'FIVE DAYS'

3 stars = Good
Ratings explained

"Five Days" (HBO Video; $29.98) follows five key days in the police investigation of the disappearance of a young mother, Leanne Wellings (Christine Temarco), and two of her children in a quiet English suburb. On the way to taking the children to visit their grandfather, the young mother stops along the roadside to buy flowers, leaving the children in the car across the way. All three vanish.

Suspense builds as investigators Amy Foster (Janet McTeer of "Tumbleweeds" fame) and Iain Barclay (Hugh Bonneville) question potential suspects, including the missing woman's grieving husband, Matt Wellings (David Oyelowo of "The Last King of Scotland" fame), as well as themselves, as they try to solve the mystery.

A five-part crime thriller miniseries, "Five Days," is a rich, riveting character drama and modern British mystery. But the exquisite pacing and escalation of the taut narrative through the first four episodes seems abandoned in the final episode, which, somewhat disappointingly, seems a bit rushed in tying up the loose ends of the story.

In a 12-minute bonus extra "Behind the Mystery of Five Days With Gwyneth Hughes," the story's writer offers insights as to how she created the tale.

"What ultimately 'Five Days' is about is uncertainty," says Hughes, a policeman's daughter and a former journalist. "Five Days" is fictional, but elements of some true stories helped her come up with the "Five Days" scenario.

Although many whodunit writers plan out their plots beforehand and know when they start who the killer will be, Hughes doesn't work that way.

"I make it up as I go along," she says. "So, I've got to put enough stuff in early episodes that can generate interesting outcomes later."

Only at the end does she decide which character is the best one to have committed the crime. "It's quite scary for everybody else who's working on the show because if I don't know who done it, neither do they," she said.

-- L.A. Johnson, Post-Gazette staff writer

'THE SMURFS'

4 stars = Outstanding
Ratings explained

Twenty years ago young TV viewers were smitten with love of Smurfs.

They bought Smurf dolls, Smurf clothes, Smurf games and, of course, they watched the Smurf cartoons. And what's not to love? Smurfs are tiny, cute, blue, heroic and clever. Did I mention cute? Needless to say, the recent release of "The Smurfs: Season 1, Volume 1" (Warner Home Video, $26.99) is a fun find.

The Emmy-nominated series aired from 1981-90 on NBC. The series brought to the United States the now-50-year-old Belgian comic strip characters: Papa Smurf, Clumsy, Brainy, Lazy, Hefty, Handy ... Sneezy, Dopey, Grumpy ... Oops, sorry -- wrong era, wrong cartoon. But like the Seven Dwarfs of Walt Disney fame, the Smurfs are eternally, entertainingly lovable. Their surprisingly funny but fiendish archenemy, the wizard Gargamel, and his sidekick, Azrael the cat, add spice to the fun.

Of particular interest on the first disc is the tale of how Smurfette, the only female Smurf who once worked as a double agent for Gargamel, came into existence.

The two-DVD set holds all 19 of the first-season episodes along with a Smurf springtime special and a music video.

-- Monessa Tinsley, Post-Gazette staff writer

"A Pup Named Scooby-Doo," season 1; "Battlestar Galactica," season 3; "Bionic Woman," Vol. 1; "Married ... With Children," season 8; "The Untouchables," season 2, vol. 1; "The Wild Wild West," season 4."