerous wonderful character actors.
Amazon lists the first season of Maverick DVDs as unavailable, but let's you essentially "vote" for them by asking to be informed when they are released.
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