Hazell - The Complete Series

In terms of packaging and picture quality, this edition is fine. OK, so it's a bit grainy by today's standards, but London in the seventies was a bit grainy by today's standards, if somewhat more colourful. The episodes are punchy and full of booze, birds, shooters, flash motors and cockney rhyming slang, which covered both variations of 'tom'. If London based, sleazy seventies crime drama is your nirvana, then Hazell is about as good as it gets, but watching it again did throw up a few anomalies.Firstly why were the two lead stories from the original trilogy not dramatised? Hazell and the Menacing Jester and Hazell and the Three Card Trick were excellent stories, which would have easily translated to TV, so I'm a bit puzzled as to why they were overlooked. What happened to Hazell's girlfriend Vinnie? Heavily featured in two episodes, then she just vanished without explanation. Also, in the penultimate episode, Hazell buys a classic Jaguar at auction, to replace his beloved Triumph Stag, which had been totalled by a disgruntled client. He seemed very pleased with his purchase and the car ended the episode, completely intact. By the time of the final episode however, Hazell was again carless and again, no explanation for the disappearance of the Jag (in my opinion, a far superior motor to the Stag) and he ended-up borrowing a fun-size Fiat 500!The final mystery is why the series just stopped so suddenly. You can tell when a successful series starts flagging and even the Wonderful Minder was no exception to that rule, but what turned-out to be the final episode was one of the best in the canon and it ended with no indication that Hazell had run its course. To be honest, all of the above has left me wondering if some of the episodes have been 'lost'.If ever a series justified a revival, then this might be it. To the best of my knowledge, Nicholas Ball is still acting and could adequately play an ageing, cockney gumshoe who never quite made it and still has to keep the wolf from the door! Sadly, few of his female co-stars could reprise their roles, as an alarming number of Hazell's birds, seem to have flitted off this mortal coil, prematurely.Thoroughly recommended.

Excellent series to watch and well worth the purchase. Thank You.

Young hip cool version to the older PRIVATE EYE series. Ex copper of the long hair seventies offering to be hired to investigate. For younger viewer this is like a scruffy SHOESTRING series. What makes it great is the characters personality and narration.

Loved this series with Nicholas Ball as detective James "Jim" Hazell, but found it annoying that 6 discs and 22 episodes are provided here in a much slimmer sleeve than the " Series 1" sleeve I bought (3 discs, Epis 1-4, 5-8 & 9-10) years ago, so 10 episodes are redundant but Series 2 was never made available for ages. FYI: Episode 1 was transmitted Jan 1978 and last episode was transmitted January 1980.

This series was on TV in the UK when I was a cloudy minded Teenager. I don't think I saw it - though I heard about it from contemporaries and did study a better episode -years later in a Media Course at Uni. Looking back - after nearly half a century it isa) extremely datedb) extremely misogynistic and contrived- with a lot of dull momentsc) nice to see real London locations from the 70's preserved for posterityThe UK attempting to shadow the US private Eye genre with gangster backing? A famous London gangster even appears in a bit part in the last episode.

Remembered this from years back and because the company that made it has now gone, worried that it might never be seen again!!Nicholas ball is James Hazell. Former police officer, forcibly retired due to injury on the job.Having set himself up as a private investigator in a squalid part of town. Hazell deals with all manner of local characters and villains as he goes about his work.Good stuff. Recommend it.

I thought this was worth buying even though it's recently been on TV, Hazell is still one the best British detective serious and the DVD quality good.

Great back to the end of the 70's a refreshing TV tec who doesn't always win and drives round in a flash motor - A sort of british Rockford, though not quite as good as Mr Garner few were! . Some good stories and Nicholas Ball takes his part really well and is backed by a great supporting cast. Well worth the investment!! production wise its ok but its annoying the each episode is broken up by the advert slots - no adverts just the end of part 1 screen followed by part 2 sure they could have rectified that if they had wanted to. Otherwise its excellent to watch

Memorys, the good old days when you didnt need blood, guts and foul language to enjoy a program. Its not the Sweeney but its worth a watch.