Lost Kingdoms Of Africa (2009/Documentary TV Mini-Series/Athena DVD Set)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Episodes: B-
Dr. Gus Casely-Hayford hosts the intriguing Lost Kingdoms Of Africa (2009)
documentary mini-series that does a great, even sometimes amazing job of reconstructing
the country’s past before colonization took over and wiped out what turns out
to be a very fragile history. Africa is not known for being a country in the past that
kept records, which includes even their royal families and part of this has to
do with internal battles, but this series does a better job of explaining all
that than I ever could.
The episodes cover Nubia,
Ethiopia, Great Zimbabwe and
West Africa, which turn out to be a key study
of the subject. Except for some lulls
and possibly the series being too short and a little flashier in parts than I
would have liked, it is well made and a welcome DVD release.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is a little
weak throughout with some motion blur, but the picture is decent
otherwise. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is
also well recorded with the narration clean and clear, but there are sonic
limits in the mixing that are minor, in a way that you could not imagine this
being a 5.1 release. Extras include text
bios of the major figures in the story/prominent pre-colonial Africans,
profiles of Sudan, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe & Nigeria and a 16 page viewer’s
guide inside the DVD case that includes a timeline and more.
- Nicholas Sheffo
