Gargoyles: 10th Anniversary Edition (1994)
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Cast:
Extras: Commentary Track, Featurette, Show Pitch
Rating:

To celebrate the TV show’s 10th Anniversary, Buena Vista Home Entertainment is now releasing 2-disc DVD set of ’Gargoyles,’ an animated series that has long garnered accolades and the reputation for being one of the best, animated shows ever to grace the TV screen. This DVD set contains all 13 episodes of the show’s first season along with some extras.

Almost the entire first disc contains ’The Awakening’ in its five parts, which in many ways sets up the entire series in terms of tone, atmosphere and plotlines. From there it then takes off into the additional episodes.

The show is presented in its original fullframe presentation on the DVD and the transfer is absolutely clear, free of any speckles or blemishes. Occasionally a bit of grain is visible but it is never distracting form the viewing experience. Colors are bold and vibrant throughout, firmly rendering the image with great edge-delineation and solid, black lines. No edge-enhancement mars the image and the compression is also mostly free of artifacts, though occasionally a bit of dot dot crawl is evident.

The audio on the release comes as a Dolby Stereo track that is balanced and perfectly suits the show. Dialogues are well integrated and are never drowned out by music or sound effects.

As supplements the DVD contains a commentary track for all the ’Awakening’ episodes. You will also find the original pitch by Greg Weisman on the DVD. It is a 4-minute video clip in which Weisman tells the basic premise of the show, it’s main characters and some general plot, all illustrated by pre-production artwork.

’The Gathering Of The Gargoyles’ is a featurette covering the success of the show from the view of the creators and the fans alike.

’Gargoyles’ is definitely one of the better, animated series and features pretty good storylines and voice acting – not to mention the Shakespearean references found throughout the series. While I wouldn’t consider it ’the best’ like many fans of the show it is definitely worth seeing if you have a faible for mythology, fantasy and Japanese animation.