The Lost Room DVD mini-review
by Doc on Apr.05, 2007, under Television
The SCI FI Channel original miniseries The Lost Room was released yesterday on DVD. Here is a mini-review (mainly because it was a disjointed viewing making it difficult to sum up all the points for a full score).
First, the premise, in my own words.
People are after “objects” – a comb, a glass eye, a key…but not just any objects. These are all special. They are all linked to the “Lost Room”, a motel room in which they were all in when something happened. They are indestructible, and each has a separate power. And everyone has a different reason for looking for the Objects. Some want it to heal loved ones. Some want it to be closer to God. Some want to use the powers for ill. Some want them to go away. Detective Joe Miller wants them to help find his daughter.
The Key can turn any door with a keyhole into a door to the motel room. Put something in the motel room, close the door, and open it again – and what you put in the room (except for Objects) disappears. No one knows what happens to them. When Miller’s daughter is pushed into the room and the door closed – she disappears. Stories say that the Prime Object can be used with the Key to possibly bring the missing item or person back – but no one is 100% sure of what the Prime Object is.
I think this may have been one of SCI FI’s best efforts ever at a miniseries, perhaps only behind Battlestar Galactica. Very well thought out and well acted. A little confusing at times, but that could have been caused by the numerous interruptions I had while trying to watch it – having a sick two year old around while reviewing long programming is tough. Some special effects were pretty cool – people falling from the sky and being blasted into oblivion leaving their clothes behind were done amazingly well.
Some points against:
- There are ads at the beginning that you can’t skip directly to the menu from. On BOTH discs! And, they show up as a “special feature” on the second disc as well!
- At least in one case the menu (which is a bit fuzzy) didn’t line up with the highlighted selection. This went away when I went into one menu item then came back.
- Some video compression artifacts were noticeable. One particularly bad one was a shot of a door from a point on the street, when a car passes by – the car was all blocky.
These certainly shouldn’t prevent anyone from purchasing the DVD. It really is an excellent program.
The one true special feature is “Behind The Lost Room”, which talks about the creation and production of the series.
The show was left open-ended. Will someone else find the key? What about Detective Miller? What about the group that Rubie was dealing with?
Hopefully that means there is more to come…although I have not heard anything yet.