Rating: 
Summary: Be Sure to buy the re-issued Hercules Season 1 boxed set!!!
Review: Okay, for those that might not be aware, Anchor Bay Entertainment recently re-issued the Hercules and Xena season 1 boxed sets with additional bonus material. In the case of Hercules, it's a 60 minute documentary on disc 3 called "The Men Behind the Myth," which is immediately followed by a 30 minute conversation between Kevin Sorbo and director Bill Norton. Believe me, these documentaries are worth it so be sure to buy the boxed set that has "Exclusive Bonus Material" written on the front cover above the Hercules logo. My original season 1 boxed set that I purchased a month ago didn't have these bonuses on disc 3 so I had to trade it in for the re-released set.
With that out of the way, this really is a great DVD set that no Hercules fan should miss out on. The grainy picture quality that plagued the Xena season 1 boxed set is not a problem here. The picture is sharp and the sound is crisp. The few audio and video commentaries by Kevin Sorbo and Michael Hurst are insightful, but I only wish they could have done more of them, especially for some of the movies. Disc 8 is full of supplemental material for your CD-ROM Drive that takes forever to load and navigate through for those of us not fortunate enough to own high-speed computers. Some of the goodies offered here would have been cool if they'd just allowed it to be accessible through your DVD player. I don't see the point of the different format for the final disc. Overall, however, I found this set to be very well done and a welcome additon to my DVD library. I can't wait for the season 2 boxed set!
Rating: 
Summary: CHEESE IS GOOD.
Review: The co-produced USA Studios and Univerals productions of Hercules: TLJ and Xena: WP will forever be known as cheese-fests, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The cheese factor in both of these series is what actually makes them both entertaining and fun to watch. If it's not Xena's screeching battle-cry or Herc's absolutley ridiculous (and not funny) jokes, it's the over-the-top fight scenes and the fight of good over evil that makes these series an absolute joy to watch.Another aspect to these series that always attracted me to them was the half-way decent wardrobe department. The costumes that both the good guys (and civilians) and the bad guys wore were always fairly attractive and well suited (no pun intended) for the job. The armor costumes for the bad guys and creatures were always a high point for me. Nothing like a tall warlord dressed in a half bronze and leather strap armor set. Take for instance Xena's second in command who later turns against her. Great costume. But anyway, how's the DVD set? The DVD set although a bit over spaced, IMO, (they could have fit the entire set onto 6 DVDs rather than 7), is a much better presentation than the first season set of Xena that came out earlier this year. However, that's due to the different film stocks used during the filming of these two series. Hercules was always filmed with 35mm film which tranfers fairly well to DVD. However the first two seasons (I think, but I may be wrong) of Xena were filmed on 16mm film and as you may guess, doesn't transfer well to DVD. And so the quality sometimes struggles to stay above VHS quality. But the Hercules set stays well within fullscreen DVD standards for a TV series at least. So you have nothing to worry about here for picture quality. The sound quality is on par with the Xena set. Remastered in 5.1 Surround, the LFE channel is used quite extensively with the music track and quite a bit for special effects. The surrounds bring in a subtle surround presense with environmental effects and music. The content itself? This set includes the first 5 Action-Pack movies that basically set up the series and introduces a few of the main characters along with the 13 episodes that make up the short but well rounded first season. These 13 episodes include what is known as the "Xena Trilogy" which introduces the character Xena and how she turns her life of murdererous warrior-ness around to befriending Hercules and fighting for the forces of good against those of the like she was once apart of. Lucy Lawless co-stars in a couple other roles before she takes the character of Xena. Rene O'Conner also co-stars in one of the movies in some other role, but basically plays the same character-type as Gabrielle. Overall, I'm pleased with this set and look forward for the rest of Anchor Bays' releases of Hercules and Xena.
Rating:
Summary: Superb!
Review: This DVD is great, with all the original action pack movies how can you go wrong.
Rating:
Summary: PERFECT for Hercules fans!
Review: This DVD set is great. Not only do you get the 5 TV movies, but you get the 13 episodes that made up Season 1. I was kinda skeptical about this DVD set at first because I heard some people were upset about the Xena DVD sets, but the Hercules DVD set is a perfect purchase for us Hercules fans. The episodes look and sound better than they did on TV. The commentaries by Kevin Sorbo and Michael Hurst are entertaining and very funny. They even provide video commentary of Sorbo and Hurst physically watching the episode they are providing commentary on. This DVD set is excellent. The only disappointments I found from this set were minor things. I always loved the TV promo ads (previews of each episode on TV when it was coming out), and I was hoping those really cool promos would be in the set, but they weren't. Plus the scene selections seem to random and to few for each episode, but other than that it's perfect. All fans should purchase this!
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