Any Babylon 5 S2 reviews yet? (1 Viewer)

[Blu]

My etailer says packaging. I think I might have it by Monday I hope!

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

*Sigh* For various reasons it made the most sense for me to order from Amazon.com this time around - which means I'll have to wait until next week because they never ship before street date.

BTW, got an e-mail from Warner Bros. today, and the features list includes "gag reel" as one of the items. Warner Home Video has two different web pages about the S2 set, one of which mentions that gag reel. Some retailers have picked up that features list, others the one with no gag reel listed. JMS has been his usual helpful self. Someone on the moderated newsgroup asked what this meant, and if it were some kind of mistake (because he has been very adamant that the full gag reels sometimes shown at B5 conventions could never be included on the DVDs because of contract and rights issues.) But he simply ignored the message and hasn't commented on the issue at all. The man is definitely part Vorlon. One of the reasons I've been looking forward to a review of the set is to find out if the "gag reel" is just the one or two clips that were aired on the Dick Clark "Bloopers" shows (for which the studio has rights) or something more extensive.

Loved the preview stuff, now that I finally got to watch it. (Recently upgraded both RealPlayer and Windows Media Player and neither of the damned things would play streaming media until I uninstalled and reinstalled them. )

Regards,

Joe

 

[Matthew_Millheiser]

It's easy to loathe TNT for what they did to Crusade, but they did rescue B5 by presenting the first wave of syndicated reruns, plus financing an extra season of the series.

Unfortunately, that season was Season 5! :frowning: But hey, I'll take weak B5 over no B5, any day.

ok, so I did like the last half of the season, but that Byron/Telepath ongoing plotline... ick

 

[CaptDS9E]

I got the shipping notice also. Hopefully i will have a b5 marathon this weekend

capt

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

they did rescue B5 by presenting the first wave of syndicated reruns, plus financing an extra season of the series.

And several TV movies. All of which happened while the show as being handled by the TNT Productions people. Things were fine until the suits in Atlanta became involved. And I've always thought that S5 played better on repeated viewings than it did in its original run. I think one reason people so hated the teep arc is that each week when they tuned in they were hoping for something else, knowing that there were only "x" number of episodes left, and that there were so many story threads to deal with.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Paul McElligott]

One of the reasons I've been looking forward to a review of the set is to find out if the "gag reel" is just the one or two clips that were aired on the Dick Clark "Bloopers" shows (for which the studio has rights) or something more extensive.

Hmmm. Both of those were season 3 outtakes... "War Without End" and "Severed Dream" plus one from Season 1 ("Survivors"). Be kind of strange to send them out with season 2.

 

[Jari]

*Sigh* For various reasons it made the most sense for me to order from Amazon.com this time around - which means I'll have to wait until next week because they never ship before street date.

Mine shipped from Amazon.com on monday. Though I won't be getting it before May...

 

[Rob T]

Just like with season 1, I think I'll be getting season 2 through chapters. I'm gonna look around first though.

 

[Christopher E]

Just a note to any Canadian B5 fans:

Futureshop will probably have B5:S2 for $75.99 like they did for the last season. Right now their website shows $79.99 but it will probably be marked down lower in store.

Has anyone found a better B&M price than that in Canada?

 

[Daryl Furkalo]

I got my copy yesterday! :b

I watched the first two episodes on disc one only, and I do I have to say that the Dolby Digital soundtrack sucks It seemed like a mono soundtrack only at times. I do not remember season one being like this at all. Any one else have comments on this?

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Daryl:

Can you check the last disc and verify that there is some sort of "gag reel" included, and describe its contents? There have been two promotional webpages created for the S2 set, one of which lists "gag reel" under the extra features.

Re: DD 5.1. The show was originally produced with a Dolby Surround track, since broadcasters were not equipped for DD 5.1. The tracks have been remixed for the DVDs, but you can't expect too much, given the source material. Also this is a dialogue driven show, so an awful lot is going to go out through the center speaker. Having said all that I had no complaints about the S1 sound. The deep bass was there where you'd expect it (like the space combat scenes) and the "station noises" ambience was fine - not overpowering, just enough to be there.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Blu]

Yes! My set shipped, hopefully it will be here by Tuesday now if not sooner!

I am eager to find out about the extras as well!

 

[Christopher E]

Having said all that I had no complaints about the S1 sound. The deep bass was there where you'd expect it (like the space combat scenes) and the "station noises" ambience was fine - not overpowering, just enough to be there.

I don't remember any space combat scenes having deep bass. Joe, which space battles do you remember having deep bass effects?

 

[DaveGTP]

My copy from Amazon.com still has not shipped out. But I used Super Saver Shipping. I keep getting tempted to choose faster shipping, but Super Saver is normally pretty speedy for me.

 

[Daryl Furkalo]

Well, Geometry of Shadows was pretty bad in some areas audio wise. The voices of Londo and Vir just sound completely wrong. A Distant Star sounded perfect to me.

I don't see any description of a gag reel, and my first season set didn't show anything on the packaging. I don't remember if I actually came across anything when watching it.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Daryl:

There was never any indication that there would be a gag reel with the S1 set. Only some of the S2 promos mentioned it, so that's the season I was interested in. I assume that it was an S2 order you were talking about.

Re: Sound.

I don't recall specific scenes, and I can't go through the discs now because I'm in temporary quarters and don't have my sound system set up. (Yes, I'm actually reduced to listening to TV and DVDs through the TV's built-in speakers. The horror...)

But even on the first movie disc, which was just Dolby Surround, no DD 5.1 remix, the fly-over of the Grey Council ship in In the Beginning rattled stuff on my coffee table.

I remember seeing some early reviews of S1 where people complained about the sound and all I can say is that on my system I didn't notice any of the problems they were talking about.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Rob T]

I remember seeing some early reviews of S1 where people complained about the sound and all I can say is that on my system I didn't notice any of the problems they were talking about.

even with my full system, it still happens to me. :frowning:

 

[Andy_Bu]

Can those who have watched Season 2 via a progressive scan dvd player let us know how the video quality is compared to Season 1? Thank you.

Andy

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Rob:

I should have been clearer. When the S1 set came out I had my full DD/DTS 5.1 system working just fine, and didn't notice any of the sound problems that people were whining about.

Andy:

If you had a problem with the video quality of the S1 set, be aware that your equipment should be set to "video" rather than "film" or "auto-switch". Evidently the discs are misflagged and cause problems with auto-switching equipment when they go from live action (filmed) material to CGI (video) A lot of people reported problems with the S1 set that vanished as soon as they manually selected "video" mode.

Everybody:

In a usenet post yesterday JMS confirmed that S3 is about finishing post production, and that he and Warner Bros. are in talks about bringing the 13 existing Crusade episodes to DVD.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Andy_Bu]

In a usenet post yesterday JMS confirmed that S3 is about finishing post production, and that he and Warner Bros. are in talks about bringing the 13 existing Crusade episodes to DVD.

Interesting. I am a huge fan of everything B5 but I can't see myself buying part of a single season of Crusade knowing that there is nothing else to come.

Andy