Hyperdrive-Series One (2006) |
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General | Extras | ||
Category | Comedy |
Main Menu Audio & Animation Featurette-Hyperdrivel Featurette-Behind the Scenes with Nick Frost Featurette-Miranda Hart's Tour of the Set Featurette-Creating the world of Hyperdrive Featurette-Video Diary Deleted Scenes Audio Commentary-one commentary per episode |
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Rating | |||
Year Of Production | 2006 | ||
Running Time | 175:07 (Case: 288) | ||
RSDL / Flipper |
RSDL (67:23) Dual Disc Set |
Cast & Crew | |
Start Up | Ads Then Menu | ||
Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | John Henderson |
Studio
Distributor |
Roadshow Home Entertainment |
Starring |
Nick Frost Miranda Hart Kevin Eldon Dan Antopolski Stephen Evans Petra Massey Paterson Joseph |
Case | Amaray-Transparent-Dual | ||
RPI | ? | Music | Mark Thomas |
Video | Audio | ||
Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) |
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Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.78:1 | ||
16x9 Enhancement |
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Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
Original Aspect Ratio | 1.78:1 | Miscellaneous | |
Jacket Pictures | No | ||
Subtitles | English | Smoking | No |
Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
Action In or After Credits | Yes |
The year is 2151. The HMS Camden Lock adventures through space with one ambiguous mission: To protect the interests of Great Britain in an ever changing galaxy. Led by Commander Michael Henderson (Nick Frost), they bungle their way across the universe on a series of half-baked missions to promote Britain to any alien race who will listen. The first officer (Kevin Eldon) is a stuffy society-bred homicidal maniac. The ship's diplomatic officer (Miranda Hart) is more interested in furthering her relationship with the Commander than the relationships of Britain. A variety of self-serving incompetents pad out the rest of the crew.
Hyperdrive comes with an excellent pedigree, written by latter-era Black Books authors Kevin Cecil and Andy Riley, starring one of Britain's most bankable comedians in Hot Fuzz's Nick Frost, and backed by a comfortable BBC budget. Alas, the only aspect that manages to live up to its pedigree in any form is the sets and special effects.
Despite "borrowing" rather heavy-handedly from countless other sci-fi comedies and regular comedies (particularly Red Dwarf, Dark Star and The Office), the scripts fall flat. The characters are neither terribly original nor interesting. Much of the humour falls back upon tired bureaucratic gags, dated sex jokes (Carry On-era stuff) and fart humour. The actors try a little too hard to pull off the lame material they've been given, but end up paddling further up the proverbial creek as they do so. It doesn't help that each character, based on what little could be considered character development, is a tired two dimensional stereotype (although I suppose this does mean the writers couldn't ruin things more with a convoluted back-story).
The episodes in this season are:
The show is presented in its original 1.78:1 aspect ratio and is 16x9 enhanced.
The video quality is a little disappointing. The image varies from being a little soft during filmed sequences and razor sharp during CGI sequences. A variable degree of grain is visible throughout the episodes. The grain is never heavy enough to be a distraction, but enough to stop the video looking particularly sharp. There is a good level of shadow detail.
The colour balance is good. The colours are quite bold and feature quite natural skin tones (where intended!).
The video is riddled with several rather nasty MPEG compression related artefacts. Several scenes feature rather heavy instances of macro blocking/pixelation, such as at 2:35 of episode 2 where one character's face is nearly blocky enough to use as a chess board. These instances of macro blocking are severe enough to be noticeable on both small and large televisions. Mild aliasing is noticeable in virtually every CGI and effects-heavy scene. Thankfully, there is no sign of film artefacts or anything of the kind.
The available English subtitles appear to be well timed and accurate to the spoke word, based on the portion I sampled.
This is a RSDL disc, though the layer break occurs between episodes and is consequently not noticeable.
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Film Artefacts | |
Overall |
A single English Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack is available.
The soundtrack is quite functional and clear, but generally unremarkable.
The dialogue is clearly audible and well synchronised to the video.
The music is a little irritating, but intentionally so (don't leave the menu audio on for too long!).
There is a small degree of pro-logic surround usage in the soundtrack. The dynamic range of the audio gives the subwoofer a little work, but not often.
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Overall |
A rather hodge-podge making of featurette that gradually changes from a painfully dull discussion of the show's development into a parody of these sort of featurettes. If you can get past the incredibly dull early interviews and excess of clips from the show, the latter part of the featurette is pretty funny. It is frequently hard to tell the truth from the shaggy dog stories in this one!
Nick Frost wanders the set during production, armed with his trusty camcorder. There's a lot of filler in his home movies (or should that be work movies?), but a few funny moments to make this featurette worth a look.
Miranda Hart provides a tour of the set and out the back to the catering vans and star trailers. Reasonably funny stuff, but not worth repeat viewing.
A "Making Of" featurette that focuses on the development of the Hyperdrive universe, from the writers initial designs through to the actual CGI, costumes, make-up and set building.
A collage of snippets filmed during production that show all manner of aspects to production. The director directs, actors have make-up applied, people move props about. This featurette is rather aimless and doesn't really cover any ground that isn't in one of the other featurettes, but fans of the show will like the fly-on-the-wall angle it provides.
Quite a few deleted scenes chopped together into one long feature. Each features a commentary.
A moderately interesting commentary is provided for all the first, second, fifth and sixth episodes by director John Henderson, writers Kevin Cecil, Andy Riley and producer Alex Walsh-Taylor. The four prattle on with a mix of interesting anecdotes about the show's development and makes plenty of pointless observations.
The third and fourth episodes feature commentary from actors Miranda Hart, Stephen Evans and Petra Massey. This lot sound half asleep as they talk about a mixture of what's happening on screen, tenuously related production anecdotes and the director's feet.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
An identical package is available in Region 2. This show is not currently available in Region 1.
Nick Frost in space. Unfortunately the show doesn't conjure the magic that the pitch evokes. Hyperdrive is, at best, a disappointment. The show borrows heavily from past science fiction and its humour is both stale and rarely hits the mark.
The video features numerous compression related artefacts. The audio is up to speed.
The extras package is both sizeable and of a good standard.
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Review Equipment | |
DVD | Sony Playstation 3, using HDMI output |
Display | Samsung 116cm LA46M81BD. Calibrated with THX Optimizer. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 576i (PAL). |
Audio Decoder | Pioneer VSX-D512. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials. |
Amplification | Pioneer VSX2016AVS |
Speakers | 150W DTX front speakers, and a 100W centre and 2 surrounds, 12 inch PSB Image 6i powered sub |