Silver Spring, MD — Featuring top-notch adaptations of detective stories from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s contemporaries, The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Set 2 debuts on DVD from Acorn Media on March 30, 2010. Seen on public television in the 1970s, the classic anthology series features such iconic British actors as Derek Jacobi (I, Claudius; Cadfael), Judy Geeson (To Sir, With Love), Jean Marsh (Upstairs, Downstairs), Robin Ellis (Poldark), and John Thaw (Inspector Morse). Offering unique insight into Victorian popular culture, intellectual preoccupations, and social ills, these 13 finely crafted mysteries deliver riveting performances and fascinating whodunits (DVD 4-Vol., $59.99, www.AcornOnline.com). The Rivals debut coincides with the DVD release of Guy Richie’s holiday blockbuster Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey, Jr.

Crime abounded in late Victorian and Edwardian times—from the streets of London to the country houses of the nobility; from the royal apartments of Vienna to the hotel rooms of quiet Copenhagen. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective took on many of the era’s crooks, killers, blackmailers, and schemers—but so did the fictional sleuths of other celebrated writers of the time.

Relying on brain over brawn, their characters outwit, outthink, and outmaneuver the most ruthless of adversaries—and all in ways Sherlock Holmes would have considered much more than elementary.

Episode 1: The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway
Episode 2: Five Hundred Carats
Episode 3: Cell 13
Episode 4: The Secret of the Magnifique
Episode 5: The Absent-Minded Coterie
Episode 6: The Sensible Action of Lieutenant Holst
Episode 7: The Superfluous Finger
Episode 8: Anonymous Letters
Episode 9: The Moabite Cipher
Episode 10: The Secret of the Fox Hunter
Episode 11: The Looting of the Specie Room
Episode 12: The Mystery of the Amber Beads
Episode 13: The Missing Q.C.s

A Thames Television Production, The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Set 2 premiered on the ITV Network in the U.K. in 1973. The first series, also 13 episodes, aired in 1971 and was released on DVD in September 2009. The series won a BAFTA for best design (1971).

Street: March 30, 2010
SRP: $59.99
DVD 4-Vol. Boxed Set: 13 episodes - Approx. 659 min. - SDH subtitles DVD Features: Profiles of the rival detectives and their creators.

Headquartered in suburban Washington, D.C., Acorn Media distributes distinctive home video releases to the North American market with a special focus on the best of British television. Acorn’s DVD sets are available from select retailers, catalog companies, and direct from Acorn Media at (888) 870-8047 or www.acornonline.com.