Give me a moment, I have to sit down! One of my own personally favorite, most-wanted series is getting a DVD release soon, from none other than the great guys over at Shout! Factory. It's
The Paper Chase - Season 1, which is the season that originally aired on CBS in 1978 and was voted "Best New Drama," then canceled but was rerun on PBS. By 1983 the demand for more of the show was so high that the Showtime cable channel brought it back for three additional seasons, where it won CableAce Awards twice for Best Dramatic Series. The series
was based on the film of the same name, with John Houseman reprising his outstanding role from the movie as Professor Kingsfield (he won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for playing the part). The film was, in turn, based on a novel.
Other stars of the program about students studying at Harvard Law School are James Stephens as "Hart," James Keane as "Bell," Tom Fitzsimmons as "Ford" and Michael Tucci as the head of the Law Review, "Golden." Betty Harford played Kingsfield's right-hand woman, Mrs. Nottingham. In future seasons the show would add other popular cast members, including Clare Kirkconnell as "Rita Harriman" and Lainie Kazan as "Rose Samuels." In the meantime, the first season included guest cast such as Kim Cattrall (
Sex and the City), Glynn Turman (
A Different World), Judith Chapman (
The Young and the Restless and Robert Reed (
The Brady Bunch), among others.
Shout! Factory adds
The Paper Chase - Season 1 to their syllabus on
April 7th, with all of the CBS episodes presented in full screen video with English audio. Bonus material isn't set in stone yet, but the studio hopes to be able to provide new interviews with the cast and crew. We don't have final word on that yet, though, nor on pricing or other specs. But we do have package art to prove that I'm not dreaming; this is as real as it gets! Kudos to our friends at Shout! for bringing back such a fine program to its fans. Stay tuned for updates.
