Search - Wind at My Back: The Complete First Season on DVD

My Favorite Family TV Series of All-Time

David R. Seid | Fairfax, VA USA | 10/02/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Wind At My Back originally began airing on Canadian TV about 10 years ago. I first saw the series when I was living in Buffalo while an undergrad at the University there (as I could get both US and Canadian TV)... When I heard the show was created by the same team that brought Anne of Green Gables to the small screen, I figured it could not be *too* bad, so I gave it a try...

To cut to the chase, it definately wasn't "too bad" at all... In fact, it was absolutely brilliant! I soon found myself pushing aside all my US (and Canadian) favorites, making sure I watched every episode week in, week out.

The show takes place during the Depression in Canada in the early 1900s... The Bailey family happily runs a convenience store in a small town, but soon gets swept into the hard-times others are suffering around them, and has to make do after a series of tragic events occur.

Due to these events, the family heads to the mining town of New Bedford, where they meet up with the town's matriarch -- May Bailey. May is a subborn, hard woman who has never even met her grand-children, and was against her estranged son marrying Honey (the family's mother). Now the family must depend on May for its daily survival or starve to death (and May, not being the forgiving type does not make it easy).

The show can run the emotional gammot from tear-jerker to hilarious to heartwarming-inspirational. It is that brilliant range mixed in with brutal realism that makes it such a pleasure to watch.

Also making the show a pleasure to watch is the fabulous overall cast. Every one of the characters is well-developed, and superbly acted. The standount of the show is definitely Shirley Douglass as May Bailey though. Every scene she is in is absolute magic, going from the heartless grandother and business person one minute, to a person with real feelings and pain the next... Great stuff all-around.

Needless to say, I think Wind At My Back is a must watch series, and one of the best ever created. If you or your kids like to watch well-acted realistic family dramas which don't hold anything back, then this series is for you."

One of the best ever

Tanya L. Osterman | Las Vegas, NV | 08/04/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is one of those programs that you wish would never (have) end(ed). Full of life!"

A great DVD of a classic Canadian TV Show but with "special

Dan | Swan Lake Manitoba | 08/19/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I remembered watching the first couple of seasons of this show when I was a kid so I picked up the first season on DVD for a trip down memory lane.

The episodes are pretty much presented as they appeared on TV (which is a good thing)there are no unneeded edits or additions so everything is as it should be.

On the whole everything about this show is really good with well written stories well developed characters and some great acting, its very wholesome family entertainment that is great for the whole family (from little kids to seniors), there are few if any obscene words used in the scripts (and if there are they are very mild) which can sometimes lead to some unintentionally funny dialog because its obvious that words phrases and sometimes entire sentances were edited or changed to get the G rating and there is no gratuitous nudity or sexual situations/talk either.

The main relationships that are focused on in this season are the relationships between the young Bailey brothers and various members of their extended family and members of the community, the relationship between the brothers is one of reluctant (but devoted) love and affection from the older son towards his little brother who seems to look up to him in an almost hero worshiping way they are both devoted to their mother who adores them and loves them more than anything while having a strained relationship with the grandmother whom they previously hadn't met.

My only complaints are the way the discs are structured and the distinct lack of any real special features.

Each disc is a dual-disc with a couple of episodes a side so be careful when handling these discs because they scratch very easily (they could have put everything onto two high density discs instead of using the lower density dual-disc system which is cheaper to produce and having the set end up as a four disc set) and the first episode is at the beginning of disc one instead of being on a disc with the rest of the episodes so you have to switch discs after watching the first part of the two part first episode, the other more sensible option would have been to just edit the two episodes together into a single two hour premier special (like how it was originally broadcast in the first place) .

The first disc also contains the "special features" which consists of a three minute TV teaser that aired just before the first episode was broadcast and a series credits screen (why even have this feature because each episode has a credits screen at the end so the series credits screen serves no real purpose at all) there are no cast interviews bloopers deleted scenes or any kind of stuff like that unless you count the shows audio track being available in english and dubbed (sometimes badly) french (which is a given because it was a Canadian produced show and we are a bi-lingual country) and the closed captioning that doesn't seem to work on my dvd player is a major stretch in the definition of what special features are and for an eighty dollar set this is unacceptable, those kind of lazy special features are what you'd expect to see from a twenty dollar special value DVD set at wal-mart not something that is this expensive.

Other than those small complaints I have to say this is a great show to have on dvd even if the "special features" are lacking."