Sci-Fi Storm

Here is a short review of the Farscape: Peacekeeper Wars DVD that was released earlier this week. I’ve already reviewed the feature in November, which you should read first if you are not familiar with it.

[sfs=478][/sfs] The Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars DVD contains two discs in a standard DVD snapcase – the first contains the complete miniseries feature in widescreen format and Dolby 5.1 and 2.0 surround, and the second a small selection of special features.

The feature itself displays well, but this isn’t surprising for something released so recently that a direct digital transfer was probably made. Dolby 5.1 surround was pretty good, but I don’t exactly have a great system and I ahd to keep the sound down a bit because of our three-month old. 🙂

In terms of special features, I’m afraid this was a bit lacking. If there was ever a director’s commentary track I wanted to listen to, this was it, but unfortunately there wasn’t one – there is no commentary track at all, and that is something that is almost mandatory.

On the second disc, there are four “slideshow” features, consisting of concept art, storyboards, spacecraft, and props. Unfortunately, most of the images were lacking any captions to explain them. The props at least had something written on a whiteboard to sat what was being shown – if you could read some of the scrawls.

The one special “feature” was a 30 minute documentary entitled “The Making of The Peacekeeper Wars”, which starts with the the wrap of series production (with a teary-eyed Claudia Black) and the pronouncement “We did nothing wrong” about the cancellation of the series. It then picks up with the planning of the miniseries, and how quickly they brought it to production. Very well done, and you can actually see some of the actors that you may have never seen without makeup or prosthetics (especially if you aren’t in Australia) – Wayne Pygram, Anthony Simcoe, and Gigi Edgley among others.

Certainly, if you are fan of Farscape you should already have this DVD in your collection, and certainly for the low price its not a bad purchase if you simply haven’t seen it yet, even with the small amount of special features.