:: theLogBook.com DVD Reviews ::

There are times when I ask myself just what I could have been thinking when I embarked on a Space: 1999 episode guide. My hazy memories of the show were far fonder before I invested in multiple DVD box sets and got reacquainted with the series. But it is an important and, in hindsight, useful part of SFTV history. I’ll explain more in a bit. First let’s talk about the episodes included in this 2-disc set.

When you’ve got a DVD set that opens up with an episode featuring Peter Cushing with a long grey wig (did he borrow it from his good friend Christopher Lee?), you’re either watching Space: 1999 again, or you smoked something before watching one of the Hammer Frankenstein movies. (more…)

Few Doctor Who stories have withstood the test of time as well as The Ark In Space. Over the years, Ark has garnered praise for beating Alien to virtually all of its dramatic punches, some incredibly innovative sets (some of which, as revealed by their designer on this DVD, were literally smoke and mirrors), and the first real hints of Tom Baker’s Doctor Who persona. And on rewatching this four-parter on DVD, with tons of extras, I’m reminded of why every bit of that praise is absolutely well-earned. (more…)

As a little piece of Star Wars history, this piece of produced-for-the-internet ephemera is a bit too recent to have the collectible cachet of, say, the Holiday Special, and yet I think its status as a Star Wars collectible obscures the real joy of R2-D2: Beneath The Dome: it’s a cuttingly accurate spoof of all of those deadly-earnest Biography-style shows seen on E!, A&E, VH-1, and other networks that can’t afford to slap enough consonants and vowels together to form a name with actual words. (more…)

Ahhh, Cube. I reviewed Cube in our Movie Review section after seeing it on the Sci-Fi Channel in late 1998, and never has a single article on this web site brought about so much hate mail. You wouldn’t believe it. I will agree with Cube’s apparently quite loyal legion of fans that it’s an artistic triumph, but where I’ll disagree is in whether or not one of those arts in which it triumphs is storytelling. Fortunately, the DVD helps to clarify some of the issues that have made be so ambivalent about this movie for so long. For those of you who filled my e-mail box with blistering, profanity-laden missives, I think there was a fundamental misunderstanding - I really did like a lot of things about Cube, especially from a production and design standpoint. I thought the acting was generally very good. I just had a bit of a problem not so much with the downbeat ending, but the throwaway explanation that we can chalk it all up to “boundless human stupidity.” (more…)

Hailed by fans, critics, cast and crew as Star Trek: The Next Generation’s finest year on the air, the sixth season is a joy to revisit. Truth be told, I had forgotten how good it really was.

In the bonus featurettes, the show’s writers gleefully and guiltily admit to the fact that there was no road map showing how to finish the spooky fifth season cliffhanger Time’s Arrow. A lot of that show’s spookiness, however, was jettisoned for the season-opening second part, which concentrates instead on action, the resolution of the strange time travel coincidences which see Picard and Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) meeting for the first time in her timeline, and some fun with the character of Mark Twain. (more…)