Farscape-The Complete Season Two (Beyond Home Ent) (1999)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Science Fiction	Menu Animation & Audio Audio Commentary-6 episodes Outtakes Alternative Version-8 episodes
Rating
Year Of Production	1999
Running Time	946
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered Multi Disc Set (6)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Andrew Prowse Rowan Woods
Studio Distributor	Beyond Home Entertainment	Starring	Ben Browder Claudia Black Virginia Hey Ben Browder Jonathan Hardy Gigi Edgley
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$34.95	Music	Guy Gross Subvision

     Farscape is a well loved Sci-fi television series, made in Australia in the late 1990's, early 2000’s. It has been released on DVD before by Universal back in 2005. You can find our review of that second season here. The series is now being re-released by Beyond Home Entertainment both as individual seasons and as a box set including all four seasons plus the mini-series, The Peacekeeper Wars.

In terms of the releases, this new one is a significant step up as it addresses the major issue with the original releases, video quality (see below for details). There are also lots of new extras, although most of the previous extras on the Universal sets have not returned (see details in extras section below). However, the box set includes a three disc set called The Farscape Archives which will be reviewed in the near future.

     I am not planning to write lots of detail about the show, the previous review gives good coverage of the plot and most readers will only be interested in how this release compares to the previous one. This set contains all 22 episodes of Season 2 across 6 discs. There are lots of well known Aussie faces who turn up in this second season such as Alex Dimitriadis, Chris Haywood, Matt Day and many more.

Video

     The video quality is a big step up from the previous release although certainly not perfect. The feature is presented in a 1.29:1 aspect ratio which is the original aspect ratio.

     The picture was quite clear and sharp throughout considering the age of the show. The shadow detail was quite good. The previous edition of this season suffered from bad MPEG compression issues resulting in picture break-up especially during fast motion (despite being a significant improvement over the original edition of season 1). This new edition still has a few MPEG artefacts but nothing as drastic as the original edition. The specific issues mentioned in the previous review relating to MPEG compression have been resolved. There is some mild grain at times and occasional minor MPEG artefacts.

     The colour is very good with no major issues to report. There was some edge enhancement from time to time but it was not overly distracting.

     There are no subtitles which is disappointing.

     The layer changes are fairly obvious.

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 set contains an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack which if anything is a little too obvious in the surrounds. There is lots of front separation as well. Dialogue was generally clear and easy to hear although subtitles would have been useful from time to time.

     The score by Subdivision and Guy Gross is suitably dramatic. The surround speakers were used constantly for music, directional effects such as the worm hole and sounds of the ship. At times they were a little over the top drawing attention to themselves. The subwoofer was well used for thumps, thuds and music support.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

     The menu was functional but unexciting including music.

Audio Commentaries

     This set features six audio commentaries (four of which are repeats from the previous edition). They are all good natured, informative and easy to listen to. Great to see them on this local release. They are:

• Episode 1 – Andrew Prowse, David Kemper & Lani Tupu

• Episode 4 – Claudia Black & Ian Watson (Not on previous edition)

• Episode 5 – Guy Gross (Composer)

• Episode 5 – Ben Browder & Claudia Black (Not on previous edition)

• Episode 15 – David Kemper & Rohan Woods

• Episode 22 – David Kemper & Rohan Woods

Disc 6

Season 2 Bloopers (6:36)

     Reasonably amusing set of onset silliness and stuff-ups.

Farscape in the Raw (7:39, 10:21, 7:26, 6:58, 16:51, 28:34, 13:12)

     Dissections of different versions of seven episodes featuring comparisons between the broadcast version and the Director's cut versions. Interesting but probably only for serious fans. Video quality is significantly less than the actual episodes.

     This seems to be the best standalone release available globally of Season 2.

     A much loved Sci-fi series gets a quality re-release which is a significant step up from the previous version.

     The video quality is very good and much better than the previous release. The audio quality is very good but maybe slightly overdoes the surround effects. The extras are good quality.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall