 A DVD Review of...    Images (C) Warner Bros., 1996 | |||
Genre: Sci-Fi/Drama Cast: Bruce Boxleitner, Claudia Christian, Jerry Doyle, Richard Biggs, Mira Furlan, Peter Jurasik, Andreas Katsulas, Bill Mummy, Stephen Furst, Andrea Thompson, Ed Wassar Synopsis: In the mid 23rd century, 'Babylon 5' is a space station in which the five major galactic powers try and forge peace between them all. But a war with an ancient enemy starts again and threatens to destroy them - and only these people stand between us and a fate worse than death. Sure there were the odd clunker such as some of the early episodes ala "A Day in the Strife" & "Passing through Gethsemane" along with an ill-attempted break from the action in "A Late Delivery From Avalon" but otherwise it was pitch perfect. From more Shadow revelations in "Messages from Earth", the start of the Earth war in "Point of No Return" & "Severed Dreams", the time travelling "War Without End" two parter, the politics and action of "Interludes & Examinations" and "Shadow Dancing" and of course the finale "Z'Ha'Dum" which contains one of the more dramatic TV cliffhanger endings ever. The effects got intense and packed the episodes, there was some particularly effective dark moments incl. a savage murder set to a gospel song to some more visions of the future which looking back were cleverly worked in at this point. This truly is some of the best writing and well put together TV you'll see and does a superb job with a limited budget - if only other productions put in this much effort, I'd gladly watch TV regularly again.- Garth Franklin 
DVD Review: The third season hits DVD in once again a beautifully packaged six-disc set with a black and green reflective outer casing over a solid plastic 'book' style disc holder. The consistency of design though the variation of colour is a great idea which really makes these sets stand out on one's collection shelf though one wonders what the other two sets colours will be (purple and turquoise maybe). As many remember the first two seasons transfer suffered from some big problems albeit in different ways - and the same applies here. In the first season the live action elements looked superb and that trend has continued in both the second and third season box-sets - the anamorphic widescreen video and the better equipment with which Seasons 2 & 3 were shot on results in a high quality feel to the production even though it lacked the funding of say the Trek shows. Colour and contrast is improved and whilst there's frequent grain or soft detail, the look is pretty good. The only glaring problem aside from the reframing issue is some episodes suffer from scratches - literally the odd white 'streak' will run down the screen for a frame which has been attributed to 'print damage' and is annoying as hell. None of the VHS versions have this problem so its a real surprise. The CGI elements again suffer the difficulty of Series One in an attempt to reformat them for widescreen they've become rather murky although the aliasing problem isn't as severe as it used to be (probably due to better graphics than something transfer specific). With all the reframing issues of the live action elements, and the FX problems its a real shame Warners didn't either release the show in either Full Screen or better yet remastered widescreen as the really are a distracting fault to the point that I'm keeping my VHS copies of the season's key episodes (which in this case is all of them). The audio is disappointing on the surround aspects once again, but the dialogue is all quite clear whilst the score sounds fine - actually sound does come across better this year. JMS' commentaries on two of episodes of the season ("Severed Dreams" & "Z'Ha'Dum") are like the last few, serious and revealing, whilst he yet again actively spoils storylines and character revelations that happen in later seasons. Even better than last time is the cast commentary - Bruce Boxleitner, Richard Biggs, Ed Wasser, and Jerry Doyle all team for commentary on "Interludes & Examinations" and its a real boys night out full of great laughs and stories - one of the funnest tracks I've ever heard. Onto the other special features and there's a six minute-long intro on Disc One with JMS, Douglas Netter and the major cast talking about what led up to and happens to their characters in this season. Disc Six has several featurettes - most interesting is a 7-minute piece on the Narn make-up with a short blow-by-blow video of the application of the makeup on actor Marshall Teague (Ta'Lon). Less specific is an 8-minute piece on creating the other alien designs with Makeup FX man John Vulch talking about what rules he had to work under before going into specific race (eg. Centauri, Narn, Vorlon) details. Finally there's a ten-minute piece on the design of the station, the sets, the ships and the costumes. Like the last set, "The Universe of Babylon 5" option has various text screen options allowing you to check out facts and details on the various alien races, groups, planets, ships, technology and regular characters. The best set and whilst the transfer still has problems, this is THE season of the show to have if you have to get one. - Garth Franklin  . |
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