Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected: Set 2 is, appropriately enough, unexpectedly fun to watch. With its 1980-1981 original air date and utterly cheesy cover art, it has "nostalgia value only" stamped all over it... but it's actually a quite entertaining package even twenty-five years later.

One of the things that came as a bit of a surprise to me was the subject matter of the stories. We get all sorts of odd stories and macabre or ironic twists, but they're realistic in style and content; these are not supernatural or outright horror/fantasy stories. Considering the decidedly bizarre "stairway leading up to a gigantic eyeball" cover art, I think viewers can be excused for getting a bit of the wrong impression; I was also led astray by the "Tales of" element of the title, which reminded me of Tales from the Crypt. But in any case, these truly are tales of the "unexpected" rather than tales of the weird.

Set 2 collects all the episodes from the show's third and fourth seasons; each episode runs 25 minutes, and stands completely by itself. Tales of the Unexpected does feature a reasonable number of (moderately) well-known British actors in the main roles, as well as a few U.S. actors that viewers might recognize as well. For instance, we get John Gielgud, Telly Savalas, Pauline Collins, Joan Collins, Michael Kitchen, Nigel Hawthorne, and others.

As you might expect from an "anthology" series like this, there's considerable variation in the stories. Some are written by Roald Dahl (who also introduces some of the episodes), like "The Boy Who Talked with Animals" and "Vengeance Is Mine, Inc.," while others are written by other authors, such as mystery writer Ruth Rendell ("A Glowing Future"). Some have a fairly tight structure that sets up something strange and lets you puzzle over it until the final twist is revealed, while others have a meandering feel, so that you're not really sure where the story is going until it finally gets there. Since the episodes are short, though, even the weaker episodes don't drag on too long, and there's enough variety in subject matter to make for an entertaining mix.

The overall tone is varied as well. The slightly macabre feel of many of the stories is balanced by others with a lighter touch. One of my favorites is "Proof of Guilt," which is a "locked-room" mystery that cleverly gives the viewers the necessary information to figure things out, but makes the puzzle tricky enough that the resolution is an entertaining twist. Revenge (in various forms) is a prime ingredient in many of the stories, whether in a murderous or merely mischievous form, but there are also a number of stories that poke at flaws in human nature; greed is the downfall of more than one hapless character in Tales of the Unexpected.

While it may not look particularly polished to current viewers, mainly because its appearance is rather dated now, Tales of the Unexpected does have reasonably good production values; the episodes make use of a variety of locales, and are not limited to a few studio sets. The result is a fresh feel for each episode.

The DVD

Tales of the Unexpected: Set 2 is a four-DVD set, containing 23 episodes in total, from the series' third season (seasons 1 and 2 appear in Tales of the Unexpected: Set 1). The discs are packaged in individual keepcases inside a glossy paperboard slipcase.

Video

Tales of the Unexpected looks OK if you're used to watching older British television shows on DVD; that is, it doesn't look great, but it's acceptably watchable, and on a par with other transfers of material from the same era. Colors look a bit washed-out but otherwise seem natural; there are a few haloing effects, but none that really catch the eye. Some print flaws appear, and outdoor scenes tend to be rather grainy, but all in all it's pretty much average. It does have a certain "television look" in the indoor footage, but that's an effect of the way it was filmed, not the transfer. All the episodes appear in their original 1.33:1 aspect ratio.

Audio

The audio quality for Tales of the Unexpected is reasonably good; it's a notch above average for a television program that's been sitting on the shelf for twenty-odd years. The sound is a bit flat, but generally clear and perfectly acceptable.

Extras

The first disc contains medium-length text biographies of author Roald Dahl and composer Dan Grainer, and filmographies for a handful of the actors in the episodes.

Final thoughts

If you enjoyed Tales of the Unexpected when it first aired, chances are that you'll find this second collection of episodes very much to your liking. I found these stories to be light-weight fun; it's a nice mix of strange and sometimes macabre (but not supernatural) stories. Recommended.