Hercules: The Legendary Journeys Season One (1995)
Review by Dindrane
Film:
DVD:

Series created by Christian Williams
Executive Produced by Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert
Starring Kevin Sorbo, Michael Hurst, and Anthony Quinn

Features:

• All thirteen first season episodes
  
• Five two-hour movies
  
• Running audio and video commentary by actors Sorbo and Hurst on selected episodes
  
• Photo gallery
  
• Trivia
  
• Cast and crew bios
  
• Weblinks
  
• Screensaver
  

Released by: Anchor Bay
Region: 1
Rating: NR
Anamorphic: N/A; appears in its original 1.33:1 format.

My Advice: Get it.

Hercules the show hardly needs an introduction, but for those four of you who have been living in a cave, the show revolves around the erstwhile son (Sorbo) of Zeus and a human woman, and his attempts to right wrongs and fight evil, while ducking Hera’s plans to kill him off. In this first season, we meet Hercules, as well as his sidekick Iolaus (Hurst), transformed from Herc’s nephew as in the mythological record into his childhood friend. We also meet a few other characters and actors who will recur on this series, including Ares (Kevin Smith), as well as Xena stars Lucy Lawless, and Renee O’Connor.

One of the best things about this set is that it doesn’t simply collect all of the episodes from the first season, though it does that too, but it also collects all five of the movies made to go along with the series. These movies are outside the continuity of the series, but still do a nice job of developing characters and character histories, as well as creating a more fully-fleshed world for the writers to play in.

The acting is better than you think it would be, if you haven’t given this show a chance yet. Michael Hurst, particularly, is a Shakespearean-trained actor who really gets into his part while Sorbo does a good job of being more than just a pretty face here, too--by turns sardonic and heroic, and then slyly funny. Some of the background characters you’ll see also show why they are hired again, such as the early roles played by O’Connor and Lawless, who will appear later as Xena and Gabrielle.

The extras are pretty fine, too. We have a nice still gallery, along with some weblinks when you use the DVD as a DVD-ROM (PC only). The DVD-ROM also offers up a nifty Hercules-themed screensaver. We also get commentaries on several of the episodes, which is basically Sorbo filmed watching the episodes. The series trivia and the cast and director bios will appeal to fans of the show, as well. The audio and video quality are both solid. The shots look great, though how a camera crew could make New Zealand look boring, I don’t know.

My only complaint is that I hate the physical layout of the set. Eight discs is just too many to have in this kind of fold-out format; a book type format like that used by the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine set would have worked much better and been less of an accident waiting to happen. Trying to retrieve a specific disc while standing up in front of your TV/DVD player is not only clumsy, but nearly impossible to do without dropping the whole shebang. The fold-out format provides room for a few glossy still-shots, which are nice enough, but I’d rather have a DVD set that didn’t drive me insane just getting the things into the player.

Mythological purists and historians might be constantly irritated by the way ancient Greece looks a lot like New Zealand (go figure) or the way gods, heroes, and monsters are shuffled at will, but then, on the other hand, it cannot be denied how such shows as this encourage children and adults alike to read more about history and mythology to learn the real stories. Besides, who has ever heard a "definitive" version of a myth? Just accept and enjoy this show for what it is: a version for the new century, designed to emphasize morality and adventure, with the occasional injection of serious myth or literary merit.