Ever so much more realistic than scifi shows with gleaming, spotlessly clean spaceships that seem to magically run themselves, Firefly portrayed a spaceship and crew considerably less than gleaming and clean. And, sometimes less than fully functional. And... although the "heroes" in this case, not quite on the right side of the local laws. In many major TV markets, Fox affiliates broadcast baseball local baseball games. Evidently their deals with the MLB call for them to preempt network shows. That happened here in the San Francisco area. Even Firefly's premere episode got delayed by about 18 minutes (9 of which were commercials!) so those of us recording the program missed a lot of that episode as well as entire other episodes. There are people at Fox who should be punished, but that is another story. Firefly is one of those shows so well written that even people who shun SciFi (my wife) enjoyed it. Instead of being written to a formula, Joss W took the high road with a great mix of the verbal and the visual. I'm not sure what the budget was, but the money was well spent on sets and guest stars. Favorite episode? "Our Mrs. Reynolds" by a hair. After seeing it, you tell yourelf that "I should have seen that coming" but you didn't. Now I/we can enjoy all of the episodes without interruption. Do you think that if enough people buy this DVD set that the SciFi channel might consider reviving the series? Probably not, but a good dream to have.

As an early adolecent I loved UFO, or "you-foe" as the Brits called it. Aliens, futuristic cars, spaceships that didn't have visible strings, women in purple wigs... the whole works. But there were two things working aginst me: 1) I only had a black &white TV and; 2) once I got a color TV the reruns were coming from copies of copies of copies of tapes that looked pretty tired. GOOD NEWS! This is an amazing set of DVDs (I own the UK PAL-format version which is suppose to be the same source as the US NTSC set). The colors are rich, the prints are practically pristine, the sound is amazing, there are a fair amount of extras, and the purple wigs are so vivid and clear that you can see individual hairs. Even the menus are great! The story lines are pure Gerry Anderson ("father" of Stingray, Captain Scarlet, Fireball XL-5, and even Space 1999) meaning that these are complete, well written stories but sometimes you just want to cringe at the dialog. But this is about the best television SciFi ever produced in Great Britain. It isn't campy, the special effects (even though you can catch them reusing certain explosions, etc.) are well produced, the sets are solid, the acting is good, and the production values are very high. The model work is very good - great for its time - but younger audiences may not compare it well to the CGI effects of today. From a purely historical point of view, this is perfect. I really can't see how they could have improved on the quality of the DVD, and so good that you might not believe that the source materials are more than 30 years old. I suggest that you go to www.amazon.co.uk and look up "UFO - Series 1" to read more about the set. I want to hit one point again and that is the stunning visual quality. The four DVDs in set one contain the best quality images I have ever seen from a television-based source. And, this is just the first of two sets with 13 episodes each. I've already got Series 2 on order.

Although I did not see this when it was shown in IMAX theaters, I can just imaging how great this must have been on the huge screen, since it looks very impressive on my 53-inch screen! The basic scenario is that a spaceship lands a scouting party on Earth, but in a soon-to-be-opened high-technology theme park, not a major city. Assuming this to be representative of Earth culture, the landing party splits up and enters four of the pavilions and take the rides. These range from simulator rides (like Star Tours™) to looping coasters. This is CG animation taken at least one step beyond "Toy Story" where you become part of the action. When watched in 2D in a darkened room, you can feel the dips, drops, and hard turns in each of the rides. When watched in 3D (using an optional 3D system) you can even get a little queasy. My only complaint is that this is fairly short at just over 35 minutes; however, there is a "making of" featurette, the original trailer, and a gallery of pictures in 2D and 3D. Oh, and it features great 5:1 audio as well.

I, like the majority of the reviewers for this DVD have great things to say about it. But more that that, I think that people need to see more of Ernie Kovacs' genius. Here was a man with more savvy about what television could do to entertain -- and an understanding of what it could and would become -- than any network programming executive, ever! Most of what's on the DVD is timeless. Unless you only think what's on the WB is actually funny, then get this. Now having said that, I want to make a request. Pester the studios for more of Ernie's work. Write to distributors and demand that for every "Sleazy Coeds in Toxic Appartments of Death" they release that they should also release a "Wake Me When It's Over" or an "Operation Mad Ball" with Ernie Kovacs. The second one, BTW, also stars Jack Lemmon: a double treat. Even Kovacs; "Sail a Crooked Ship" one of his final performances, is a hoot as is "Five Golden Hours," his last movie. Sure, these movies aren't his writing, but he brought an irreverance to the roles that make them a joy to watch, much more so than "Beat Billy Jack to Death with a Bat, Part 7!" And as for this DVD, I think it's as important as The Sid Ceasar Collection as a great TV history lesson we all could use.