I had a very faint recollection of this series and was probably too young to appreciate it first time around. I baulked at coughing up ??40 to see if it stirred any memories but, at the now heavily discounted price, I took a chance. Well worth while! Ace of Wands may be seen as a somewhat creepier and more naive long lost relation to Jonathan Creek, but it has a charm all its own. The costumes are a hoot! Some of the dialogue is a tad stilted and the effects (check out the "magically" transformed vase in the first episode or the eggs in the second!) were obviously not made for the DVD generation. But never mind! Just go with the flow and enjoy. As soon as those superb opening credits with the evocative theme tune start to play, you will have a big smile on your face. This is a great tribute to happier, more innocent times and is the sort of edgy but fun occult-lite drama not made any more.

What a shame so few episodes have been preserved. But, unless something turns up in a vault sometime, I guess this is the best we're going to get.

Pick of the bunch here has to be the superb 'Peacock Pie' story, with much loved (and sadly recently departed) actor Brian Wilde showing us what Derren Brown could do if he were more malicious than mischievous.

The commentary episodes are sadly limited to the Sisters Deadly story, but are both amusing and informative.

the final story - Beautiful People is a little weak and drawn-out, but certainly provides plenty of architypal 70's eye-candy!

Picture and sound quality are adequate and some decent retrospective documentaries and a strange spin-off story complement this box set which, at this price, is an absolute snip!

This is an excellent DVD release of a great 1970's series: Ace of Wands was often very cheap-looking, and many of the stories more hole than plot, but the conviction of the main characters - especially Tarot himself (perfectly acted by Michael Mackenzie who always plays Tarot straight - it's a real pity he was so seldom seen after Ace of Wands) - makes if all work. When it was broadcast, a lot of effort was made to make it seem very up-to-date, from fashions to technology to contemporary topics like Tutankhamen and meditation. This means that is it extremely out-of-date now, which really adds to the fun of watching it, especially if you are in your 40s! Like a lot of programmes from so long ago, to enjoy it you really have to hand yourself over to the way TV was then - very much slower than today, major differences between location and studio-bound work (not only in terms of the film vs video differences - they even used different producers), few effects. The one big problem with Ace of Wands is that only one of its three seasons exists (officially at least - there are rumours that there are many episodes from the other seasons in private hands; it would be great if this release led to some lost episode discoveries!), which means that many of the great Ace of Wands stories have gone. Many people (production team and actors as well as fans) remember "Seven Serpents, Sulphur and Salt" as being one of the best. One brilliant thing about this DVD release it that it includes the two "sequels" to this story (featuring the main villains but not Tarot), which goes some way to making up for the loss of the story itself. As part of this release, there is also a very nice documentary, a very meaty set of excllent "programme notes" and an interesting commentary on one story. And, for my money, season three did have two of the best stories of the whole programme - Peacock Pie, and The Beautiful People. I don't want to give any plot details away, so I'll just say, if Tarot occasionally seems a bit of a know-it-all who always wins thanks to his superior powers, then it makes it all the more fun to see what happens when he comes up against people who have powers enormously stronger than his own (if they are people, that is!)

This is a great release of a great series, with excellent extras including a superbly researched booklet by Andrew Pixley. Highly recommended!

It had been, perhaps, thirty three years since I'd seen 'Ace of Wands,' when I learned it had come out on DVD. Worryingly, we were told that this 4-disc set contained only 'all surviving episodes.' Worryingly, because the only 'AoW' story I remembered was 'Peacock Pie,' and I wasn't sure whether that one would be among the 'surviving.' My memory of 'Peacock Pie' was that it had been astonishingly good: atmospheric, mystical, claustrophobic and subtly sexy. Was it worth getting this set, though, on the off-chance that the adventure I wanted would be in it and would that adventure, after all these years, be as good as I remembered? After all, when you're twelve, most of existence seems atmospheric, mystical, claustrophobic and subtly sexy. Well it did to me. Anyway, I decided 'What the Hades,' splashed out and - joy! - 'Peacock Pie' was among the survivors and - twice joy! - it was every bit as good as I remembered. Better. Brian Wilde - pitiable yet absolutely terrifying - is the lonely hypnotist Peacock, able to force his illusions on anyone whether they like it or not. Look at the stares he gives into the camera and he really is as disturbing as any evil-doer you'll see on the small screen. All the more so, perhaps, because, during the course of the story, he never actually kills anyone. It's implied that he has done so in the past, though, and the subtlety of the implication makes it uniquely horrible. Writer PJ Hammond went on to do 'Sapphire and Steel,' which I never saw but now wish I had!

The whole box set is worth it for this story alone. But there is much else to applaud. Michael MacKenzie's hero is devastatingly handsome ('Wish I still looked like that,' he is heard to chunter at one point during the commentary) and supremely charismatic. A stage magician and mind-reader whose powers may or may not be partly supernatural (I loved that ambiguity when I first saw it and longed for years for another story that allowed its audience to make up their own minds...), 'Tarot' is an investigator of 'strange goings on.' In the surviving episodes, he's aided by brother and sister 'Chas' and 'Mikki,' Roy Holder and Petra Markham. We have a possibly haunted street market, whose ghosts turn out to have a very rational explanation (or do they?), the spirit of a vindictive ancient Egyptian stage magician, whose power depends on his disciples' continued belief in him and a deranged doll-maker who wants to turn human beings into mannequins (a touch of the John Fowles there, maybe?) The sympathy and gentleness with which Tarot defuses the doll-maker's obsession is really quite touching. He's determined that she won't hurt anyone, but similarly determined not to hurt her if he can help it. Doctor Who was never so sympathetic to Davros. Finally, there's the fascinating 'Beautiful People,' whose guest stars, Edward Hammond, Susan Glanville and (Awww!) Vivien Heilbron, really do live up to the title. A trio of malicious computer-programmed brats who play technological practical jokes on the elderly and infirm in the belief that they have the perfect right to do so, being the next stage in human evolution, this lot were a far more convincing take on the idea of 'Homo Superior' than were 'the Tomorrow People,' heroes of the unhealthily misanthropic series that replaced 'Ace of Wands' in the schedules. Though this is the least well-paced of the surviving 'AoW' stories, it's a sharp and well observed satire on the more arrogant and self-satisfied end of the hippie movement (which would, four years later, miraculously transform itself into the more arrogant and self-satisfied end of the punk movement - who'd've thought it?)

Extras include scripts from some (but not all - have even the scripts been destroyed? AAARRGGGHHH!!! And some of them were by Don Houghton! Double AAARRRGGGHHH!!!) of the missing stories, including the clearly wonderful 'Seven Serpents, Sulphur and Salt,' by series creator Trevor Preston which, on the evidence of the script alone, was second only to 'Peacock Pie.' A very sad loss.

Incidentally, I wonder if famed occult filmmaker Kenneth Anger ever watched 'Ace of Wands'? I think he was living in Britain at the time it was aired, making 'Lucifer Rising,' and some scenes in that movie seem, to my eyes, to parallel others in 'AoW''s Egyptological adventure 'The Power of Atep.' If so, it's hardly a surprise; trust the grand visionary himself to spot, in what was nominally only a children's programme, touches of the authentically magickal.

So, "Ace of Wands" is here at last. The most shameful gap in the legacy of British SF/fantasy is (partially) filled.
This is a vitally important set and belongs in any collection worthy of the name.
But enthusiasm is severely tempered by the knowledge that all that survives is the decidedly inferior 3rd series. It's like trying to appreciate "The Avengers" without Diana Rigg or "Star Wars" based on only "Return of the Jedi".
This is a mere flavour of the true greatness of this show. As such we must be grateful but the tragedy of it!