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Category:    Home > Reviews > Special Interest > Speculation > Extra Terrestrials > Science > Nature > Planet > Weather > Myth > Collect > Ancient Aliens: Season Three/Frozen World: The Story Of The Ice Age/King Arthur & Medieval Britain/Storage Wars: Volume Two (all 2011/A&E DVD Sets)

Ancient Aliens: Season Three/Frozen World: The Story Of The Ice Age/King Arthur & Medieval Britain/Storage Wars: Volume Two (all 2011/A&E DVD Sets)

 

Picture: C+/C/C/C+     Sound: B-/C+/C+/C+     Extras: D     Episodes: C (Frozen: B-)

 

 

A&E continues its drive towards mixing reality TV and history in their own original programming that they split between themselves and sister station The History Channel.  It is odd at times and does not always work, but some have found ratings.

 

 

Ancient Aliens: Season Three continues the increasingly hard-for-me-to-buy show speculating on if extra-terrestrials visited us centuries ago.  Our previous coverage has made the case for the show not working…

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10550/Ancient+Aliens+%E2%80%93+Seaso

 

…as well as the show working…

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11042/Ancient+Aliens:+Season+Two+(Histor

 

I lean towards my coverage of the first season, but feel this has become increasingly thin and am amazed it is still on the air.  This is a 4 DVD (!!!) set with 16 episodes that all seem longer than they should.  If you must watch, you don’t have to start from the beginning as these are all interchangeable, but I was more bored than ever.  There are no extras.

 

 

Frozen World: The Story Of The Ice Age was more like it, four episodes over two discs speculating and investigating the rise and fall of an Ice Age we can be certain happened many centuries ago.  Though not perfect, it is a well done show, but it also shows its age and there are no extras here either.  Episodes (in 1.33 X 1 framing) are Clash Of The Cavemen, Volcanic Winter, Journey To 10,000 B.C. and Mega Freeze.

 

 

King Arthur & Medieval Britain is a dated look at the legend from an older TV production (the Quest episode is letterboxed 1.78 X 1, the rest 1.33 X 1) that seems like a half-enthused effort and the subject has been covered too much at this point,

as this link to King Arthur’s Britain shows:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2803/King+Arthur%27s+Britain

 

I did not learn anything new here and this even seemed cheap.  See it only if you are an Arthur fanatic.  There are no extras, but the episodes are Quest For King Arthur, King Arthur: His Life & Legend, Ancient Mysteries: Camelot, Knights & Armor and Quest For The Holy Grail.

 

 

Last and as boring surprisingly is Storage Wars: Volume Two with a group of fortune hunters who are a bad mix, have awful chemistry and make this the poorest season of any such collectibles shows the network has produced to date.  It is a far cry from the debut season we covered at this link:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11222/America:+The+Story+Of+Us+Collecti

 

14 episodes under a half-hour are here over 2 DVDs and they were middling at best, though at least the anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image looks as good as anything here, but editing and stylized work is more overdone than usual.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on all four releases hold up well overall for such programs, but Ancient seems to have some Pro Logic surrounds.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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