cine

I'm looking for reviews of this R2-UK box-set which just came out this month.

Thanks.

jonathan.e

I’ve got the set. I wish I could be positive as I loved this as a kid, still do. Unfortunately Fabulous Films (hah!) haven’t spent dime one on remastering (particularly annoying as they declare "digitally enhanced" on the back - nice meaningless phrase that gives the "impression" that restoration has been done) or providing any extras of merit whatsoever. The episodes look grungy, grainy and out of focus, not that they were that great in their TV showings many years ago. At a price $80 higher than that of the X Files sets for roughly the same number of episodes (when set 2 is released - 26 eps in total) you’d think they’d have done some clean-up on these transfers. I wasn’t expecting demo quality stuff here but there are loads of scratches, dirt and hairs in the gate to the point where I’d say if you can find a VHS set cheap, you won’t notice the difference. These cheapjacks didn’t even bother cleaning up the title sequence, identical on each episode, which they then could have bolted onto every ep! How difficult and expensive would that have been?

Extras are pitiful, almost non-existant when it would have been so easy to provide some contextual notes on this great show. Production details, dubbing history, interviews with the creator and/or actors: none of that is here. All we get is an episode synopsis and some stupid poster all wrapped up in the garish design that FFilms seems to love so much since they used practically the same look for their Monkey sets.

Wait until it’s reduced in price (inevitable I would have thought) as I definitely cannot recommend it at $100+ for just the first 13 episodes.