Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 19th, 2004
Synopsis
Here we go: it’s the senior year for Dawson, Joen, Pacey, Jen and Jack. Joey and Pacey haveto deal with how their new romance (which concluded the last season) is going to affect theirrelationship with Dawson. As before, we follow dreams crash or flower, and the same withrelationships. The writing is stronger than on many dramas, but sometimes is a little too pleasedwith itself -- Pacey’s crack in the opening episode about “the land of poorly written melodrama”which also fo...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 14th, 2004
Paul McCartney once implored John Lennon’s son Julian to “take a sad song and make it better”. The same basic concept is at work here, but the words “sad song” should be replaced with “bad cartoon”. Sealab 2021 is a clever show from Cartoon Network that takes a bad old show, Sealab 2020, and replaces the dialog track with something much more enjoyable. Think of it as the Mystery Science Theater 3000 approach to creating a cartoon.
Admittedly, the results are sometimes mixed. When a gag ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 2nd, 2004
The fifth season of Babylon 5 would prove to be the show’s last. Fans had clamored at the end of the third season for a fourth, and they succeeded. At the end of the fourth, the clamoring began again, and they earned the show yet another reprieve. The fifth try finally sounded the death knell on this show, however. It’s really all for the best, though, since the series had unquestionably been driving toward this conclusion for some time. To go on any longer would have been unfair to the integrity of the show i...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 2nd, 2004
If you think about it, it’s a little surprising that Wonder Woman lasted for three full seasons. To my knowledge, there really hadn’t been any popular female super heroes before this show. Obviously there were a couple peppered around here and there in comics, but as far as movies and television go, it was pretty hard to find any kind of super female hero. Of course, Lynda Carter and that tiny patriotic costume may have had something to do with it.
Almost 40 years later, it’s a little more understandable wh...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 1st, 2004
This is one of the most interesting ideas that I have seen for a DVD boxed set in some time. Just as there were five seasons of Babylon 5, there were five made for TV movies created as well. Each was essentially a super-episode that was based on the series, but not necessarily a vital part of the story arc of the overall program. This DVD set includes all five of these bonus films.
Included in this collection is the feature-length pilot, as well as a prequel. The other three films have no added agend...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 1st, 2004
Fans of The O.C., Melrose Place and even 90210 should take note. The original is back. That’s right, the 80’s favorite Dallas is making a comeback on DVD. This new five disc set features the complete first and second seasons of the show that made America (and even much of the world) stand up and ask the all-important question, “Who shot J.R.?”
A mysterious grin crept across my face when I saw that I would be reviewing this title. Would it be as good now as it was then? Was all of...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 29th, 2004
Synopsis
Our protagonist is Cory (Ben Savage), a Grade Six student, and we see the world through hisfrequently puzzled eyes as he moves on the cusp between childhood and adolescence. This is asitcom, and it is by no means any kind of radical new groundbreaker in the field. For one thing,smart-aleck kids a dime a gross in this genre, and there isn’t the surreal comedy that would comein the later Malcolm in the Middle. Still, the writing is several notches above most othershows...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 28th, 2004
V: The Series was a great idea that couldn’t seem to hit its stride. It was plagued by budget restrictions and astronomical expectations. The result was the inevitable failure of the show. It just wasn’t possible to reproduce the f/x and epic tales of the two mini-series events with about a fifth of the budget. Judged on its own, the series wasn’t all that bad. A solid cast anchored by Marc Singer, Faye Grant, and Robert Englund picked up the slack left by the poor budget. The absence of Kenneth Johnson was also keen...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 28th, 2004
ALF stands for Alien Life Form, but anyone who has seen this hit 1980’s comedy knows ALF stands for “Laughing your ass off funny”. OK, so the letters are out of order, but you know I’m right. It’s no surprise our favorite Melmac dude has made the DVD scene. The real shocker is that it took so long. Who remembers comedy from the 1980’s? There just wasn’t an awful lot to laugh at. ALF was the “muppet-like” creation of Paul Fusco, who also provides the wise-cracking voice of ALF. ALF’s making a comeback these days with ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 27th, 2004
Synopsis
Michael Gambon narrates four tales from Greek mythology: Daedalus and Icarus, Orpheusand Eurydice, Perseus and the Gorgon, and Theseus and the Minotaur. Gambon is the Storytellerof the title. Clad in toga and moving about his workshop, he tells the stories to a talking dog. Thestories themselves cut back and forth between the tales and Gambon, and are a mixture of humanactors and Jim Henson Creature Shop creations. The result is rather ambitious, and the tone israther oddly...
