All Rise...

Judge David Johnson is a man in a billfold.

Editor's Note

Our review of Man In A Suitcase: Set 1, published March 17th, 2011, is also available.

The Charge

A disgraced former U.S. agent, now a gun for hire.

The Case

"Mac" McGill (Richard Bradford) will end you. End you. He used to be a hotshot special agent for the United States, but one thing led to another and he found himself booted out of the agency and exiled to Britain. What then is a persona non grata from the intelligence community to do with his time? Solve cases and seduce blind women of course! Think of Man in a Suitcase as a prototype Burn Notice, except less contrived and with better hair. Also, there's significantly more smoking to be found here.

Set 2 delivers 15 episodes, spread out over four discs, finding Mac dispatched to all corners of the globe to embark on various adventures. Here's what awaits:

• "The Whisper"
• "Why They Killed Nolan"
• "The Boston Square"
• "Somebody Loses, Somebody…Wins?"
• "Blind Spot"
• "No Friend of Mine"
• "Jigsaw Man"
• "Web with Four Spiders"
• "Which Way Did He Go, McGill?"
• "Property of a Gentleman"
• "The Revolutionaries"
• "Who's Mad Now?"
• "Three Blinks of the Eyes"
• "Castle in the Clouds"
• "Night Flight to Andorra"

There's a lot of bodacious '60s spycraft to be found here: he searches for a missing oceanographer, investigates suspicious activity at an African tobacco plantation, helps a defector across the Soviet border, battles terrorists in Central Africa, aids a high-ranking member of something called the "international space legislation committee," and launches a raid on a fortress in the Pyrenees.

Man in a Suitcase might not be the most popular spy show from the time period, but it has some juice. The success of the series begins and ends with its headliner. Richard Bradford blasts out "awesome" like a collapsed Dwarf star, whether its tearing up the go-go dance scene, pounding thugs in the heads with living room furniture, opening fire on mining colony saboteurs with automatic weapons, or simply hanging out with a cigarette permanently dangling from his mouth. This dude is precisely what the Surgeon General fears.

These episodes are dated, sure, but they're entertaining. What you sacrifice in current-day commentary, you more than makeup for in a '60s spy show that is authentic and refreshingly devoid of irony.

Acorn's set isn't bad: full frame standard definition transfers and Dolby 2.0 stereo audio, plus photo galleries, and a lengthy interview with Richard Bradford.

The Verdict

Mac Daddy! Not Guilty.

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