London's Burning: The Complete Series 1 to 7 [DVD]

As a serving member of the The London Fire Brigade at the time the early series were made & broadcast I like many others in the job had doubts about portraying our service as a soap. Apparently the LFB only gave the consent and assistance to the programmers providing the shows reflected realism warts and all !! To us many of the incidents acted out seemed familiar even if we had never been involved in them, I suspect this was probably due to the writers researching the previous editions of the LFB in house magazine "London Firemen" which had details of all the signifcant "shouts" . Of course having " Nobby" Clarke as the fire brigade advisor would help as he could always tell a good story!So fast forward almost 30 years, the Drama channel currently running the whole series on the TV my interest has been reignited (pun intended) and to be fair London's Burning seems a whole lot better now than at the time. Of course it has to be said that as a standalone TV program no way would it have lasted 14 series without the in depth and personal stories behind the characters involved. Even I have to agree that an hour of continuous reconstructed action scenes would not have worked from day one. So thumbs up for those who put up the money and enthusiasm to make the program and their really good efforts to get it right. Apart from the odd technical or brigade procedure detail being suspect which nobody except other LFB members would spot it was and still is a very entertaining program.The NOT so good parts.....In my opinion these "DVD" releases were taken direct from the old VHS tapes and not the original film shot by the TV company. I suspect that a licensing deal was done with current publishers and costs/profit margins as ever were of primary importance. There is NO WAY these offerings are DVD quality.As with the currently screened TV programs the old TV format is used (where black bars would appear at the sides of your modern screen) the cure applied to this problem is to stretch the picture to fit. Close ups of characters are huge and out of proportion, an old Ford Cortina for example looksthe length of a Roller ! That said you get used to it after a while and I'd rather it be this way than not at all.SADLY the worst part for me is that having bought the professional "DVD" you settle in to watch an episode and then after a while the picture freezes up coming the opening titles "LONDON'S BURNING" and it stays on the screen for about 10 secs, then back to the story.Obviously these gaps were the Ad breaks in the original broadcasts. OK there are no Ad's but surely time could have been taken to edit these tapes in a professional manner ? Recording the programs from the TV (If legal) and self editing might give you similar results.I would have no problem awarding 5 stars had the quality of the DVD's been better but overall only the individual can decide to purchase these recordings.

Good to see this again, just as good this time round.

I am over the moon with this Boxset, not keen how they have the disc situated! But I can easily adjust tho!Delivery took a while of which I had received the 2nd Boxset 1st! lolBut it got here in the end! Thanks guys!

'London's Burning', this is probably one of the most popular series ever. It is just under 147 hrs long or, if you prefer it, there is just over 6 days of viewing. An immensely popular programme indeed. There is every imagineable situation you can think of, even a fire station itself, cannot escape the flames.The characters you will grow to like, in fact, they will seem like part of the family. A few characters last for most of the series, one character, plods on from start to finish. The series is continous, but most episodes can be watched out of sequence. It is enjoyable throughout, can't find any fault with it, but you get the feeling that it is on its last legs towards the end, characters come and go willy-nilly. I have never regretted buying the complete set 1-7 plus 8-14, we view the whole series about once every two years.

It's londons burning where can you go wrong? No issues with packaging or the discs themselves so plays perfect

I grew up in the 70's and 80's and have a huge nostalgic love of those 'smartphone; free, email free,carefree days !This show somehow captures 80s culture and everyday life perfectly..........just simple, ordinary people with ordinary lives, wants and needs, and modest aspirations, doing a very dangerous and often misunderstood job for a living.The cars, the clothes, the hair, the 40p pints in the pub..........80's fans will love this ! The special effects and stunts are often amazingly realistic and based upon 'real life' disasters !The lives of the firefighters are often quirky, unpredictable, ironic, amusing and the standard of the acting is sublime !100% RECOMMENDED FOR ALL 80s FANS !

Great original series from begining to end

LONDON BURNING DVD IS A FANTASTIC DVD TO SEE