Friday The 13th - The Series: The First Season [Import]

Season 1 on DVD. What more could you want? Season 2? Already out. Season 3? It comes out in September 2009.
There was a rumor floating around the internet that the picture quality of the DVD was poorer than the picture quality of the current TV broadcasts. I don't see a difference. I get Friday the 13th the Series on digital cable and it looks the same as the DVD. To me, anyway.
I have been anticipating the release of this series for some time. I'm glad I bought it.
As there are no extras or subtitles or anything other than each episode of season 1 the price should be a little lower than it is. But that's the free market for you.
As a pleasant suprise Carolyn Dunn from Sweating Bullets guest stars on a two part episode. She falls in love with Ryan but doesn't get killed. The only woman in season one to make that claim!

Friday the 13th: the series (FT13TS) was a cool, mildly cheesy, little semi-anthology series set in the late 80s. You follow the adventures of two cousins (Micki and Ryan) and their friend Jack in chasing down antiques cursed by their Uncle Lewis.

Unlike most people, I actually started watching FT13TS before viewing the movies which was probably lucky since I didn't bring any preconceived notions about the series. It eventually became one of my favourite late night tv shows to watch and was sorely disappointed when it only lasted 3 seasons.

Out of the 3 seasons, Season 1 was my least favourite which didn't make it any less cool. The first few episodes were typical of the series but the acting was definitely really wooden. The protagonists sometimes felt like talking goody-two-shoe cardboards. The special effects when they were used were honestly terrible and I almost wished some of them weren't used (e.g., crappy stop motion and gosh-awful green screen). Fortunately, the writers do eventually inject some personality into the characters. Special effects were also used somewhat sparingly and a little bit more effectively.

More often than not, the highlight of the show were the cursed objects and the villains who used them. Some of my favourites included: a cursed doll who honestly spoils a psychotic little girl and feeds into her murderous little whims; a Faith Healer whose magical glove heals but has (disgustingly) dire consequences if the disease is not passed to another; an electric chair allows a man to take "charge" of his own destiny; a magical quilt allows a woman to invade other's dreams and kill them; a baby's crib cures a baby's colic (okay, it's a bit more severe than that) but only if her parents murder 7 people in water.

BTW, you can make a game out of the number of times the protagonists scream each others' names. Micki screams "Ryan"; Ryan screams "Micki"; Jack screams "Micki" and "Ryan".