:: theLogBook.com DVD Reviews ::

Well, this is going to be an easy review. What separates this massive box set from the seven full-season sets put together is down to two things: new packaging, and one bonus DVD. The packaging’s nice, and makes marginally more sense than the oddball color-coded season sets as they were available individually. Now let’s talk about that bonus disc. With each of the individual season sets, Best Buy included exclusive DVDs with a handful of short bonus pieces that you could only get by shopping there (and paying pretty much whatever they asked for the sets, which wasn’t much of a discount). This bonus disc gathers all of the Best Buy bonus disc features in one place, with three brand new featurettes assembled just for this box set. (more…)

How many times can Paramount go to the classic Trek well on DVD? Appropriately enough for a SF series, the answer would seem to be an impossibly infinite number. This pricey box set gathers the full first season in its newly “remastered” form - in other words, all of the exterior space, planet and spaceship scenes have been replaced with CGI, and a select handful of effects on the show’s live action footage have gotten a makeover as well. Most of the live action is left completely untouched, with even 1960s hand phasers left intact for the most part. The transporter effect is unchanged, as are the sound effects. Compared to, say, the special editions of the three original Star Wars films, these changes are relatively small potatoes. But do they help? (more…)

The legendary 1968 film Planet of the Apes struck a chord with filmgoers everywhere by mixing science fiction with social commentary. The film became so popular that several sequels were quickly released, including Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971), Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) and Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973). This set the stage for the 1974 television series Planet of the Apes, and ultimately, a cartoon series titled Return to the Planet of the Apes. Man, that’s a lot of apes.

The animated series Return to the Planet of the Apes consisted of thirteen episodes and ran for a single season in 1975. The series was originally included in the Planet of the Apes “ape head” 14 DVD box set, but for the new two disc release set the episodes have been restored, appearing (most likely) cleaner here than they did even when they originally aired. (more…)

After getting everyone who fondly remembered Space: 1999 to shell out handsomely for a dozen two-DVD sets containing three episodes per disc, A&E Home Video did something sure to endear themselves to consumers everywhere: they put out the entire set as one all-inclusive box set with a bonus disc that offered possibly the best extras of the entire collection.

Bastards. (more…)

Considered by some fans to be the end of the “classic series” of Red Dwarf, the sixth season completes the total departure from the ship that gives the show its title. Red Dwarf, though mentioned on a few occasions as a ship that the characters have lost track of and are trying to relocate, is never seen even once this season, while our heroes are stuck in a Starbug shuttle whose inner dimensions seemed to be constantly growing to almost TARDIS-like proportions. And yet there’s always at least one bona-fide classic on offer (in this case, the International Emmy-winning Gunmen Of The Apocalypse) and the other five episodes are peppered with classic moments. (more…)

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…)

Ask even the most casual fan how many Star Wars films there are, and the majority of them will tell you that there were six. More devoted fans, however, will probably begin naming some of the more obscure entries in the Star Wars universe. There’s the now-infamous Star Wars Holiday Special from 1978 (the one George Lucas would rather forget about), the multiple animated Droids and Ewoks movies which spawned from the animated television programs, and the most recent Clone Wars series. But only those strongest with the force will mention 1984’s Caravan of Courage and 1985’s The Battle For Endor, the two made-for-television Star Wars movies starring those lovable but feisty forest-dwelling teddy bears, the Ewoks. (more…)

Now that we’re speaking in hindsight, one almost can’t help but watch the first season of Star Trek: Enterprise and ask “Did this show ever have a chance?” Of course, the answer is a resounding yes. As hard as I am on what I can only describe as a vast majority of this series’ stories, even an old cynic like mysef has to admit that there was potential in the premise itself. The idea of exploring the formative years of Starfleet and the Federation was very sound, even exciting. And as has almost always been the case, the casting for Enterprise was nearly perfect. The sets were an interesting backward extrapolation, somewhere between the flat-panel touch-screen future of the 24th century spinoffs, the shiny-button future of classic Star Trek, and the keyboard & pushbutton present of NASA. The thought of a whole new Trek series paying homage to the pioneering spirit of exploration, as opposed to racing toward home at top speed or protecting a space station, was mouth-watering. (more…)

featuring the episodes The Savage Curtain and All Our Yesterdays

“Kirk! Help me! Kirk!”

Yes, help me! I’m almost done revisiting the original Star Trek, and it takes the strength and resiliency of a dozen redshirts to make it through this volume. Well, okay, so maybe The Savage Curtain isn’t that bad, but in places it’s nearly Mystery Science Theater fodder (in fact, the MST crew was known to throw the “Help me! Kirk!” phrase out to point out examples of woefully wooden acting - or just guys who looked like Abraham Lincoln). (more…)