british tv

The first series of Medics is a real oddity, because it bears very little resemblance to the fondly-remembered Granada series which ran between 1992 and 1995. Airing in 1990, this embryo to the series that followed feels like a protracted pilot, though it runs for a six episode season rather than just one instalment.

A Choice of Coward brings together four of the most popular plays by the renowned English comedy writer Noel Coward, split over two discs. The series, which was composed of televised plays, was originally broadcast in 1964 as part of the ITV Play of the Week series. These productions were made a few decades after the plays were written, but are specially introduced by Coward himself.

The 1970s was an innovative time for British TV. Zodiac, which ran for only six episodes in 1974, is no exception. It concerns an unlikely pairing between a cynical underachiever, Detective Inspector David Gradley, and an attractive young astrologist, Esther Jones. They use a combination of standard deductive reasoning and psychic prediction to solve some intriguing crimes.

Now re-released on DVD is the complete series of the BBC’s long-running television show All Creatures Great and Small, featuring all seven series plus the Christmas specials. James Herriot’s tales of veterinary life, set in the fictional village of Darrowby in the Yorkshire Dales in the 1930s and 40s, had previously been turned into big screen adaptations, but they were later developed for television, with the first series airing in 1978.