Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Review: Foxy Brown / Cert: 18 / Director: Jack Hill / Screenplay: Jack Hill / Starring: Pam Grier, Antonio Fargas, Peter Brown / Release Date: Out Now

Blaxploitation icon Pam Grier resurfaces in her signature role in this re-release from the fine folks at Arrow Video. That’s right, it’s Jack Hill’s Foxy Brown, now available on Blu-ray. You dig?

There’s been a recent resurgence of interest in exploitation cinema, buoyed by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse features (particularly the latter’s Machete), so it’s interesting to see the return of the genuine article. Is Foxy Brown still good, or have her charms been blunted by the spoofs and homages of Black Dynamite (a personal favourite), Django Unchained and their ilk?

When a local drug syndicate shoots her government agent boyfriend, street-smart tough gal Foxy Brown (Grier) seeks revenge. Posing as a prostitute to find the culprits, Foxy finds herself in a series of compromising, dangerous and sexy situations. Mostly the latter (they don’t call it ‘exploitation’ for nothing) but with a little gore and the occasional well-staged fight scene in-between. It’s not great, but nor is it a complete (jive) turkey either. Funky, funny and sexy, and with a great lead performance from Pam Grier, it’s every bit as worthwhile as the movies it inspired (especially today’s glut of deliberately bad ones).

On the evidence of this, it’s not hard to see why Grier went on to become something of a cult icon and favourite of such directors as Tarantino (who had her in the lead role in Jackie Brown) and Tim Burton (who had her bringing one of the film’s best laughs in Mars Attacks!, with some top notch parenting skills). The film looks great too, very stylish and sexy. Foxy’s has to be one of the best movie afros I’ve ever seen. To quote brother Link, “She’s a whole lot of woman.”

As with all Arrow Video Blu-Ray releases, Foxy Brown comes with a whole host of indispensable special features. It may be but a lowly exploitation feature, but you can count on Arrow to treat it with the reverence and respect it deserves. Is Foxy Brown super bad? Maybe not quite as much as it once was. Still, I can dig it.

Extras: Audio commentary with Jack Hill / 3 Featurettes / Trailer reel / Collector’s booklet

Review: Ultramarines – A Warhammer 40,000 Movie / Cert: 15 / Director: Martyn Pick / Screenplay: Dan Abnett / Starring: Terence Stamp, John Hurt, Sean Pertwee / Release Date: Out Now

Tip: if you’re going to go around acting like a gruff, tough Andy McNab of the future, you may want to first check that you’re not wearing bright blue and yellow body armour. It doesn’t matter how much glass you’ve been gargling – nobody is going to take you seriously, dressed like that. They should have gone with the Black Templars instead.

Based on the incredibly popular tabletop strategy game, Ultramarines is a movie made, unashamedly, for the fans. While more casual sci-fi and animation fans won’t find it at all difficult to get into (the handy thing about Warhammer is how unapologetically plotless it is) the film doesn’t even attempt to provide anything of interest for non-gamers. The thrills are in seeing the ‘characters’ and their vehicles blow things up in a way that tabletop gaming could never hope to. But, as with the recent Space Marine video game, it gets very old, very fast.

“If I get there first, there will be no blood left for you to spill,” brags one ridiculously named Space Marine to another. The whole script is like this, veering between daft machismo and even dafter faux-religious waffle. The likes of Terence Stamp, Sean Pertwee, John Hurt and Johnny Harris are great actors, but having the lot of them share whole scenes together (with Hurt doing occasional narration) does none of them any favours. Not even Pertwee can save a line such as “There was no valour in this end.” Dude – you look like a Lex Luthor battle suit after going ten rounds with the Pimp My Ride crew. Lighten up. The film sounds like it was recorded down your local Working Man’s Club, back in the days when they were allowed to smoke there (and before women were allowed – there’s not a single female voice in the whole film). The animation is even worse, looking like a cartoon you’d have seen airing on Channel 5 in the early ’00s (like the Dan Dare or Captain Scarlet reboots, maybe).

Fans of the game should find a little more to appreciate in Ultramarines. Maybe add an extra star or two if you like that sort of thing. But even they deserved better. It does neither Warhammer nor its fans any favours. It’s not awful though (there are some decent battle sequences), merely thoroughly mediocre. Coasting on the idea that fans will buy anything related to the brand, it feels lazy and cynical. Better luck next turn, guys.

Review: Django, Prepare a Coffin / Cert: 15 / Director: Ferdinando Baldi / Screenplay: Franco Rossetti / Starring: Terence Hill, Horst Frank, George Eastman, Jose Torres / Release Date: Out Now

With Tarantino’s Django Unchained just out on DVD/Blu Ray, time to cash in… sorry, capitalise on any residual new publicity by slipping out another of the 1960s Spaghetti Westerns which first immortalised the character of Django. Following the release last year of the original 1966 Django, here comes the ‘official’ 1968 sequel Django, Prepare a Coffin. With Franco Nero (the original Django) whipped off to Hollywood to film the musical Camelot, lookalike Terence Hill takes over the role in a film which rewrites Django’s history but fortunately lets him keep the handy machine gun he’d been dragging behind him in a coffin throughout the first film for a cameo appearance in the final reel.

The problem with the whole Django phenomenon is that the entire series of films were entirely random and almost all of them were unofficial so it’s impossible for the contemporary viewer to try to weave any meaningful chronology out of the stories or establish any significant backstory to the character. Here, despite a physical resemblance, Hill – an enormously popular star in Italian cinema in the 1960s and 1970s to the extent that at one point he was the fourth most popular movie star in the world – is a much less charismatic and mysterious Django. Hill is slightly less expressive than your average Gerry Anderson puppet; he’s not hugely phased when his wife is killed during a bandit attack and he spends the rest of the film, set several years later, apparently working as an itinerant hangman but, in reality, slowly rounding up his own gang so he can exact a gun-totin’ revenge on the crazed cowboy who killed his wife and a corrupt politician who will stop at nothing to get his hands on the land of the men he’s framed and set up for execution.

Django, Prepare a Coffin is pretty routine Western stuff enlivened only by its Italian sensibility and our foreknowledge of Django from the previous, darker film. Hill’s Django is lighter and more accessible than Nero’s yet he’s just as adept at wreaking his unique form of justice on those who’ve wronged him; aficionados will enjoy the bright-red bloodshed and the gun battle carnage which brings the movie to a close but, enticingly crisp Blu-ray transfer notwithstanding, there’s really little here to differentiate Django from any number of other vengeful spaghetti-flavoured 1960s Wild West desperadoes. Fun for fans but likely to leave the casual viewer colder than a cadaver in a coffin.

Extras: Django Explained feature / Trailer / Collector’s Booklet

Review: Knight of the Dead / Cert: 15 / Director: Mark Atkins / Screenplay: Mark Atkins, Jeffrey Giles / Starring: Dylan Jones, Lee Bennett, Carl Greenwood, Vivien Vilela /Release Date: July 1st

Grubbing around to find something positive to say about this low budget British zombie historical can really only lead the reviewer to eventually conclude that at least all those involved clearly suffered for their art. Filmed on location in and around the slate quarries and snowy peaks of wettest, wildest Snowdonia in Wales, the entire cast manages to look cold, bedraggled and thoroughly miserable throughout its terse seventy-five minute running time. And the viewer is likely to feel pretty grotty too as they grind their way through this sloppy, derivative, unattractive and thoroughly turgid affair.

Whilst it’s refreshing to approach a zombie movie which doesn’t seek to persuade us that the modern world has succumbed to a global zombie pandemic, Knight of the Dead’s tale of a bunch of drab crusading knights trapped in a plague-ridden valley hunted both by vicious assassins and the blood-crazed undead just isn’t interesting enough, its characters little more than names and, more importantly, its world not sufficiently well-realised for the audience to really give a damn. What we really have here is a movie which looks as if a bunch of mates have knocked up a few shonky Medieval costumes and cardboard swords, nabbed a decent video camera, and yomped up into the mountains to play a game of knights and zombies. Luckily for them the weather turned squally, giving their footage a raw, drizzly and windswept look but no amount of naturally -impressive scenery and convenient bad weather can compensate for the seriously dodgy script, poor acting and lame scares conjured up by director/writer Mark Atkins and his no doubt well-intentioned chums.

But it’s not all bad news. Atkins makes up for what he lacks as a scriptwriter with some efficiently -directed action sequences, he makes good use of his locations – which include some naturally occurring ruined castles and crumbling walls – and his choice of appropriate library and public domain incidental music is impeccable and lends the film at least some of the sense of scale and majesty his stuttering script and unconvincing actors are often woefully unable to convey. Despite its faults Knight of the Dead isn’t lamentably incompetent and, with a bit more finesse (and a lot more money) and a decent script Mark Atkins has the potential to turn out something far more interesting and accomplished than this rather mundane undead-on-its-feet debut.

Extras: None

Review: Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters / Director: Tommy Wirkola / Screenplay: Tommy Wirkola / Starring: Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton, Famke Jannsen / Released: June 24^th

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is the life and soul of the party and it’s had a couple of drinkies before it arrived. If you’re in a good mood, then the life and soul of the party is a fun thing to be around. If you’re not, then it’s going to get on your nerves pretty quickly.

The simple premise is that, following their ordeal in the witch’s candy house, the titular siblings grow up to be leather-clad kickass witch hunters with steampunk weapons and a bad attitude. This is essentially a Wild West bounty hunter movie transposed to a fantasy setting in the guise of comedy horror. Being set in some non-specific fantastical period and location also means no one has to worry very much about accents. Actually, this being the Brothers Grimm, you’d have thought some kind of European accent would be a given, but Jeremy Renner either can’t do one or couldn’t be bothered, so he sticks with the transatlantic one he was no doubt born with. But have no fear, Gemma Arterton (Kate Beckinsale being presumably too old and/or expensive to do her trademark role nowadays) puts on an American accent just so Renner doesn’t look completely ridiculous. We assume that’s the reason as it is otherwise utterly inexplicable. But if it seems stupid then that’s absolutely fine because Hansel & Gretel is, essentially, a stupid movie; but not necessarily in a bad way.

This is a film with its tongue stuck firmly in its cheek and if writer/director Tommy Wirkola had made any attempt at seriousness then, with a premise like that, we’d just have a po-faced mess. As it is, it’s all just a lot of fun as long as you’re prepared to leave your brain firmly in neutral. Why does the chief witch occasionally lose the witchy make-up and turn into Famke Jannsen? Well, duh! Because she’s Famke Jannsen. Seriously, don’t think about it. Hansel & Gretel just wants you to have fun; it doesn’t want you thinking. If you did then you’d probably remember that all this has largely been done before in Van Helsing (2004). On the other hand, this is actually far more enjoyable than that was. There are even a few original touches such as Hansel’s enforced childhood sugar diet rendering him diabetic or the witches gathering looking like a Clive Barker cosplay party.

Actually, this reviewer didn’t think he was going to like Hansel & Gretel much, but by the time he was half way through he’d surrendered to its brainless overbearing jollity. He must have been in a better mood than he thought he was as he now fully accepts that fairy tale characters repeatedly saying “fuck” is big and it is clever. What’s more, at 88 minutes, it’s exactly the same length as all those Hammer movies. Now that’s how not to outstay your reluctant welcome.

Extras: The Witching Hours

Review: Doctor Who – Regeneration / Cert: 12 / Director: Various / Screenplay: Various / Starring: William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Matt Smith / Release Date: June 24^th

This lavish and pricey coffee table book/six DVD boxset (with a recommended retail price of around sixty quid) can’t help but feel like a slightly cynical marketing ploy containing, as it does, bare-bones editions of eleven Doctor Who stories already available on DVD (some of them having been released several times, in fact) with just one ‘new’ release to whet the appetites of salivating fans who have been waiting an age for Hartnell’s swansong story, the incomplete The Tenth Planet, to see the light of day. The story will be released later this year as a standalone edition but it’s likely many hardcore fans won’t be able to resist the temptation to shell out on this celebratory set with this little treasure nestling within its packaging. Newer fans, however, are unlikely to be wildly interested in what essentially presents itself as a collection of creaky, dusty old Doctor Whos with a few well-remembered recent episodes thrown in for good measure.

But ‘Regeneration’ is the name of the game here, Doctor Who’s extraordinary ability to reinvent itself and the character when its leading man decides to move on. Unfortunately ‘regeneration’ stories are rarely amongst the best the show has to offer and some of them don’t or barely feature the regeneration at all. For example, Patrick Troughton’s metamorphosis into Jon Pertwee isn’t shown at the end of The War Games because Pertwee hadn’t yet been cast when its final episode was recorded. But to see Troughton spinning off into the Void courtesy of the Time Lords, the viewer has to sit through ten cavernous episodes in which the Doctor battles the alien War Lord creating his own army out of human soldiers lifted from various wars across Earth’s history. It’s generally good stuff with some decent ideas but at ten episodes it tries the patience. Pertwee’s finale in Planet of the Spiders effectively celebrates its star’s flamboyant five years as the Doctor and the scuttling giant spiders of Metebelis Three may appear crude and unsophisticated today but spiders are spiders and they’re still good enough to put the willies up quivering arachnophobics everywhere. Frustratingly the transformation from Pertwee to Baker is a huge anti-climax, a crude, hurried cross-fade from one actor to the other. Baker bowed out after an exhausting seven year run and by the time of Logopolis, pompous and portentous and devoid of the humour which had characterized the actor’s earlier years, he just looked knackered. Baker’s successor, fresh-faced Peter Davison, took his leave in the magnificent and atmospheric Caves of Androzani, an intelligent and well directed four-parter which pretty much redeemed a frustratingly disappointing three year tenure and his shouty successor Colin Baker suffered the ignominy of being ‘removed’ from the role, his regeneration occurring in a pre-credits sequence in seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy’s first story, with McCoy in Baker’s costume, his face blurred by visual effects to hide the fact that Baker wasn’t around to film the sequence. Time and the Rani is atrocious and at the time represented a new nadir for Doctor Who and its presence here just sullies the name of the series and the stories which sit alongside it in the box set. In 1996 Doctor Who flared briefly back into life in the US TV Movie where we see McCoy gurning into his one-shot successor Paul McGann in a film which is a flawed, cheesy missed opportunity which has its moments – and in McGann a potentially memorable Doctor – but, in retrospect, was always destined to be a missed opportunity.

We’re familiar with the 21st century shows’ regenerations and they’re all here; Eccleston exploding like a firecracker and turning into David Tennant in the fabulously exciting Parting of the Ways (its companion-piece part one, Bad Wolf, is also included) and Tennant’s long, emotionally charged farewell in part two of The End Of Time where the Doctor reluctantly morphs into the then-unknown Matt Smith who will himself bow out in a presumably similar spectacular style later this year.

But if you’re here at all you’re here for The Tenth Planet, which is a pleasantly clunky and pleasingly contemporary base-under-siege story, introducing the brilliantly impractical but quite eerie original Cybermen, who would go on to battle Troughton again and again, their own appearance modified and improved with each return engagement. Hartnell himself is in sturdy form for his last gasp and when he tells his chums Ben and Polly in episode four that “this old body of mine is wearing a bit thin” the stage is set for the first of what would become one of the series’ great signature moments. Episode four, missing from the BBC Archives at the moment, has been animated in a style not dissimilar to Reign of Terror earlier this year but the animation here is more fluid, naturalistic and much easier on the eye, with less reliance on disconcerting close-ups. Oddly the actual regeneration footage, which has survived, isn’t included on the finished product despite DVD publicity material which suggests that the restored regeneration footage would be integrated into the animated episode.

A ‘Regeneration’ set was pretty much inevitable in this special year, commemorating the USP which has given Doctor Who its longevity, and whilst this collection impresses with its lavish presentation it’s not likely to be an essential purchase for anyone but the completist fan or those who really can’t wait to get their hands on The Tenth Planet.

Extras: Stunningly illustrated souvenir book

 

Review: Devil Girl from Mars / Director: David MacDonald / Screenplay: James Eastwood / Starring: Patricia Laffan, Hugh McDermott, Hazel Court, Peter Reynolds, Adrienne Corri, Joseph Tomelty, John Laurie, Sophie Stewart / Release Date: Out now

Make no mistake, when it comes to ’50s sci-fi movies, Devil Girl from Mars (1954) is as iconic as they come. But, truth be told, it’s hardly typical of the genre.

For a start, it’s British. Although that’s hardly unique, it has to be said that our other efforts tended to be a bit more serious and worthy. Actually we suspect the makers of this did think they were doing something worthy. You see, you might be surprised to learn that DGfM is actually based on a stage play. No, really. One assumes the play was the sort of thing Joey Tribbiani may have appeared in but it’s no surprise that the film is entirely set in a difficult-to-heat Scottish hotel. The landlady explains that they have to eat in the bar as it’s the only warm place (even if they’re happy to walk around the Scottish moors in their PJ’s). Yeah, you get the idea: they’ve only got one set. Par for the course on stage but slightly embarrassing in a movie. Combine this with slow pacing and a tedious script and you’ve got something that is actually a bit rubbish.

So you’re wondering why it’s so iconic. Well that’ll be its ineffable ability to raise a smile. While everyone plays it straight as a die, it still manages to be as camp as Butlins. It starts like a god-awful amdram about a man-on-the-run; just as his true identity is about to be revealed there is a sudden blinding light as a spaceship lands outside. The unintentional comic timing couldn’t be better. On the subject of comic timing, you also have to remember it was made at a time when alcoholism was considered funny so long as the alcoholic in question was Scottish. Step forward no less than the mighty John Laurie as an amusing drunk. This was comedy gold in 1954.

However, the movie’s lofty status will be forever assured by the presence of Patricia Laffan as the Devil Girl herself. The Battle of the Sexes was taken a bit too literally on Mars and the women won. Yes, her planet needs men. If a stern ’50s dominatrix in retro-fetish gear is your thing then we really can’t think of a film you’re going to enjoy more than this one. Don’t worry, your dirty little secret is safe with us and you can snigger with the rest of us as nearly all the male cast volunteer to be the one who goes back with her. If that weren’t enough, she has a robot that looks like a fridge. If this was the British response to Gort, you can tell we were a nation in decline.

It might be a terrible movie, but if comedy-alcoholism, crap robots and dated S&M are your thing, it’s an essential purchase. Always remember you’re British.

Extras: Image gallery /Press book PDF

Review: Spider Baby / Cert: 15 / Director: Jack Hill / Screenplay: Jack Hill / Starring: Lon Chaney Jr, Sid Haig, Carol Ohmart, Quinn Redeker, Beverly Washburn, Jill Banner / Release Date: June 17th

Spider Baby, an obscure black-and-white 1968 comedy horror from cult director Jack Hill, is described in its own credits as “the maddest story ever told” – and it’ll only take about fifteen minutes for you to realise that this is quite the understatement. Spider Baby is barking mad but it’s also great fun, hugely endearing and, despite being utterly bloodless, strangely disturbing. Filmed across seven days on a ludicrously tiny budget and originally cut to pieces at the request of unimpressed producers, Spider Baby disappeared without trace for years but now resurfaces on this sharp and lovingly restored Blu-ray packed with special features which finally do justice to one of the oddest forgotten feature films of all time.

Three young children of the Merrye family live in a crumbling old house just outside Los Angeles under the watchful eye of old family retainer Bruno (Chaney). The kids are all suffering from ‘Merrye syndrome’; they’re inbred and slowly regressing towards a state of pre-human savagery. Virginia (Banner) is the titular ‘Spider Baby’, obsessed with arachnids, trapping victims in her web made of netting and ‘stinging’ them by slashing them to death with two knives. Ralph (Haig) wears baby’s clothes and travels about the house in a dumbwaiter, becoming agitated and aroused in the presence of young women. Emily (Ohmart) and Peter (Redeker) arrive with their lawyer to take possession of the house and a very peculiar sort of hell breaks lose as the Merrye children’s secret is revealed at last.

Bizarre doesn’t even begin to describe Spider Baby. Despite its lack of on-screen blood-letting it still manages to be creepy and unnerving, some of its imagery is surprisingly suggestive and the Merrye kids are genuinely disturbing. But there’s a rich vein of very black humour too, a wonderfully avuncular performance from former wolf-man Chaney Jr, a fabulously naturalistic turn from wide-eyed Redeker and a brilliantly catchy score from the underrated Ronald Stein. A remake mooted back in 2007 fortunately came to nothing; undoubtedly it would have focussed on explicit gore and violence and missed the entire point and lost the naïve charm of this quirky, unique original. “The maddest story ever told?” At the very least…

Extras: Commentary / 2012 Panel Discussion / Making Of / Cinema Sounds of Ronald Stein /Revisiting the location / Alternate opening / Trailer / Extended scene / Short Jack Hill film ‘The Host’ / Booklet

Review: The Vineyard (1989) / Cert: 18 /Director: James Hong, William Rice / Screenplay: James Hong / Starring: James Hong, Karen Lorre, Michael Wong / Release Date: Out Now

Whilst hailed as “the man of a thousand faces”, for many James Hong remains most closely associated with his appearance as one of Roy Batty’s ill-fate designers in Blade Runner, and his failed attempts to sacrifice the beautiful green-eyed Kim Cattrall in Big Trouble in Little China. Now Arrow invite you to “step into the cult arena” and discover the horror James Hong unleashed in a vineyard three short years after that latter role.

Scientist and winemaker Doctor Elson Po has discovered the secret to eternal life. Inevitably there is a snag. To secure eternal life he must sacrifice the young and beautiful Jezebel Fairchild (Lorre). Under the premise of an audition, Po has lured Jezebel along with a group of unsuspecting youngsters to his remote island where they will help him attain eternal youth.

A prolific presence in front of the camera, for The Vineyard Hong assumes multiple roles; co-writing, co-directing as well as casting himself in the lead role. As a writer, he serves up a story with nods to Edgar Allan Poe, H.G. Wells and The Godfather, a bit slow at the beginning but entertaining thereafter. As an actor, he is, as you would expect, very dependable throughout, his trademark voice and mannerisms conveying a sense of charm beneath which simmers a lurking menace. The result is a film which never has you on the edge of your seat but you can settle back to watch it comfortably enough.

So long as you don’t expect too much from it, The Vineyard is good fun, a nonsensical romp on an isolated island with plenty of cult moments to satisfy certain cravings. It possesses a unique charm, one which undoubtedly derives from its silly plot, unconvincing dialogue and performances, without which it wouldn’t quite so endearing.

Extras: Trailer

Review: Andromeda Season 1 / Cert: 15 / Director: Various / Screenplay: Various / Starring: Kevin Sorbo, Lisa Ryder, Gordon Michael Woolvett, Laura Bertram, Keith Hamilton Cobb, Brent Stait / Release Date: June 24th

Andromeda was based on an idea by Gene Roddenberry and developed after his death by Robert Hewitt Wolfe, who had previously worked on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Introduced like that, it sounds like a painful exercise in scraping the bottom of the barrel, but among late Nineties/early Noughties SF shows it’s actually quite a plum.

After a raging battle, Captain Dylan Hunt (Sorbo) and his starship, the Andromeda Ascendant, pride of the Systems Commonwealth, get trapped in the event horizon of a black hole, where they are frozen in time. Three hundred years later, the Andromeda is pulled free by a ragtag salvage team. In the interim, the Commonwealth has collapsed and the galaxies have degenerated into a state of dog-eat-dog anarchy. Hunt decides to put the pieces of the Commonwealth back together, and he cajoles his unwitting rescuers into helping him with this Herculean task.

Robert Hewitt Wolfe’s approach would nowadays be called Whedonesque. The tone is much more informal than that of the various Star Trek series. Everyone’s on first name terms, and Hunt’s (sorry, Dylan’s) attempts to impose military discipline on his civilian crew are doomed to failure. (“Captain on deck!” the ship’s AI declares grandly in one episode, while everyone slouches around indifferently, picking their nails.) Instead, the feel is of a dysfunctional family, with Hunt and First Officer Beka Valentine (Ryder) as long-suffering mum and dad, the bat-faced Rev Bem (Stait) as the kindly uncle, dreadlocked badass Tyr Anasazi (Cobb) as the surly and rebellious elder son, and with two squabbling kids in the form of brilliant but mischievous engineer Seamus Harper (Woolvett) and clueless Environmental Sciences officer Trance Gemini (Bertram) a dippy purple flower child with a prehensile tail.

It’s a delightfully motley cast of characters, and the scripts by Wolfe and his writing team are brimming with witty interplay. The show has no lack of darker themes – Hunt regularly encounters bitterness and mistrust from planets that remember only the bad things about the Commonwealth – but what really distinguishes it is this lively sense of the absurd, as when the crew hosts a diplomatic dinner for a race of bubbly-voiced gill people who do everything to ear-piercing musical cues. It’s bright, brash and doesn’t take itself too seriously, while still just about steering on the right side of camp, and on the whole it’s very endearing.

Looks-wise, Andromeda is very much of its time, but most of the early Noughties CGI pass muster and the alien prosthetics, although a little panto-ish in design, are well executed. The picture, digitally enhanced for this HD release, is as sharp as a Nietzschean bone blade, and the show’s pageant-like colour palette is now almost shockingly vivid. All in all, a Stellar Level event for fans of science fiction telly.

Extras: Alternate takes / Bloopers / Deleted Scenes