Relic Hunter: The Complete First Season

This awesome series starring Tia Carrere, Christien Anholt & Lindy Booth debuted in 1999, now 11 years later is finally available for purchase! The package describes the show as a blend of Tomb Raider & Indioana Jones; that is pretty darn accurate.

The video is grainy, which leads me to believe that his was pretty much a straight trasfer from VHS. One of the things to take note of is the complete lack of special features; I'm okay with that. What I'm not okay with is the lack of closed or dvd captions. As I am a person that is hard of hearing, I have to blast the volume of my tv just to make sure I don't miss the nuances in pronunciation. -1 star for lack of closed captions, -1 star for lack of dvd captions.

This was one of my favorite TV shows and it continues to entertain me on DVD. The two main actors, Tia Carrere and Christien Anholt, are perfect in their roles as a beautiful and tough professor with her brainy sidekick. The relics being hunted have stories surrounding them that add an air of realism to the plots. If you like history and humor, romance and martial arts action, mixed with treasures from around the world, then Relic Hunter is for you. The supporting cast and special guests fill in all the parts that make this a great TV series with competing relic hunters, bad guys, and a capable though self-centered pretty young secretary.

As for previous reviewers comments about grainy pictures on some scenes, and poor packaging for the dvds, I didn't find any of these things to be a problem. In fact I didn't even notice any grainy images, but then I was totally involved in the stories, the action and humor, and of course beautiful Tia. As for the packaging, I had never seen dvds secured in this manner. But once I figured out how to properly replace them after viewing, they all stayed in place, held tightly in their dvd case, with no damage.

Finally, I did follow one reviewer who recommended buying this on Amazon.ca (Canada), because it was considerably cheaper than the set being offered on Amazon in the USA. I bought all three seasons and they all arrived quickly with no extra shipping time coming from Canada to me in Florida. Season 1 was great, now I'm going to start watching Season 2.

The show itself is a syndicated action/adventure show, much like Hercules: The Legendary Journeys - Season One or Xena: Warrior Princess - Season One. They're the fun kind of show that you like to watch on a weekend afternoon.

The video quality is better than VHS, but has problems. It is very grainy. So grainy, in fact, that I wonder if it was digitally added in. It's quite noticeable in outdoor day scenes, and less so the rest of the time. But aside from the grain, the video's not bad, and overall is not much worse than the Hercules DVDs that were released the same day.

My biggest gripe is the terrible packaging. 3 discs overlays on each other, difficult to remove, harder to get back, and pretty much guarantee scratches. I'm looking for alternatives. (Again, the Hercules and Xena DVDs use much better packaging, and smaller as well).

That said, at less than $20 (and at the time of this writing, $15) the total package is acceptable for a show that I never expected to be released.