Lois & Clark: The Complete Fourth Season
Review by Zach Demeter "Bird Boy"
Announce
Date: 8/16/06Street Date: 11/14/06
Closed Captioning: Yes
MSRP: $59.98
Packaging Type: Digi-Pack
Subformat: Multi Disc
Media Quantity: 6
Disc Configuration: 1) 9-Dual Layer 2) 9-Dual Layer 3) 9-Dual Layer 4) 9-Dual Layer 5) 9-Dual Layer 6) 5-Single Sided
Soundtrack Language: English
Run Time: 1002
Subtitles: Francais, Espanol
Aspect Ratio: Original Aspect Ratio - 1.33, Standard [4:3 Transfer]
Sound Quality: English: Stereo 2S
Special Features
Kryptonian Kronology: Dean Cain Hosts an Interactive History of Superman Timeline
Review
Flying alongside the final seasons of the George Reeve’s Adventures of Superman DVD release comes Lois & Clark The Complete Fourth Season. Like the Reeve’s set, this fourth season DVD of Lois & Clark covers the shows final season with a six disc, twenty-two episode collection.
The shows fourth season shows us the couple finally getting married (in an appropriately named episode, “Swear to God, This Time We’re Not Kidding.”) after seasons of teasing from the writers. In addition, we see appearances from such comic villain staples as Deathstroke and Mxyzptlk though they are admittedly not direct adaptations. Still, throughout all the goofiness that is this season and it’s myriad of kooky tales, some of which are penned by Firefly executive producer Tim Minear, which stand out as some of the strongest of the season.
Even as a kid, Dean Cain was one of my favorite actors to portray the Man of Steel and he still holds up to this day. Had Brandon Routhe not been discovered and a movie been made closer to Lois & Clark’s final episode, I would have loved to have seen Cain take on Superman for the silver screen—too bad he’s relegated to playing special feature introducer on these season sets.
All in all if you can look past the very 90s TV vibe, cheesy effects and hokey plotlines, this set makes for a relatively entertaining collection of episodes. Just don’t expect to be blown away by too much if you’ve never seen the show before—it definitely has it’s audience among Superman fans and the internet, but it’s not as much of a classic show as some would like.
The DVD
Slip case, dual layer digi-paks and…repetitious disc art? Yup, this set has an attractive packaging and pleasant disc layout, but the disc art itself is questionable. Discs 1 and 2 feature the same image of Superman, Discs 3 and 4 show the same image of Lois and Clark and Discs 5 and 6 display the same image of Lois. I’m all for varied disc art and saving a buck, but this is a very odd disc art choice—having never seen the other sets before, I don’t know if it’s the same for all of them…but curious all the same. Menus are easy to navigate and feature music over the main menu only.
Video is very clean and clear to look at, surprisingly. I had expected
this to look similar to the live-action The Flash DVD release
from earlier this year, but this doesn’t feature nearly as much grain
and distortion as I thought it would. There is some aliasing and
ghosting to be seen in the video at times, but aside from the few
instances, it’s a clean and clear transfer—very nice surprise. Audio is clean and clear and comes through in stereo perfectly. Voices are audible, sound effects are loud enough and the music doesn’t drown out any of the other ambient noises. Overall, the video and audio department is very satisfactory for a show from the 90s.
Special features? There is one—Dean Cain hosts an interactive timeline and aside from a few mentions and clips of Lois & Clark…I really don’t know what relevance this featurette has to do with this set aside from Dean Cain hosting. From what I could tell, they referenced Bruce Timm’s cartoons more than they did Lois & Clark, which makes for a curious choice…
In any case, the time line features both clips from Dean Cain explaining the history of Superman as well as text only entries. Anyone who’s kept up on their comic and film history will not be surprised by any of what’s contained in this featurette, but it’s a nice refresher for those who need it.
Overall the set doesn’t disappoint in being a collection of the series fourth season, but the special features could’ve used some more activity. No commentaries or cast interviews? I don’t know what other sets were like for this series, but it’s a disappointment for those who enjoy the series if there’s not much to watch aside from the series itself.
