When you learn that a television series is putting together a themed release of episodes you imagine that they will pull from various seasons any installments that fit the bill. In the case of The Universe: Our Solar System, the kind of episodes you expect to find are pretty straightforward. Maybe they’ll throw in the moon episodes from seasons one and two. Of course they’ll have all the ones devoted to our planets, right? Nope. The amount of effort that went into producing this set was none. None whatsoever. This is just the first two discs of the first season repackaged (literally, not exaggerating).
What’s even worse about this set? In rushing to sell additional copies of the first season’s two discs, they omitted the episode about Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Now, Pluto may have gotten ousted from the pantheon of planets (poor thing), but it’s still technically within our solar system. They forgot an episode that covered an entire third of our solar system. Were a teacher to buy this set as a teaching aide, they’d be somewhat annoyed to find out they’ll have to revert to actual teaching once they passed Saturn. Furthermore, a few episodes just don’t belong at all (and they didn’t really mesh with the first season – which is why the copy and pasting here is even worse, they failed to right the wrongs of the first season). You can appreciate what the set could have been, but what we have here is nothing more than The History Channel attempting to milk additional money out of the show’s fans.
In fact, with a set titled “Our Solar System”, what the hell were they thinking including an episode called “Alien Galaxies”. I’m no astronomer, but I’m pretty sure that our Solar System doesn’t span multiple galaxies. If I remember correctly, we’re barely a blip in our own galaxy. Or how about “Life and Death of a Star”? Yeah, we have a star (hence it being a “solar” system), but the subject matter isn’t crucial to this system in particular.
Here’s what this set should have included:
From Season 1:
“Secrets of the Sun”, “Mars: The Red Planet”, “The Moon”, “Jupiter: The Giant Planet”, “The Inner Planets: Mercury & Venus”, “Saturn: Lord of the Rings”, “The Outer Planets”
From Season 2:
“Mysteries of the Moon”, “Colonizing Space”
From Season 4:
“The Day the Moon was Gone”
If you couldn’t tell, The Universe seems to have a hang-up on the moon, but to be fair it is an incredible circumstance of how it keeps our planet in check. Even so, the episodes mentioned above would make a more title-appropriate set than the verbatim repetition of season one’s first two discs.
Steer clear of this set and just buy the first season; it has all these episodes plus another disc. Do the math.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
They didn’t take the time to round up the relevant episodes, what were you actually expecting to be included as extras? There’s nothing here.
"The Universe: Our Solar System" is on sale August 24, 2010 and is not rated. Documentary. Written and directed by Laura Verklan. Starring Erik Thompson.
