The Magnificent Seven – The Complete Series / 2008 Fox / 1031 Minutes / http://www.mgm.com/dvd / http://www.foxtvdvd.com /
Once upon a time, there was a film called The Magnificent Seven. This film was released in 1960, and took much of its influence from Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 film, the Seven Samurai. This movie in turn gave influence to a show that would ultimately run from 1998 to 2000. Essentially, there are seven cowboys that are looking to make the wild west much less wild, through actions that the group has taken against outlaws. The show ran for two seasons, and this DVD set captures all 23 episodes of the show. The Magnificent Seven are not direct copies of the original Seven, with the directors ultimately deciding to take bits and pieces of different characters in the creation of the new Seven.
This means that Ezra Standish (Anthony Starke, known now through eir roles in Prison Break) takes on pieces and parts of Robert Vaughn’s character Lee and Brad Dexter’s Harry Luck. Fox has done a great thing here in committing to DVD such a relatively new show, when older shows like Charles in Charge and Gunsmoke are still getting DVD sets issued. While this may seem odd, individuals are not likely to forget Gunsmoke but, as the years pass, their memory of The Magnificent Seven’s short run is likely to decrease. There are countless shows that only ran for one or two seasons that are not likely to receive a DVD set release in the future, and Fox has made that first step forward in committing those sets to DVD.  Individuals will have almost eighteen hours of this show to go through before the last disc of the second season closes up, and with a list price of just under $50, the value of this set cannot be underestimated.
I know I missed The Magnificent Seven when the show was first ran, but the presence of the complete series set shows me that this was a criminally underrated show when it was originally out, and it stands at the precipice of being one of the best forgotten series of the last twenty years.  Until that time when Fox decides to place the complete series of The Magnificent Seven onto a Blu-Ray collection, it really seems like fans of this show can be happy outside of the series returning. If you are a fan of the original film, the show, or of Western shows and movies in general, The Magnificent Seven’s Complete Series DVD set should be a buy.
Rating: 7.0/10
