:: theLogBook.com DVD Reviews ::

I’m sure everyone’s got their favorite season of a given show, but for me, Deep Space Nine never got better than its second season. In a lot of ways, this is the last season of the show that I enjoyed from premiere to finale. Everything in the second year was rock solid, damn good storytelling, excellent empire building, and compelling characterization. With later seasons’ introduction of such elements as the Defiant and Worf, it just seems to me like DS9 got too far away from its roots. This was the show at its absolute greatest potential. (more…)

I remember, way back in 1993, getting my first glimpse of Red Dwarf V on a friend’s PAL-converted VHS tape just shipped over from the U.K., and getting the jokes while missing a lot of the visual detail. Until recently, a dub of that already-dubbed-and-converted tape was my only copy of the show’s fifth season. Needless to say, going from that tape to this 2-DVD set was almost like watching a whole new show that I had only heard before.

Some of my first impressions about Red Dwarf V still stand, however: despite featuring what may well be the most brilliant single story of the entire show (Back To Reality), this season is where just a little bit of a rot began to set in. The show was still funny, but this season was where someone, somewhere, decided that the emphasis on action-adventure needed to outweigh the emphasis on comedy. (more…)