The Gerry Anderson Collection (Umbrella Entertainment/PAL Region Zero Import/featuring Fireball XL5, Supercar and The Secret Service in SuperMarionation)

 

NOTE: This is a DVD that can only be operated on machines capable of playing back DVDs that can handle Region Zero/0/Free and the PAL format software, and can be ordered from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment at the website address provided at the end of the review.

 

 

Picture: B-     Sound: C+     Extras: C     Episodes: C/C/B-

 

 

The great cycle of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson SuperMarionation series are getting a new round of DVD release which includes upgraded packaging, transfers and this extends worldwide to all companies who have the license to that catalog.  This includes A&E Home Video and Umbrella Entertainment.  The Gerry Anderson Collection is a new DVD set exclusive to Umbrella, a great Australian DVD manufacturer we have reviewed before with great satisfaction.  This set includes two of the earliest and the last of the SuperMarionation shows, Fireball XL5, Supercar and The Secret Service.  We have previously reviewed the first box sets from A&E and a new edition of one of the shows from Network U.K., which includes summaries and episode information as follows:

 

Fireball XL5

A&E U.S. NTSC DVD set

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/27/Fireball+XL-5+-+The+Complete+Series

Network U.K. PAL Region 2 Special Edition DVD Set

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8696/Fireball+XL5+%E2%80%93+Special

 

Supercar

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/54/Supercar+-+The+Complete+Series

 

Secret Service

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/549/Secret+Service+-+Complete+Series

 

 

On the plus side, these shows are not bad, especially as the age of digital animation becomes increasingly banal and annoying more than we could have ever expected the last time we looked at this material.  The craftsmanship speaks for itself and even when the shows are dated or flat, they continue to have a certain charm.

 

On the technical side, these are the same high quality, recently produced PAL masters used for the A&E DVDs, except they are in their native format and do not have some of the slight motion blur those U.S. versions did.  However, the 1.33 X 1 black and white image on Fireball XL5, Supercar/full color on The Secret Service) may have some slight fringing issues in the details.  They are still at least as rich in Video Black as the A&Es and by fitting each season in a single case, the whole collection is smaller than any single box they issued except The Secret Service.  In fairness to A&E, they have started to switch to slender cases on releases like The Avengers Emma Peel Megaset and reissues of Thunderbirds and Space: 1999.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono for all three shows are as good clean and clear as they can be for their age and as good as the A&E sets.

 

On the strange side, you get a bunch of fine extras, but they are different than those offers from the A&E sets and in this case, all have stills and trailers for other Umbrella DVD releases, Supercar & The Secret Service offer TV spots and there is a bonus DVD on the Fireball XL5 that includes the rest of the goodies.  They include the terrific 90-minutes-long Full Boost Vertical: The Supercar Story documentary on the making of the series including exclusive interviews with members of the production team and a “virtual tour” of the AP Films studio in Slough, CGI A.P. Films Studio tour – a CGI recreation of the studios in the 60s, Textless titles, clips and titles in French and Spanish including new singers for the theme (note the theme on the actual episodes here are a British singer, while the A&E version has the U.S. theme singer) and three clips of how ugly the two monochrome shows looked “Colourised”: Supercar and Fireball XL5.  The colorization is a disaster, with the color looking pasted on when it is not outright fringing very badly.  The painted on look is just phony, but the nice thing about these shows in black and white is how detailed the prints look and how good the depth is.  When black and white looks this good, you’ll find it as hard to watch colorizing as bad low definition video after seeing the best high definition around.

 

 

For another related series, you can try Umbrella’s release of Star Fleet – X Bomber: The Complete Series on DVD (Japan’s answer to such shows), which you can read more about at this link:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8504/Star+Fleet+X+Bomber+-+The+Comp

 

 

As noted above, you can order these sets and more exclusively from Umbrella at:

 

http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo