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

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General		Extras
Category	Science Fiction	Main Menu Audio & Animation Featurette-A Look Back Audio Commentary-5 episodes Featurette-Farscape Cartoon: Revenging Angel Featurette-Season 3 Theme Featurette-Farscape Animation In The Making Interviews-Crew-Sean Masterson (Puppeteer) Featurette-Costume Design
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	Pino Amenta Peter Andrikidis Ian Barry Brian Henson
Studio Distributor	Beyond Home Entertainment	Starring	Ben Browder Claudia Black Virginia Hey Anthony Simcoe Gigi Edgley Paul Goddard Melissa Jaffer Lani John Tupu Wayne Pygram Danny Adcock Jonathan Hardy Kent McCord Murray Bartlett
Case	?
RPI	$39.95	Music	Guy Gross Braedy Neal Chris Neal

    Farscape is a well loved Sci-fi television series, made in Australia in the late 1990's, early 2000s. It has been released on DVD before by Universal back in 2005. You can find our review of this third season in that previous release 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 new extras, and for this season most of the previous extras on the Universal sets have returned (see details in extras section below). The box set also includes a three disc set called The Farscape Archives which will be reviewed in the near future.

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 five audio commentaries (three 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 6 – Guy Gross

• Episode 8 – Ben Browder & Tony Tilse (Not on previous edition)

• Episode 10 – Lani Tupu & Peter Andrikidis (Not on previous edition)

• Episode 16 – Rodney Whitham, Athol Henry & Pablo De La Torre

• Episode 17 – Rohan Woods & Justin Monjo

Disc 6

Season 3 - A Look Back (44:36)

     David Kemper (Executive Producer & Writer) hosts a retrospective of the season, episode by episode, covering characters and story developments. Includes interviews with other cast & crew -Not on previous release

Season 3 Theme discussed with Guy Gross (4:32)

     Series composer Guy Gross discusses the new title theme composed for Season 3 including what the producers wanted and how he approached it -Not on previous release

Puppeteer Interview - Sean Masterton (8:36)

     The lead puppeteer for Pilot discusses the technology and issues involved in their work.

Costume Design (10:06)

     Costume Designer Terry Ryan talks us through the various costume choices for the main characters -Not on previous release

Farscape Cartoon (7:49)

     Full length version of cartoon used during one of the episodes. Funny take off of Loony Tunes.

Animation in the Making (4:36, 3:26, 2:23, 2:07, 1:53, 2:13, 3:40)

     Various comparison of animation stages for the Loony Tunes take-off from the previous extra.

    This seems to be the best stand alone release available globally of Season 3.

     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, with most of the previous extras being repeated and new ones added.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall