Heroes: Season One Seven - Disc HD DVD Box Set Review

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Title: Heroes Season 1 Seven – Disc HD DVD Box Set

Region: N/A

Media: HD DVD

Genre: Sci-Fi Comic Book/Graphic Novel Action Drama

Stars: Sendal Ramamurthy, Santiago Cabrera, Adrian Pasdar, Greg Grunberg, Masi Oka, Milo Ventimiglia, Hayden Panettiere, Ali Larter, Noah Gray-Cabey, Leonard Roberts, Tawny Cypress, Jack Coleman, James Kyson Lee, Zachary Quinto, Ashley Crow, Cristine Rose, and Jimmy Jean-Louis

Guest Stars: Eric Roberts, Richard Roundtree, Clea Duval, Stan Lee, Malcolm McDowall, George Takei, and Christopher Eccleston

Created By: Tim Kring

Feature length: 16 Hours and 49 Minutes

HD DVD Exclusive Extras: (U) Control Interactive Bonus Features That Include Character Connections, Helix Revealed, Picture In Picture Video Commentary, Artwork Presentation

HD DVD Exclusive Web Enabled Features: Downloadable Exclusive Content, Trailers, and Genetic Abilities Test

Additional Extra Features: 73-Minute Unaired Premiere Episode With Optional Audio Commentary By Series Creator Tim Kring, 50 Deleted Scenes, The Making Of Heroes Featurette, The Special Effects Featurette, The Stunts Featurette, Profile Of Artist Tim Sale Featurette, The Score Featurette, Mind Reader Game

Languages: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Plus Surround Sound and Dolby Surround Sound

Subtitles: English Subtitles For The Deaf And Hearing Impaired And French Language Subtitles

Packaging: Seven-Disc Digipack Gatefold Within A Cardboard Slipcase

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Plus Surround Sound and Dolby Surround Sound

Year of HD DVD Release: 2007

Home Video Distributor: Universal Studios Home Entertainment

MPAA Rating: Not Rated

Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera

What a fantastic show? Heroes received a lot of good press last year and had frequent second airings on SCI FI Channel, which is a part of the NBC Universal family of television networks. This was nothing new. During the 2005 – 2006 television season, SCI FI often aired encores of Surface, a program that I feel at the very least deserves to be revisited to have it’s storylines resolved the way FOX revisited Alien Nation in the mid 1990s with a series of TV films, four years after canceling the cult series. Well, I don’t want to get carried away now with a “Save Surface” crusade, but there are only so many TV shows one really has time to watch these days and after investing a year on Surface only to have it cancelled, I just was not ready to invest my time in another a genre soap opera. Boy was I wrong not to give Heroes a chance.

Heroes owes a debt to Stan Lee and Marvel Comics’ X-Men series, but the show from the very beginning honors the graphic novel/comic book roots and manages to stay clear of the clichés one expects to discover in shows of this type. Heroes is also completely different from other superhero TV series that have lasted longer than one season this decade on American television. It has a larger scope that is epic in nature and since it is not based on any pre-existing comic book characters or series like Smallville and Mutant X, Series Creator Tim Kring and the Writers and Producers behind the show can introduce truly interesting storyline twists to their TV season story arcs that are not bound by any pre-conceived or ordained rules established elsewhere. They are creating their world one episode at a time and the fact that Stan Lee actually makes a cameo in the series to me says that Kring and company are moving in the right direction. Heroes is the best new television show of the 2006 – 2007 television season I never watched until it came on home video and as far as TV on DVD sets are concerned and particularly, TV on HD DVD, Universal Studios Home Entertainment’s Seven – Disc Box Set is not only the benchmark for all high definition television programs on disc to follow regardless of what media, Heroes: Season One Seven – Disc HD DVD Box Set also raises the bar on HD DVD box sets in general.

Each episode of the 23 installments spread out across the seven HD-30 gigabyte dual layered discs features the (U) Control interactivity that so far Blu-ray Disc at the time of this writing has not been able to match. Depending upon the episode, viewers can get interactive access without interrupting the program to character connections, a guide to the mysterious Helix symbol that appears throughout the show, stunning artwork presentations of Tim Sale’s work that is as much a character in the series as any of the shows recurring or regular cast members. There are also exclusive picture-in-picture cast and crew video commentaries to eight episodes that even include guest stars like George Takei, whose performance on the show is so different from anything I have seen him in before that I am at the same time upset that Star Trek to some extent typecast him as “Sulu” and yet I am thankful that at least this series has given me the opportunity to appreciate Mr. Takei’s acting ability beyond what I already knew from some of his pre-Star Trek work in feature films like Hell To Eternity. Other noteworthy guest stars to appear in the first season of Heroes include Eric Roberts, Richard Roundtree, Clea Duval, Malcolm McDowall, and Christopher Eccleston.

This is also Universal Studios Home Entertainment’s first HD DVD release to include web enabled features that simply require a direct Ethernet cable connection to the back of one’s HD DVD player and a quick set up of the player’s internet connection feature and then you are good to go. A booklet containing easy set up instructions is included within the DVD set. Once you are connected, you register and then you have access to the Heroes Genetic Abilities Test and the Download Center, where new content is updated and made available to download quickly to the persistent storage allotted hard drive space built into one’s HD DVD player. You do not need a computer with an HD DVD drive to enjoy this feature. If you have a broadband Internet connection and an HD DVD player then you should be set. I used my first generation high end Toshiba HD DVD Player HD-XA1 and had no problem accessing these features at all. The genetic abilities test basically matches your answers up to a character from the series and gives you a password, which can then be used to upload your profile and access exclusive content at www.nbc.com/Heroes/hddvd. In the download section there were a few trailers, but the quality was not HD quality. Frankly as a first use of this feature by Universal Studios Home Entertainment, I found the features to be no better and no worse than any of the early DVD-ROM features that required a PC with a DVD-ROM drive back when DVD-ROM drives were considered more of a luxury and DVD burners were simply priced too high for the average consumer to justify buying. I like the fact that these are evolving features and these are features that do not require a hardware upgrade or even a PC with an HD DVD drive. Odds are if you own an HD DVD drive then you have everything you need already and you can clear the memory to add new content at anytime.

Additional non-exclusive features found within the DVD set include the never aired 73-minute premiere episode with audio commentary by Tim Kring. Personally I prefer the 23 series episodes that did air on NBC and with the vast amount of characters in the series, it is easier to follow what is going on when the storylines for the various characters are divided up. There are also fifty deleted scenes spread out across the seven discs and a mind reading game as well as featurettes that cover the making of the series, the special effects, stunts, musical score and a profile of Artist Time Sale.

All of the 23 series episodes as well as the unaired 73-minute premiere episode are presented beautifully in VC-1 encoded high definition resolution up to 1080p where available and feature English Dolby Digital 5.1 Plus Surround Sound and English Subtitles for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired as well as French Language Subtitles encoded as options. English Dolby Surround Sound is provided for select bonus features. The seamless interactive menus work flawlessly and are easy to navigate.

Heroes Season 1 Seven – Disc HD DVD Box Set is available now at retailers on and offline courtesy of Universal Studios Home Entertainment. The second season of Heroes is set to premiere on NBC Monday, September 24, 2007. Please check your local TV listings for channel and time.

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