Kojak Season Five   Starring: Telly Savalas Mediumrare Entertainment RRP: £34.99 FHED2872 Certificate: 15 Available 29 August 2011

There was a period of time between the forensic realism of today’s crime shows and the cheesy comfortable cosiness of shows they replaced, shows like CHiPS. In that transitional period, Kojak existed, a show which attempted to show the grimier side of law enforcements in seventies New York City.

Kojak had started life as a stand-alone TV story, but the public’s response to Telly Savalas's performance and the new take on detective story telling meant that the show would not only go into production, but also spend nearly half a decade as a fan favourite.

All things must come to an end and for Kojak this was the season, season five, when fan attention started to be pulled elsewhere, fickle bunch that we are. So, was the last season dire enough to warrant its cancellation? The simple answer is no. I just think that having been a trailblazer for a more realistic approach to crime drama, newer, brasher shows came along and stole the audience. That was not the end of Kojak, as the residual love that TV fans had for the show saw five TV movies made.

Kojak: Season Five (1977) contains all twenty-two episodes from the show spread across five DVD discs. The quality of the picture and audio are comparable to season four. It’s an old show, but even the slight problems with picture quality do not disguise the good acting and script writing, or the often filmic quality of the direction.

For the genre geeks out there, and I count myself amongst this number, old show have the delight of allowing us to view some of the early work of fan favourites, for example episode one of this season is written by Donald Bellisario, who would go on to create Quantum Leap (1989).

So another, and sad to say the last, slice of Kojak.

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Charles Packer