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Rating:  - About the cost...
I have little to say about the series that's not been said on here a hundred times: I was weaned on Perry; the remastered uncut film is terrific, as is the sound; the cars, the fashion, the smokes, the early and innocent images of California exude a mythological past; all that and more make this a "must own" for the early boomers among us.
Virtually all of the negative comments have been about the price and about the season splitting. I'd like to add a somewhat contrarian view of those issues. Some folks have indicated the willingness to wait nine years to buy the complete integrated set (at what price? $300 or so?). First of all, I could well be dead and almost certainly drooling by then and secondly, I'd hate trying to slip the $300 dollar price tag past my personal and beloved "She who must be obeyed".
Fact - this is a great product and I've paid on average so far $1.37 cents per episode ($25.00 per "volume"). I believe that putting the season out in two parts may be expediting the speed with which new product reaches the market. When I look at how MUCH product (52 minutes per episode) I'm paying for, the price seems extremely fair and often a bargain compared to what I've paid for stuff like Rumpole, Morse, Marple, Poirot, etc. Sure, maybe they COULD charge a bit less and be ok, but look at all the reviews. They are all great. This is STILL (how much longer, though?) America. You should be able to price by supply and demand. If they were (according to my view of economics) charging too much, they wouldn't be selling as they are, and they wouldn't be bringing the new episodes forward at such a steady pace. The evidence seems to demonstrate that the pricing is fine.
Enjoy them.
Rating:  - Overpriced but excellent
I bought the full season one and two (four DVD sets) and enjoyed them immensely. The quality is excellent, significantly better than the original TV broadcasts. While it is indeed regrettable that these are being distributed in half-season sets for vastly more money than other comparable TV shows, at least they have been remastered. True fans will appreciate the quality.
Note that [...] will sell you the entire 12 seasons for only [...] shipping. Unwilling to wait for seasons 3-12, I bought this set. The set arrived from Qingdao China. The quality is truly awful. All of these were copied off of the Hallmark channel and have the Hallmark label in the lower right hand corner of every show. The commercials are removed, sort off. Parts show up in color bursts between scenes. Furthermore, the sound is not syncronized on most of the shows which will drive you nuts. My guess is that these were videotaped first given the poor quality (below SLP). The fact that each DVD holds as many as 16 episodes pretty much says it all. Finally, any attempt to use the menu to select a show only works once- when the DVD is first inserted. Pure junk and the standard Chinese Ripoff.
We are thus stuck with these overpriced and painfully slowly released versions. They are at least excellent quality.
Rating: - Good vintage TV
If you like good solid TV, where the good guys get off and the bad guys get punished, you'll love this. Della, Paul and Perry always get things straightened out. If your taste turns to moral ambiguity, crooked cops and lawyers,and lovable bad guys, you may not appreciate this show. The picture quality is very good, the acting solid, and the sound very HiFi.
Rating: - I love it, but Ramond Burr is the whole show in this first season
I'm old enough to have watched the last couple of seasons of Perry Mason when they were first on, but not old enough to have seen the first season. Many of these episodes were not familiar from my having watched episodes in the syndication package over the years, which made it more interesting to watch them now. Compared with later seasons, Perry seems to take things a bit more into his own hands in these episodes. He's as much a private detective as a defense attorney. Burr was a superb actor and this was the part of a lifetime for him. In fact, given how strained many of the plots are and how sudden and implausible the finales are, without Burr to put it over, I doubt this show would have lasted more than one season. With respect to implausibility, for instance, in the episode on which Barbara Eden guest stars, what was the killer's motive? Mason ends up establishing opportunity and catches the killer in a contradiction on the witness stand, but, unless I missed something, neglects to establish a motive.
One other fun thing: Count how many episodes where Mason is working at night. Not only is he often in the office at midnight or later, but so are Lt. Tragg and Hamilton Burger! Clients think nothing of calling him up at all hours asking to meet him and he invariably obliges. The script writers must have been real night owls to believe it would be plausible to show people working those hours.
A final note: These DVDs contain absolutely no extras. No commentaries, no "Making of" feature, nada. It's a shame after all these years they couldn't have come up with something.
Rating: - Perry Mason Season 1 Volume 1
This is wonderful. It is in the original B&W. Because the jacket is in color, I thought it was a colorized version, but I wanted the original B&W and I am so pleased with the clarity, sound, and memories. I intend to buy future Perry Mason DVD"s. This is a wonderful gift. Thank you.
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