Sci-Fi Storm

[sfs=551]MacGyver Season 3[/sfs] hit the streets a few weeks ago, continuing the “retro DVD” trend. Read More for the review, and find out more information at the official web site.

[sfs=551][/sfs] Mac continues on getting out of tight situations and saving the day in Season 3. Little has changed from [sfs=525]Season 2[/sfs], and you can see my review of that set. Since I did a DVD-specific review of that, I’ll so the same here. Frankly, the scores won’t change – there is no real difference on the qualities of the DVDs.

Standout episodes of this season: The season opening two-parter, “Lost Love” (with the return of Jack Dalton); “The Widowmaker” (the return of his obsessed nemesis, Murdoc); “Early Retirement”; “Thin Ice” (with Richard Dean Anderson’s favorite sport, hockey); “The Negotiator”; and “The Endangered”.

Random notes:

• Just how many ex-girlfriends did Mac have, anyways?
• Actress Elyssa Davalos appears in the “Lost Love” two-parter as a former girlfriend/fiancee, and then returns for 6 more episodes as Nikki Carpenter, and completely different character.

Since we don’t have Acting and Story as scoring points in a DVD review (and I have to settle on some review points in the future), a few notes. Anderson shows a lot more emotional range in this season, having to deal with the death of a friend, finding a lost love, and more. And although the overall story arc doesn’t really move anywhere, the individual stories themselves seem to have stepped up a bit.

Packaging: Same as Season 2 – ultra-thin plastic disc folders holding two discs (one for the third folder) with one disc on each side (no stacking). The three folders fit in a typical cardboard slipcase, all of which bear various images of MacGyver. Green is the basic color scheme for this release – Season 2 was more blue.

Again, each disc is screened differently, with an image of some of the basic items he uses as tools.

Interesting, the same problem I had with Season 2 is back – one of the disc hubs that hold the discs in the case had a broken spoke, but it can still hold the disc OK. It reminds me of the frequent problems with the Babylon 5 DVD sets, where one of the discs would always be loose.

I only gave Season 2 a 2/5 here, but after seeing some other packages, this style has grown on me. 3/5

Video/audio quality: Still disappointing in the video quality. Grain is still there. I didn’t notice much in the way of compression artifacts, but there were a number of times when there would be a thin light colored horizontal line (at great contrast to the adjoining area) that would appear staticky – this may be a form of artifact but I’m not sure. It at least looks better than the over-compression I’ve seen on reruns via satellite. 2/5

Extras: None. Nada. The studios need to pick up here – often the lure to buy DVD sets is not just to see the series again, but to see more about the show, maybe some outtakes – come on, Paramount – where’s the carrot to lead us on? N/A

Navigation: Simplistic menus with the episode list for each disc, with a background image similar to the disc folders. Again, Disc 1 includes a “previews” option to see ads for other TV shows on DVD. Nothing special though. 2/5

Overall: Much the same as Season 2 – the show is great, and perhaps improved over the previous season. 4/5

Total: 2.75 out of 5. To get much higher than this with future releases, Paramount needs to up the ante – clean up the video, and give us some extras.