Seeing Is Believing

There are a number of older TV crime series that I think deserve to be “rediscovered” in DVD format. And one of those at the top of my list is Ironside, the NBC series that starred Raymond Burr as a paralyzed, wheelchair-bound former San Francisco police chief who went on to operate as an often-impatient consultant for the SFPD. It was a comeback opportunity for the actor who’d played brilliant California attorney Perry Mason on the small screen for more than nine years, and Ironside--with its cool theme song by Quincy Jones--proved to be popular, running for eight seasons, which makes it one of the longest-lasting police dramas in U.S. TV history.

Now, the Web site TV Shows on DVD brings this news:

Shout! Factory is set to release the first season of Ironside on April 24, 2007. Unfortunately, details are very slim right now; we can tell you the set will sell for a suggested price of $59.95, and that’s about all. Hopefully the set will include Ironside, the TV movie which kicked off the series, and the following 28 episodes from season 1; that information isn’t available yet, but we’ll check with our studio contacts.

As Chief Robert T. Ironside himself might have exclaimed, “It’s about flaming time.”