First transmitted in 1984, Chocky is a six-part TV adaptation of John Wyndham's clever novel. Matthew, an apparently normal 12-year-old boy, starts talking to an invisible presence called Chocky, who quizzes him on a wide variety of subjects as if unfamiliar with life on Earth. Over the course of the serial it is suggested that Chocky is an alternate personality or, after Matthew has been helped by Chocky to rescue his sister from drowning, a guardian angel. But we realise early on that this non-imaginary friend is in fact an alien who has made exploratory contact with the boy. Though Chocky manifests as a swirl of blue light, this is a rare piece of TV science fiction that sticks to the domestic arena, exploring ideas rather than playing with special effects. Wyndham's very 1950s-styled novel is updated by making the kids less well-spoken, and throwing in Rubik's cubes and space invaders video games, but adaptor Anthony Read's script preserves the virtues of the novel. Young Andrew Ellams is fine in a demanding role, and there's good-quality puzzled concern from dad James Hazeldine and 80s TV's resident sexy mum Carol Drinkwater. Apart from a few eye-abusing 1984 fashions-Jeremy Bulloch's huge glasses and blinding white jeans in a cameo as a psychiatrist-and the general leisurely pace, which is no bad thing in such a careful piece of drama, this has dated little. Those who remember its first broadcast will find it lives up to the memory, and those who weren't born then should still find it an entertaining watch. On the DVD: Chocky on disc can be accessed as a marathon two-and-a-half-hour watch or as six individual episodes (the latter is recommended). [+]

The Sopranos, writer-producer-director David Chase's extraordinary television series, is nominally an urban gangster drama, but its true impact strikes closer to home: This ambitious TV series chronicles a dysfunctional, suburban American family in bold relief. And for protagonist Tony Soprano, there's the added complexity posed by heading twin families, his collegial mob clan and his own nouveau riche brood. The series' brilliant first season is built around what Tony learns when, whipsawed between those two worlds, he finds himself plunged into depression and seeks psychotherapy-a gesture at odds with his midlevel capo's machismo, yet instantly recognisable as a modern emotional test. With analysis built into the very spine of the show's elaborate episodic structure, creator Chase and his formidable corps of directors, writers, and actors weave an unpredictable series of parallel and intersecting plot arcs that twist from tragedy to farce to social realism. While creating for a smaller screen, they enjoy a far larger canvas than a single movie would afford, and the results, like the very best episodic television, attain a richness and scope far closer to a novel than movies normally get. Unlike Francis Coppola's operatic dramatisation of Mario Puzo's Godfather epic, The Sopranos sustains a poignant, even mundane intimacy in its focus on Tony, brought to vivid life by James Gandolfini's mercurial performance. Alternately seductive, exasperated, fearful, and murderous, Gandolfini is utterly convincing even when executing brutal shifts between domestic comedy and dramatic violence. Both he and the superb team of Italian-American actors recruited as his loyal (and, sometimes, not-so-loyal) henchman and their various "associates" make this mob as credible as the evocative Bronx and New Jersey locations where the episodes were filmed. The first season's other life force is Livia Soprano, Tony's monstrous, meddlesome mother. As Livia, the late Nancy Marchand eclipses her long career of patrician performances to create an indelibly earthy, calculating matriarch who shakes up both families; Livia also serves as foil and rival to Tony's loyal, usually level-headed wife, Carmela (Edie Falco). [+]

Based on the 1868 classic British detective novel The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, this 1972 BBC drama is a period piece that seems almost theatrical thanks to its thespian delivery, scarcity of background music, and intent focus on character development. While the pace is leisurely and the dialogue sometimes difficult to discern, the story is most intriguing: A stolen Indian jewel makes its way to England and its curse threatens to destroy Rachel Verinder and her entire family even after it is stolen from the Verinder home. The best detectives fail to resolve the case and the repercussions ripple for many years as the plot twists and turns, love ebbs and flows, anger and deceit roil, and mysticism and science vie for supremacy. Featured talents are Robin Ellis, John Welsh, Basil Dignam, Vivien Heilbron and Peter Sallis and DVD extras include a Wilkie Collins biography and cast filmographies. -Tami Horiuchi.

Hamish Macbeth may technically be a British mystery series, but the quirky BBC show, set in Scotland, is more Local Hero meets Northern Exposure than Miss Marple, as series 2 shows. The residents of tiny Lochdubh, Scotland, are an eccentric bunch, and actor Robert Carlyle, for better or worse, is the town's sole lawman/sheriff. Carlyle is in prime deadpan form in the role of Hamish Macbeth, who presides over the crimes and just plain weird happenings of the burgh. The series, based on characters created by M. C. Beaton, doesn't always even seem to feature a mystery, until the final moments of an episode, as in "A Perfectly Simple Explanation. " The episode features slightly manic members of a fundamentalist sect, the Church of the Stony Path, and Hamish comes under their fire-and-brimstone curses for living out of wedlock with his insecure girlfriend, Alex. Then there's the new age cult leader who conducts his conversations on a particularly sloshy waterbed. The oddball characters come and go, and somewhere, woven around their interactions, is a plot that becomes strangely satisfying by an episode's finale, but which is not at all the reason for watching. The steadfast but affectionate take on the residents' quirkiness is compulsively addictive, and Carlyle proves again what a talented, multifaceted actor he is. [+]