Arthur
C Clarke Collection
(1980, 1985, 1994/VEI DVD set)/Delete
(2012/TV Mini-Series/Gaiam Vivendi DVD)/Doctor
Who: The Doctors Revisited (1964
– 1975/BBC DVD Set)
Picture:
C+/C/C* Sound: C+ Extras: C/C-/B- Episodes: B-/C-/B-
Science
Fiction and science fact have a wide range of possibilities from hard
science to speculation to junk. These releases cover that ground...
The
Arthur C Clarke Collection
is a new DVD box set from VEI (who released the entire In
Search Of...
series as a DVD box set reviewed elsewhere on this site) combing
three TV shows Clarke himself hosted that tried to be like In
Search Of...,
but included him coming up with brief ideas on how some of these
things might have happened, yet without going into deep detail. In
this way, they could be as intriguing as the Leonard Nimoy classic,
yet try and be more “serious” about the science side, if
only for a few minutes.
The
shows include Mysterious
World
(1980, 2 DVDs) including looks at subjects like Monsters Of the Deep,
UFOs, Lake Monsters, Bigfoot, Easter Island, The Missing Link and
even mythical creatures. World
Of Strange Powers
(1985, 4 DVDs) covers ghosts, stigmata, haunted houses, telekinesis,
messages from the dead, reincarnation and haunted photographs. And
Mysterious
Universe
(1994, 2 DVDs) adds crop circles, zombies, strange happenings in The
Bermuda Triangle, pyramids, returns from the edge of death the evil
eye and more. There is some overlap in topics between shows, but
that is minor.
All
in all, this is a fine, fun set, with its only limit being it has no
extras. Still, a fun set of shows originally produced in England
with Yorkshire Television, where we get a huge number of location
visits separating it from lesser shows and its better U.S. cousins.
Delete
(2012) is yet another goofy Canadian TV Mini-Series, this time with
Seth Green being one of the only name participants, as part of Gaiam
Vivendi silly “Doomsday Series” and this time, earth will
be destroyed by a supercomputer that has become conscious of itself
and will blow up the planet. However, it is like Colossus:
The Forbin Project with
a lobotomy and has barely enough unintentionally amusing moments (in
a very, very long 175 minutes running link, including awful CGI
visual effects) to stop it from being an absolute dud, but it is very
close to it thanks to a terrible teleplay and bad directing by
legendary Music Video director Steve Barron.
Never
is this anywhere nearly as good or visually well made as any of his
classic clips from the 1980s.
Extras
(yes, they actually gave us some) include a sneak peak for another
formula release in the series (never the same character twice,
especially when they are all getting killed off!) called Exploding
Sun (yawn!) and cast/crew interviews for this train wreck.
Finally
we have an odd collection in Doctor
Who: The Doctors Revisited (1964
– 1975) which slaps together adventures from the first four
actors to play the part and offers less extras than the previous DVD
versions of them, most of which we have reviewed. Steven Moffat and
guests appear in featurettes discussing each doctor on each DVD
presentation, which has some good info for fans and those unfamiliar
with the show, but it is basic and does not go as far as the better,
original sets.
Then
the original shows are presented two ways. One in in their original
versions and the others in new widescreen versions with intros by
Moffat. The problem is that they take the 1.33 X 1 frames of each
and screw them up royally (pun intended) by making each adventure
(black and white or color) look like The Doctor and company took the
TARDIS through the Lost
Episodes
of The
Honeymooners
and got distorted in all kinds of ways (think fun house mirrors) with
the only thing missing being Ralph Cramden joining in on the
adventures!
We'll
get into how bad these versions look, but they are horribly done,
hideous looking and abominations of the classic series. Add that
Spearhead
from Space
just came our on Blu-ray looking nice and this is a really bad idea
for a set. You can read about each adventure as follows, with links
applicable where we already covered the materials:
The
Aztecs
DVD Set
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12088/Doctor+Who:+The+Ark+In+Space+(Story+No.+76
Tomb
Of the Cybermen
DVD set
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11542/Doctor+Who:+The+Tomb+Of+The+Cybermen+(BB
Spearhead
from Space
Blu-ray
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12301/Antiviral+(2012/Brandon+Cronenberg/IFC+Midnigh
Pyramids
Of Mars
is a Tom Baker adventure that can be uneven, but is one of the
darker, freakier storylines of what I still consider the peak of the
entire run of the show in its first half-century as the Doctor and
Sarah Jane (Elisabeth Sladen) come upon a English Mansion where
something mysterious is going on. Some strange force is at work, it
has to do with Ancient Egypt and for starters, crazy super-mummies
(who all look like the Michelin Tire Guy mascot ready for deadly
wrestling matches!) are on the loose.
I
will not say more, but it is more bizarre and creepy than it sounds
and gets darker, even when some of the visual effects are dated, all
the way to the creepy ending. Like the previous three sets of
episodes telling one story (think serial), this is at least well
chosen.
The
only other extra is four small refrigerator magnets (connected as a
small sheet) of each of the four doctors for fans in our DVD case.
The
1.33 X 1 image on the Clarke
shows are all shot on 16mm film, entirely at first, then by the final
series, a mix of 16mm and location analog PAL video,but every episode
is finished on PAL video and that is why they all has disclaimers as
to flaws and limits in their presentations. With that said, they
look just fine and as good as anything on the list, so expect
playback in line with your usual documentary or speculative TV shows
which are sometimes rough and not always great. These are at least
consistent and with enough work, could be on Blu-ray in the future,
with later shows needing upscaling on the analog video parts to go
with the film prints, if they still exist.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Delete
is especially soft and sometimes sloppy when CGI effects get added,
but this is also on Blu-ray, so this might possibly look better
there, but I cannot imagine by much if this DVD represents flaws
inherent to the slap-together production. Computer graphics are
badly portrayed too.
*The
1.33 X 1 PAL analog versions of all four Who shows are the original
versions and the ways they were composed and meant to look, with
Spearhead
the only all-filmed (in color 16mm) episode arc in the series history
and the rest mixing 16mm with analog PAL video. They look fine, but
the phony, forced, anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image look
terrible for so many reasons including how they all add artifacts,
flaws and other issues to images that already have their limits.
They actually land up looking softer than it they had just left the
taped presentations alone. Besides my comments above, the people
doing these hack jobs on each show could not even decide to stick
with one approach. Some have the 1.33 stretched out sideways so
everyone looks blobby, while other shots cut of sides, tops, bottoms
and it is really a wreck that should have never happened. What was
the BBC thinking?
All
have lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono sound, save the lossy Dolby Digital
5.1 mix on Delete,
but it is harsh on the edges, badly mixed, has some badly recorded
elements and is too much towards the front channels as its soundfield
plays constantly inconsistent. As a result, the competent mono sound
on the other discs can more than compete with it and sound both
better and more professional.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
