Adapted for the screen by Andrew Davies (Pride and Prejudice, Bleak House), House of Cards is a spell-binding dissection of naked ambition, greed and rampant hypocrisy in the corridors of power. The series documents in thrilling detail the rise of Tory Chief Whip Francis Urquhart (Ian Richardson, Dark City, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), a man with unwavering contempt for those with "no background, no bottom." With the downfall of Margaret Thatcher, a bitter internecine power struggle ensues within the Conservative Party. Urquhart schemes more devilishly than Iago to depose Thatcher's colorless John Major-style successor. And even Machiavelli would baulk at Urquhart's methods. Any and every act - including murder - is legitimate and the ends very much justify the means.
Between 1993 and 1995, Scottish actor Ian Richardson - best known to American audiences for his mustard commercial as the man in the Rolls Royce who asks, "Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon?" - starred in a trio of 4-part mini-series as fictional U.K. politician Francis Urquhart, based on a trilogy of novels by Michael Dobbs. The programs were
House of Cards, To Play the King and
The Final Cut. Now BBC Home Entertainment is taking all three of these productions - 12 episodes in all - and bringing them out in Remastered fashion to DVD and Blu-ray Disc.
January 15th will see the release of
House of Cards - The Complete Series Trilogy: Remastered, a 3-disc set on DVD ($39.98 SRP) and high-def Blu-ray Disc ($49.99 SRP). Besides each program's 4 episodes remastered (for a total of 12 in all), with included English subtitles, you'll also get an Audio Commentary for the first episode of each series by screenwriter Andrew Davies and star Ian Richardson. Also included is a Featurette with Andrew Davies on the controversy surrounding
To Play the King. Other bonus material is to-be-determined. Blu-ray box art is shown to the right in a thumbnail size image; full-sized DVD artwork is below. We've got a button link to pre-order the DVD version from Amazon, but note that they show an incorrect date at their listing as of this writing; we're sure they'll correct it shortly.
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