Retro TV buffs, brace yourselves for a thrill as the classic Robert Wagner action / mystery series comes back out our way with the It Takes A Thief Complete Series box set, a copy of which the folks at E One sent out for review. And the good news: it’s going to be some exciting stuff if you’re willing to accept some basic issues.

It Takes A Thief Complete Series is the compilation of three seasons worth of the old series which ran from 1968 through 1970, and joined us up with Alexander Mundy, a master thief who finds himself dragooned into service with the SIA, given a parole from prison to engage in thievery on behalf of the United States government. They figured out that most of espionage is essentially larceny and homicide, and realized in turn that the best people most skilled at larceny and homicide are thieves and murderers, and thus, they pick up said thief. And he’s got a whole lot of stuff to steal for the United States government, including the hearts of most any woman who gets in his way.

While there are plenty of great jokes in this series, you’ll also be abundantly surprised to know that Leslie Nielsen is in this one…but here’s the kicker. It’s a SERIOUS role. Yes, Frank Drebin himself, the most hilarious cop known to mankind, is actually playing a serious role. And he will be doing so in the midst of an action thriller with its share of laughs! And not only that, there will also be plenty of good old fashioned suspense tossed in for variety. Laughs, suspense, action…it’s hard not to enjoy this series.

And lest you think that all old television is a badly dated and utterly irrelevant affair, don’t–this actually manages to do a pretty fair job of staying pretty exciting. Sure, you can tell that it’s pulled whole and breathing out of the sixties, but the plots are actually rather impressive for a show filmed that far back. One follows a jewel heist perpetrated to collapse a country’s economy–seems the currency is backed by the country’s crown jewels–and Mundy will have to try and join the thieves boosting the jewels in order to keep them safe.

It Takes A Thief Complete Series is a whole lot more and a whole lot better than you’d likely expect, and despite its clearly dated look, it’s still going to pack plenty of quality action into its proceedings.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, meanwhile, gives the massive and impressive It Takes A Thief Complete Series an eight out of ten for being intensely fun but a little dated.