After a long wait, the classic Fireball Xl5 has finally been released on DVD. Due to an unfortunate set of circumstances, it has not been released in the UK, where all Anderson shows have been initially released. This time, the honour goes to the US who has issued a boxed set of the complete series of Fireball Xl5. One break from tradition deserves another, so this review is actually put together from reviews by Theo de Klerk, Kelly Lannan and Simon Wickes

DVD Features:

• Region1 NTSC
• Black and White
• Dolby sound
• All 39 episodes on 5 discs
• Commentary by director Alan Patillo on "Space City Special"
• Commentary by voice artist David Graham on "The Doomed Planet"
• Featurette: "The Noble Art of TV21" with artist Mike Noble
• photo gallery

Purchase Fireball XL5 DVD from Amazon

The set consists of 5 ordinary DVD boxes with identical front cover pictures (a big b/w head of Steve Zodiac) and a simple contents listing on the back. The lettering and purple colour somewhat make it look like the typical not-so-scary SciFi movies of the late fifties.

The five boxes are stored in a surrounding paperbox - like the Stingray and Captain Scarlet set, but the box really is only paper and bound to get damaged very easily. All 39 b/w episodes are on the 5 discs. Unlike the Carlton releases these discs are set for Region 1 only.

Next to the episodes there are a small number of extras:

A commentary by David Graham on disc 1 episode "Doomed Planet". This is best listened to as a radio documentary as it has no relevance to the episode at hand.

Director Alan Patillio comments on the almost final episode "Space City Special" he directed. He keeps to the story and the XL5 productions. Alan is fast speaking and I cannot suppress the idea of him reading the text from paper in order to squeeze in as much information as he could rather than ad-lib'ing his way through. He made also some nice compliments to Barry Gray.

There is a featurette on the comic strip art of XL5 in TV21 with Mike Noble (and a little bit on Zero-X and Captain Scarlet). This looks like an interview that Jeff Smart has made (with credits to Graham Bleathman and Kelly Lannan) and fitted here nicely. It is an informative interview (or monologue rather). It also covers the "Look-in" comics Mike did like Robin Hood, Follyfoot and finally Space:1999.

Photo galleries. Where they do use the full frame of the tv rather than the Carlton habit of using only a quarter of the screen real estate, the photo galleries are merely screen captures of the show. Something everyone can make himself these days.

Things clearly missing on this set of DVDs are photos of behind-the-scene, the commercials for Lyon Maid. And with some more research no doubt adverts for toys, mini-EPs could have been found. But there probably is not an awful lot to be added as the time of" The Making of" featurettes had not started.

Picture quality is perfect - including the shiny strings. The audio is great too. The pilot episode however has its opening titles out of sync with the sound being ahead of the picture. For the price, I think it is a great asset and will allow me to remove the videotapes of the series. Now got the "definitive" version. Especially when Carlton currently does not intend to release them in PAL for Europe.

The extras are a bit non-existant too; Hell, try as I might, I can't even find the Lyons Maid Zoom advert with Steve and Venus on any of the discs: obviously they couldn't be bothered or get clearance for it outside of the UK, which is a bit sad. The only real highlights are 2 commentaries (on a boxed set of 39 episodes...poor!). A some photo galleries, although I can't quite work out if they're just frame captures of actual scans....methinks the former; I'll know as I spin through more of them.

But the definition of the prints is startling, even on my Sony Profeel monitor....so much so that I can see the wood grain in XL5's hull!! I can even make out the little mesh grills in those little bumps near the back of Fireball Jr.... something I've *never* seen before! I've seen them in artwork but always thought them an embellishment by the artists....no they are actually there! A nice buy but something I feel Carlton have really cheated the fans on by not providing us with a better quality PAL version with nicer extras, (that undoubtedly would have been provided for the home UK market).

The quality of the prints is superb, as is the sound, which has been remastered in glorious mono dolby. No special sound effects here, thankfully. Despite the lack of hard-wearing box, at least they come in individual DVD cases. The UK releases of the later Anderson shows like UFO and Joe 90 were notable for the cheapness of the packaging, basically just a big bit of cardboard. This is much better. Also noticeable is a complete lack of content in the form of a booklet. Kind of sad, but then again, we really just want the shows on DVD, and that is what they have delivered.