First season of Fox's 'O.C.' arrives in 7-disc set

By Terry Lawson
Knight Ridder News Service

From left, Mischa Barton and Benjamin McKenzie are among the ensemble cast of "The O.C." The first season of the surprise hit drama from Fox drama comes to DVD shelves this week. Gannett News Service

As soap opera goes, last season's surprise hit — whose various story threads usually untangle close to Orange County outsider Ryan Atwood (Benjamin McKenzie) and his foster family, socially conscious defense attorney Sandy Cohen (Peter Gallagher), his socially connected wife (Kelly Rowan) and their awkwardly adolescent son (Adam Brody) — is pretty exceptional. It's well-written and acted, and pitched just enough over the top to make things fun.

The seven-disc box set of the original 27 episodes is complemented by commentary by the show's creator and scenes trimmed before airing. There is also a guide to the music used in six shows. Fans will be happy to know that it's the same music used when the episodes originally aired, instead of the substitutes now common to series' boxes.

Still, the week's most-awaited box may be "21 Jump Street" (Anchor Bay), 13 episodes of the stylish cop show that was one of Fox Television's original attempts to compete with the Big Three networks in 1987.

It was, of course, the show that launched the career of one Johnny Depp. The surprise of revisiting the show is not how much the camera loved Depp, but how stylishly dark and edgy the aimed-at-teens series was.

"SCTV Volume 2" (Shout!) contains nine 90-minute shows aired on NBC in 1981-82, composed of then-new material from the great Canadian comedy troupe and some of the best skits that had aired on the syndicated Canadian series.

The big Halloween scream could be "Dawn of the Dead" (Universal), this summer's unnecessary yet undeniably effective remake of George Romero's 1978 low-budget zombie classic in which the walking dead terrorize a New Jersey shopping mall.

For true masochist completists, "Friday the 13th: From Crystal Lake to Manhattan" (Paramount) allows us to watch little Jason Vorhees grow up via the first eight films in the horror series that refuses to die.

The most serious-minded — despite Eddie Murphy's pre-"Shrek" voice appearance as a gag-breathing dragon — in the long and admirable string of traditionally animated features from Disney was 1998's "Mulan," now re-released in a two-disc Special Edition (Disney).

Extras on the second disc mix fascinating featurettes on the film's genesis, design and execution (and outtakes) with an array of games and activities for smaller children.

With the general election but days away:

• The controversial documentary "The Control Room" (Lion's Gate) is the well-made, if decidedly partisan, documentary about the Middle East cable news network Al Jazeera.

Editor's note: This film will be screened at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, 1 and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and 7:30 p.m. Nov. 8-9 at the Doris Duke Theatre, Honolulu Academy of Arts. Admission is $5 general, $3 for museum members. It also screens at 6 and 8:15 p.m. Nov. 5 and at 5 p.m. Nov. 7 at the Architecture Auditorium, University of Hawai'i-Manoa. Admission is $5.

• "FarenHYPE 9/11" (Trinity) is a Republican riposte to the Michael Moore broadside, with disillusioned Democrats Dick Morris, Ed Koch and Zell Miller lining up with the likes of Ann Coulter to dispute.
  
  
• On the other side of the great divide is "Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry" (ThinkFilm).

Editor's note: This film will be screened at 7:30 p.m. today at Spalding Auditorium, University of Hawai'i-Manoa and at 3, 5:30 and 8 p.m. Sunday at the Architecture Auditorium, UH-Manoa. Admission is $5.