Review and Scans By Stu

Right from the bat when this was announced, I was leery about picking up this set. The first season ranges from mediocre to poor and has very few bright spots, so sitting through them can become very tedious, very quickly. Coupled with the fact that the set was difficult to find and barely announced before it’s release, I simply skipped on it all together.

When it came to me actually needing the episodes for this very site, I caved in and bought the set. Luckily, I found it a lot cheaper too. I paid just £14.99 for it. In case the £ sterling has confused you, I’ll put it like this. I paid £15.99 for the two disc Batman Begins set. Make no mistake, this was as cheap a set as they come, so the option is there if you’re curious about this season.

My main problem with the set was simple. 3 episodes a disc is nothing short of a disgrace, especially when they previously announced the show would be available in separate and set releases. In this day and age, there’s no excuse in the world for 3 episodes a disc treatment from a show that has 52 whole episodes available. A full season across 4 discs is diabolically bad. To make matters worse, there’s a terrible amount of interlacing on these disc, and the rest of the transfer is nothing to write home about. Sound is perfectly fine but the real treat on this set is the features.

Whilst brief, I found these to very entertaining. I especially enjoyed the look at the designs of the show and the interviews with the creators, and what they were trying to accomplish. Even cooler was the rough sketches of unused designs before Gordon perfected what look he was planning to use, I especially liked seeing some of the more comic inspired Shadowcat designs, especially as they were based on such a laughably bad costume. It does make you appreciate what we ended up with a little more, I can truthfully say.

The episode introductions were fun stuff, as the producers explain exactly what they were trying to accomplish with each episode. This isn’t some 30 second clip either, they really managed to get a lot out of them within the time frame. These were greatly missed on the later releases, which didn’t have them for some strange reason.

Overall, some nice features sort of make up for a rather poorly done set. If you can get it cheap, it’s worth it. If you can’t, it’s probably better left on the shelf.