Battlestar Galactica-Season 4-Part One (2008)

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General		Extras
Category	Science Fiction	Menu Animation & Audio Deleted Scenes-For Razor & episodes Bonus Episode-Minisodes x 7 Audio Commentary Teaser Trailer-Season 4 Part 2
Rating
Year Of Production	2008
Running Time	518:53
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered Multi Disc Set (4)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	Marita Grabiak Rod Hardy Allan Kroeker Sergio Mimica-Gezzan
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Edward James Olmos Mary McDonnell Katee Sackhoff Jamie Bamber James Callis Tricia Helfer Grace Park Paul Campbell Kandyse McClure Michael Hogan Tahmoh Penikett Aaron Douglas
Case	?
RPI	$79.95	Music	Richard Gibbs Bear McCreary

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

'7 are Known. 4 live in secret. 1 will be revealed.'

    Thus begins the opening credits for each episode of this the fourth season of the new Battlestar Galactica reflecting the major plot points revealed at the end of the third season. Those big reveals are further explored in this season and become the focus of these episodes as the relationship between cylons and humans changes, new alliances are formed and new enemies are created. Similar to season three action takes somewhat of a backseat to relationship development, character arcs and mysticism. This is not necessarily a bad thing but may be difficult for fans of the big action set pieces to take. It is not like they don't happen but they tend to occur less often than in the first two seasons.

    This set includes the ten episodes of the first half of what is touted to become the final season of the show, along with the Razor telemovie which was previously released separately. Razor appears on Disc 1 and the ten episodes are spread over the other three discs. Content wise the Razor disc seems to be similar to the previous release, including the extended version and the same extras. The menus have been aligned with those on the rest of the set. I have do not have a copy of the Razor disc to directly compare to, unfortunately.

    This new or 'reimagined' version of Battlestar Galactica certainly generated some debate on its release, originally as a mini-series. The reviews for the mini series,  Series One & Series Three can be found here. The new Battlestar Galactica is an excellent example of modern television science fiction, featuring believable and multi-dimensional characters, excellent acting, great action, interesting ethical and social dilemmas and very high production values.

    This fourth series opens straight after the third season ended, continuing storylines started in the last couple of episodes. It is virtually impossible to talk about what happens in this season without spoiling it.

    So, in detail then the content on these four discs are as follows. Each 'normal' episode is approximately 42 minutes.

1. Razor (99:30) - This movie takes place in a number of timeframes, the first cylon war when Admiral Adama was a young pilot, after the initial attack on the colonies which kicked of this new series and the time before and after when the Battlestar Pegasus joined the fleet in Season 2. This movie basically takes a different viewpoint on things which occurred during Season 2 of the main show, combined with various flashbacks. It features a new major character, Lt Kendra Shaw whose character arc drives the narratives. This is the extended version of the movie which originally showed somewhat shorter on US television. Having not previously seen this, I was a little disappointed by it, especially during the first half hour when the plot is somewhat disjointed and a trifle hard to follow at times. Regardless, it is a good addition to the series and a welcome part of this set.
2. He That Believeth in Me.
3. Six of One
4. The Ties That Bind
5. Escape Velocity
6. A Road Less Travelled
7. Faith
8. Guess What's Coming to Dinner
9. Sine Qua Non - Literally means 'Things you can't live without'
10. The Hub
11. Revelations

    One of the great strengths of this series besides what I have mentioned above is that it includes great roles for women as well as men, including the strong and skilled Starbuck, the resourceful and resilient President, the confused Boomer and the variable Six and D'anna. This makes for a more balanced series than many other action/adventure/Sci-fi television series which only seem to have women in less important roles.

    I found these ten episodes compelling and compulsively watchable. The next ten episodes which will make up the rest of Season 4 will be very hard to wait for. They start on US television in January.

    Highly Recommended.

Video

    The video quality is good.

    The feature is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio 16x9 enhanced which is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was reasonably clear and sharp although some scenes were affected by white bleeding which although probably intentional did effect the sharpness. There was no evidence of low level noise. Shadow detail was average. Grain was the biggest issue with this transfer. It is present throughout and varies from light to heavy. In some scenes, the grain solidified into mild macro-blocking. Some scenes are quite smoky seemingly by design.

    The colour was very good despite being restricted by colour grading which tended to make many scenes more grey. I did notice some minor colour bleeding from time to time.

    Aliasing was also present from time to time especially in Galactica's hallways.

    There are subtitles in English for the hearing impaired which were clear and easy to read. Some lines were slightly summarised. They were noticeable smaller during the series than during Razor.

    I did not notice any layer changes.
    

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is very good.

    This DVD contains an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 448 Kb/s along with a English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo option encoded at 192 Kb/s. The 5.1 track is obviously superior.Annoyingly, the 2.0 track is the default and cannot be changed on the fly. You must return to the menu to change audio options.

    Dialogue was reasonably easy to understand although the subtitles were useful and I kept them on most of the time while watching. There was no problem with audio sync.

    The score of this film by Bear McCreary is very good and features some new themes in this series.

    The surround speakers were used for a lot of atmosphere and there were also quite a few effects such as during battle scenes and explosions.

    The subwoofer was well used for music, tensions sounds and explosions.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    Most of the extras relate to Razor rather than the series. As with Season 3 we can expect the Region 1 release (available in the new year) to have more extras than our local release for the season itself.

Menu

    The menu was better than previous seasons featuring action from the show and a nice set of motifs for the menu items.

Disc 1

Deleted Scenes (1.40, 1:47) 

    Two short deleted scenes from the movie which are mildly interesting but hardly essential.

Commentary - Ronald D. Moore - Creator & Michael Taylor - Writer

    An interesting and worthwhile commentary which covers the development of the idea to do a movie, the plot, changes they made from the original plan and even things they were not really happy with in the final product.

Minisodes (2.26 x 7)

    7 short episodes which extend the story of Adama's mission during the first cylon war. Some stuff is repeated from the movie.

Disc 4

Deleted Scenes (7:53, 15:29, 1:04, 3:35, 6:23, 3:53, 6:00, 2:30, 10:20 & 4:42)

    Over one hour of deleted and extended scenes from each episode of the series. Worth having but you will probably only watch them once.

Sky One Trailer for Final Season (0:18) 

    Very short teaser trailer which includes some interesting images without telling you anything.

    This series is due for release in Region 1 in January 2009. No details are available of the release at this point.I would expect that as in previous seasons the Region 1 will have much better extras. This release seems to be the same as Region 2.

    The video quality is good but certainly not without issue.

    The audio quality is very good.

    A decent set of extras including over one hour of deleted scenes.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall