Route 66 - S2

The five-star rating is for the series itself, thanks in large part to the exceptionally realistic storylines from Stirling Silliphant and guest scriptwriters. The on-screen chemistry between Martin Milner as Tod Stiles and George Maharis as Buz Murdock is superb as they criss-cross America working odd jobs in search of themselves and helping others find their purpose in life. Great show from television's golden age. Highly recommended.

The episodes featured in the second season (1961-1962) include:

"A Month of Sundays" -- Buz falls for starlet Arlene Sims (Anne Francis), unaware that she has a terminal illness.

"Blue Murder" -- Tod and Buz attempt to recapture a wild horse which has apparently killed its new owner.

"Good Night, Sweet Blues" -- A dying jazz singer (Ethel Waters) enlists Tod and Buz to search out and reunite her old combo.

"Birdcage on My Foot" -- Tod and Buz try to help a heroin junkie (Robert Duvall) kick the habit.

"First Class Mouliak" -- When a young woman is found dead, the chief suspect (Robert Redford) is the son of Tod and Buz's employer.

"Once to Every Man" -- Tod seems ready to finally settle down and tie the knot with the daughter of a shipyard owner (Janice Rule).

"The Mud Nest" -- After discovering a family that resembles him in a small Maryland town, Buz goes to Baltimore to search for the woman who may be his mother.

"A Bridge Across Five Days" -- The boys try to help a woman recently released from a mental hospital adjust to life in the outside world.

"Mon Petit Chou" -- Tod becomes enamored of a lounge singer, but finds an obstacle in her intensely jealous manager (Lee Marvin).

"Some of the People, Some of the Time" -- Tod and Buz work for a fraudulent beauty contest promoter and become hucksters in the process.

"The Thin White Line" -- Tod goes on a one-man rampage through Philadelphia after inadvertently drinking a beer spiked with a powerful hallucinogenic drug.

"And the Cat Jumped Over the Moon" -- A social worker (Milt Kamen) who is a former mentor of Buz is killed playing a dare game with a gang leader (Martin Sheen).

"Burning for Burning" -- Tod and Buz work for a wealthy family with a dead son. When their daughter-in-law pays a visit with their grandchild, the family treats her with open hostility.

"To Walk with the Serpent" -- The F.B.I. wants Tod and Buz to infiltrate a neo-Nazi group.

"A Long Piece of Mischief" -- A rodeo clown nurses a love for a trick rider while fending off sadistic cowboys.

"1800 Days to Justice" -- An ex-con (John Ericson) who was framed takes over a small Texas town and holds a kangaroo court to pass judgment on the real culprit (DeForest Kelly).

"A City of Wheels" -- Working in a veterans hospital brings Tod and Buz into the life of an embittered invalid.

"How Much a Pound Is Albatross?" -- Free-spirited motorcycle rider Vicki Russell (Julie Newmar) arrives in Tucson and turns it - and the lives of Tod and Buz - upside down.

"Aren't You Surprised to See Me?" -- A religious fanatic with a biological weapon kidnaps Buz and threatens to kill him, unless the entire city of Dallas abstains from sin for 24 hours.

"You Never Had It So Good" -- As part of a power play, a female executive promotes day-laborer Buz to a high administrative position.

"Shoulder the Sky, My Lad" --Tod and Buz come to the aid of a young Jewish boy, who has a crisis of faith after his father is killed in a mugging.

"Blues for the Left Foot" -- Tod helps a dancer - his first love - get a tryout with a major television network.

"Go Read the River" -- Tod finds that his new employer, a designer of speedboat engines, is an exceptionally driven and desolate man.

"Even Stones Have Eyes" -- Buz contemplates taking his own life after a construction accident leaves him without his sight.

"Love is a Skinny Kid" --A young woman (Tuesday Weld) stirs up a small Texas community by arriving in town wearing a frightful mask, which she refuses to remove.

"Kiss the Maiden, All Forlorn" -- An international fugitive (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) risks recapture by returning to the U.S. to visit his daughter.

"Two on the House" -- A young boy pretends to be the target of kidnappers in order to get attention from his business-obsessed father.

"There I Am - There I Always Am" -- Buz attempts to rescue a young woman who gets her foot stuck in the rocks of a Southern California beach, with the high tide coming in.

"Between Hello and Goodbye" -- Tod becomes involved with a reckless blonde and her reserved brunette sister.

"A Feat of Strength" -- Tod helps introduce a legitimate Hungarian wrestler (Jack Warden) to the American version of the sport.

"Hell is Empty, All the Devils Are Here" -- Tod's employer (Peter Graves) is an animal trainer plotting revenge against the man he believes responsible for his wife's death.

"From an Enchantress Fleeing" -- Tod goes in search of a henpecked runaway husband.

Roxbury Entertainment's mastering of the series to DVD remains to be seen. Whether the series will be digitised to wide screen format -- as was the case in Season 1/Volume 2 - remains merely a guess.

This extremely well-written series was at its rip-roaring finest in season 2. As always, we get a unique and nostalgic authentic glimpse at specific American locales in the early 1960s, back when the country was prosperous, the economy was growing in bounds, and gas was CHEAP! Episodes 1, "A Month of Sundays", in which Buz falls head over heels for a dying young actress in Montana; 3, "Good Night, Sweet Blues", in which Tod and Buz are dispatched across the country to round up a sick elderly jazz singer's old band members for one last memorable performance; and 24, "Even Stones Have Eyes", in which Buz is accidentally blinded on a construction site and must attend a school for the blind in Texas where he falls in love with an actual blind girl, are some of the finest moments in the entire history of television. This is a MUST-HAVE DVD set you will never regret buying and will always treasure!

If you've previously purchased the split season 1 DVD releases of "Route 66" from Infinity Entertainment, you know that Route 66 - Season 1, Vol. 1 episodes were of variable visual quality and one episode, "A Fury Slinging Flame," was severely edited. Route 66: Season 1, Vol. 2 offered improved, more consistent visual quality across all of the episodes but compromised the visuals with a phony widescreen presentation which cropped a portion of the top and bottom of the frame. After numerous complaints here at Amazon and elsewhere, Infinity re-released Route 66 - The Complete First Season in its entirety, restoring the full-screen format to those episodes contained in volume 2. Which brings us to this full season 2 release . . . . . Infinity has finally delivered a set that most fans of the series will be happy to own. No, the visuals don't have that eye-popping, razor-sharp "CBS/Paramount sheen" found on vintage television releases like "The Fugitive" or "The Untouchables," but they're quite good, in the correct full-screen aspect ratio and, unlike some CBS/Paramount releases, the original music is all here . . . . . no modern synthesized replacement music on this release, thank you very much! Can anyone imagine watching "Route 66" without Nelson Riddle's memorable theme and orchestrations?

"Route 66" is one of television's all-time great dramatic series and season 2 finds protagonists Tod Stiles (Martin Milner) and Buz Murdock (George Maharis) continuing their cross-country road adventures in a wide variety of early 1960s locales. The guest star list for season 2 is impressive, including the likes of James Caan, Robert Duvall, Anne Francis, Peter Graves, DeForest Kelley, Lee Marvin, Suzanne Pleshette, Robert Redford, Marion Ross, Martin Sheen, Jack Warden, Ethel Waters and Tuesday Weld, among others. Infinity sticks to the same formula for extras used for the season 1 releases with the inclusion of vintage 1960s commercials (limited this time to a single episode "You Never Had It So Good") and short clip profiles for each episode's guest stars. However, one does wonder as to whatever happened to the George Maharis episode commentaries that were reported by ROUTE 66 NEWS in early 2008 to have been supposedly recorded, but have yet to surface on any of the "Route 66" season releases to date.

A public thanks is in order to Infinity Entertainment (the DVD releasing company) and Roxbury Entertainment (the series' rights owner) for actually listening to their customers and delivering a season 2 release that is befitting a series of this high caliber. While, perhaps, the extra features could have been a bit better, the episodes in this season 2 DVD release look very good and the mistakes of the past split season 1 releases have been corrected. Here's hoping that Infinity/Roxbury will release the remaining two seasons; I'll pre-order on the day that they are announced.

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