One of the highlights of UPN's short-lived bid to appeal to a wider audience than wrestling fans, urban sitcoms and Star Trek spinoffs, Dilbert: The Animated Series was a nicely-done version of what may be the most relevant comic strip to emerge in the 90s. I remember feeling some trepidation that the Dilbert TV series was being steered by producer Larry Alexander, formerly one of the guiding lights of Seinfeld, though it was evident from the pilot episode that he and the show's writers had done their homework. Maybe the voices weren't quite what we had all imagined in our heads over the years (though Daniel Stern at his most sarcastic is, in fact, a perfect fit for Dogbert), but despite its exceedingly short run on UPN, Dilbert was one of UPN's best-ever ideas.

Apparently British Dilbert fans - and there are plenty of them - agreed, since Dilbert has yet to even hit VHS in the United States, and yet merits more than one DVD in Region 2.

Though there's not a lot in the way of extras, it's nice to see the Dilbert series immortalized in some form (and given that it has never seen the light of day again in the States - hey, Tech TV, are you guys asleep over there? - this is the only way to get these shows). The episodes are sequenced in production order, and the only real bonus is a character vignette feature that strings together several key moments involving each character from this disc's four episodes, though in some cases these compressed character studies are side-splittingly funny.

If there's one problem with this first volume of Dilbert on DVD, it's that it has been confined to England and Europe only. It doesn't show any sign of resurfacing on American TV (and in any case, it didn't hit anywhere even close to the number of episodes generally deemed acceptable for syndication in the U.S. market), so why not release these DVDs domestically? It's almost as if some Dogbert-worthy conspiracy is keeping them under wraps.

Reviewed by Earl Green
theLogBook.com editor/webmaster