"Actor: La La Anthony"

• Farscape 4.1 | DVD | (24/02/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  In its fourth series Farscape is as much dramatic and romantic fun as it's ever been and it's even more stylish than ever before. A pity, then, that this series is also the show's last, following its abrupt cancellation by the Sci-Fi Channel. If at times the tone seems a little lighter here than in its gloriously doom-laden predecessor, that is because its story arc is the first half of what was intended to cover two series and some of the material is clearly here for the long run. It is, for example, probably no coincidence that the priests' chant in "What Was Lost" has been part of the show's signature tune from the beginning. There are five episodes here. In "Crichton Kicks", Crichton has been a castaway for months on a senile Leviathan which is waiting its time to die. He has worked out wormhole technology, trained an orchestra of DRDs to sing the 1812 Overture, and is generally content, until his worldly resignation is shattered by the arrival of the beautiful, bossy and untrustworthy Sikozu, a bunch of aggressive butchers and a somewhat battered Chiana and Rygel. "What Was Lost Part 1: Sacrifice" takes them to an archaeological dig where they join Jool, D'Argo and the mysterious, annoying old woman Noranti and start to uncover lost secrets that change everything. In "What Was Lost Part 2: Resurrection" Crichton, drugged into bed by the seductive evil Peacekeeper Grayza, regains his self-respect by helping save yet another world. "Lava's a Many-Splendored Thing" is a puzzle episode: how to rescue an amber-encased Rygel from the bottom of a pool of lava without getting crisped or shot by renegades and how to use D'Argo's ship to rescue him when it is keyed to his DNA. Finally, "Promises" takes everyone back to Moya to find a dying Aeryn Sun and a Scorpius she has promised to protect--the issue here is how to outwit both a Peacekeeper torpedo and an extortionist with a big ship and a taste for hiding behind holograms. On the DVD: Farscape 4.1 has a very useful guide to the show's back-story as well as an interview with Anthony Simcoe ( D'Argo) and various character profiles and galleries. The deleted and extended scenes are unusually interesting--there is an exchange between Scorpius, Braca and Grayza which turns out later in the season to have been especially important. The DVD is presented in 4:3 visual aspect ratio and has Dolby Digital 5:1 sound. --Roz Kaveney

• Do You Wanna Know A Secret? | DVD | (27/12/2004) from £5.90   |  Saving you £-2.91 (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  When six college students arrive in Bayhead Florida for spring break they are ready to party in paradise. The students are rich kids who have known each other for years and are the best of friends... or so they think. What begins as a week of teenage bliss becomes a calculated nightmare when a fellow student is brutally murdered at a rave. Then one by one their friends go missing. On a stormy tropical night in an old church the friends will stand together to discover the meaning behind the sinister question: 'Do you wanna know a secret?

• Farscape 3.3 | DVD | (01/07/2002) from £22.96   |  Saving you £2.03 (8.10%)   |  RRP £24.99

  By now it's clear that the third season of Farscape is the show's most exciting but also the most convoluted to date. The story so far: the crew has been divided across Moya and her troublesome offspring, Talyn; Crichton is literally divided into two; and Scorpius is sometimes real (but with a Crichton clone in his head) and sometimes the neural clone "Harvey" inside Crichton's head. Confused? Better follow events closely as multiple plot strands diverge and intertwine, characters from previous seasons pop up when you least expect them, and weird stuff generally keeps on happening. The four episodes in this box set take the various story threads still further apart. "Incubator" has the real Scorpius showing his Crichton neural clone the tragic truth about his upbringing. Scarrans, it seems, are the real enemy after all. In "Meltdown", Talyn is captured by a Siren Sun and Stark becomes even more unhinged, while Chrichton and Aeryn just can't keep their hands off each other. "Scratch 'n' Sniff" provides some welcome comic relief with an episode shot like a kinky David Fincher pop video and co-starring Ben Browder's real-life wife as the incredibly annoying Raxil. Finally, the gripping and action-packed "Infinite Possibilities, Part 1: Daedalus Dreams" returns us to the season's primary story-arc: the search for wormhole technology and its potentially dire consequences. The cliffhanger ending will have you yelling at the TV for more. On the DVD: only four episodes instead of the usual five, it's true, but every one is a corker. There are a handful of extras, including more "Info Pods", some deleted scenes and fact files to round out the set. --Mark Walker

• Farscape 1.3 | DVD | (10/07/2000) from £9.98   |  Saving you £15.01 (60.10%)   |  RRP £24.99

  An international co-production of Jim Henson's Creature Shop, Australia's Channel 9 and Hallmark Entertainment, Farscape is genre television at its most ambitious, inspired both by the cult appeal of Babylon 5 and the continuing success of the Star Trek franchise. Making extensive use of CGI, prosthetics and state-of-the-art puppetry, Farscape takes a visual leap beyond previous shows. Admittedly, the basic premise may be borrowed from Buck Rogers (American astronaut catapulted to far-flung galaxy populated by strange aliens), while the crew have something of Blake's 7 about them (a motley bunch of escaped convicts pursued by a relentless foe), and ideas such as the living ship are borrowed from Babylon 5, but the Farscape concept has a freshness that makes it look and feel completely original. The production design is all bio-mechanical curves and the script never takes itself too seriously (fart jokes and double-entendres pop up when you least expect them). It must have been expensive to make, but it certainly looks (and sounds-in Dolby Digital 5.1) as if every penny made it to the screen. In true Buck Rogers style, Ben Browder plays leading man John Crichton as an all-American astronaut, although with a more believable sense of bewilderment; the supporting cast is a mixture of Australian and British actors, mostly disguised under heavy make-up.There are five more episodes from Season One on this third DVD box set. "They've Got a Secret" has D'Argo being accidentally ejected into space, as a result of which, secrets of his imprisonment are revealed. "Till the Blood Runs Clear" finds Crichton and Aeryn confronting bounty-hunters. In "The Flax", the crew get all tangled up with some Zenetan pirates. Blue-skinned Delvian priestess Zhaan meets more of her kind in "Rhapsody in Blue", but madness is the result. Finally, "Jeremiah Crichton" finds our human hero stranded on an earthly paradise where no machines will function; falling in love is just the beginning of his troubles.On the DVD: Special features here are a gallery of conceptual art and another star profile, this time of Anthony Simcoe's Luxan warrior character, D'Argo. --Mark Walker

• Farscape 2.5 | DVD | (22/10/2001) from £14.80   |  Saving you £10.19 (68.85%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The second season of Farscape expands upon and develops the characters introduced in the ambitious first season. John Crichton's new nemesis is the deadly Scorpius, replacing Crais who has taken the living ship Moya's offspring on a voyage into the unknown. Moya's regular crew--Aeryn, Zhaan, Chiana, D'Argo and Rygel--remain as divided and suspicious of each other as ever, yet somehow manage to pull together at times of crisis. The writers continue to exploit the show's gift for surprising as well as emotionally convincing character development, while the CGI effects, prosthetics and state-of-the-art puppetry--courtesy of Jim Henson's Creature Shop--continue to make Farscape the most original-looking sci-fi show on TV. The witty scripts, peppered with post-modern pop culture references and film in-jokes, are also a breath of fresh air. The result is episodic TV sci-fi that continually pushes at the accepted boundaries of the genre. --Mark Walker

• Farscape 4.4 | DVD | (14/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The fourth volume of Farscape's fourth (and final) series does all those things that the later stages of any season should do: individual episodes play interesting games with how we think television works, while the tension of the overall story arc builds and builds. Of the individual episodes here, "Mental as Anything" is an ensemble piece for the male members of Moya's crew: D'Argo's back-story gets some sort of resolution and Scorpius puts John Crichton through hell for the best of reasons. "Bringing Home the Beacon" is rather more fun-- the women of Moya frustrate a Sebacean/Scarren peace treaty--but ends in stark tragedy. In "Constellation of Doubt", Moya picks up, and the crew obsessionally watch, a documentary from American television about their recent visit to earth: Crichton gets to see human paranoia and wishful thinking through cold, intelligent alien eyes. Finally, in "Prayer", Aeryn suffers terribly at the hands of her Scarren captors and Crichton makes a devil's bargain with Scorpius to save her. By this point the season is building to the surprises of its last episodes: Farscape was about to be cancelled, but it never lost its edge. On the DVDs: Farscape, Series 4 Vol. 4 includes a dictionary of alien slang and technical terms with illustrative clips from the show, as well as text files on the villainous Peacekeepers Braca and Grayza. The high point of the extras, though, is an interview with the wonderfully flakey Gigi Edgeley (Chiana) and a lot of deleted scenes from "Constellation of Doubt", with footage of Chiana, Aeryn and Noranti interacting with Crichton's family in bizarre and touching ways. --Roz Kaveney

• The Lonely Guy / Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid / The Jerk | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The Lonely Guy (Dir. Arthur Hiller 1984): The one and only Steve Martin stars along with Charles Grodin and Tony Award winner Judith Ivey in this funny and poignant romance inspired by Bruce Jay Friedman's tongue-in-cheek survival manual. The Lonely Guy follows the progress of Larry (Steve Martin) and his buddy Warren (Charles Grodin) as they attempt to eke out a successful social life in the Big Apple. They're losers until one day Larry writes a book that turns loneliness into the ultimate love potion and life is never the same! Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (Dir. Carl Reiner 1982): As the private eye of private eyes Steve Martin is Rigby Reardon. He's tough rough and ready to take on anything when Juliet Forrest appears on the scene with a case: her father a noted scientist philanthropist and cheesemaker has died mysteriously. Reardon immediately smells a rat and follows a complex maze of clues that lead to the 'Carlotta Lists'. With a little help from his 'friends' Alan Ladd Barbara Stanwyck Ray Milland Burt Lancaster Humphrey Bogart Charles Laughton and others Reardon gets his man. An exciting action-fun packed film the way 40's films used to be! The Jerk (Dir. Carl Reiner 1979): That wild and crazy guy Steve Martin makes his acting debut in this wild and crazy comedy hit The Jerk. Steve portrays Navin Johnson adopted son of a poor black sharecropper family whose crazy inventions lead him from rags to riches and right back to rags. Along the way he's smitten with a lady motorcycle racer survives a series of screwball attacks by a deranged killer becomes a millionaire by inventing the opti-grab handle for eyeglasses - and shows why he's the hottest comic performer in America today.

• The Chase | DVD | (26/11/2001) from £7.71   |  Saving you £-1.72 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A bank robber on the run after shooting a policeman is pursued by both the law who want to capture him and the press who are anxious for his story...

• Farscape 4.5 | DVD | (25/08/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  This last ever sequence of Farscape episodes is as effective and powerful a climax as those of earlier seasons. The three-parter "We're So Screwed" (a title censored by the BBC in the UK) starts with "Fetal Attraction", in which the crew of Moya attempt to rescue the pregnant Aeryn Sun from her Scarren captors and end up starting a dangerous epidemic on a space station. They get Aeryn back and lose Scorpius; in "Hot to Katratzi", the necessity of saving his worst enemy--who just knows too much to be left a captive--forces John Crichton to gate-crash the Sebacean-Scarren peace conference and bluff his way to success. Seemingly betrayed by Scorpius, John snatches victory in "La Bomba", striking another deadly blow against the Scarren empire. The title of the last episode "Bad Timing" refers both to the show's cancellation--the cast and crew felt real bitterness towards the SciFi Channel over this--and to the cliff-hanger ending; the crew of Moya have to prevent a Scarren ship finding its way through the worm-hole to Earth. Farscape was perhaps the best ever television space opera and certainly the most sexy, stylish, funny and dramatic; it will be greatly missed. On the DVD: Farscape, Series 4 Part 5 presents the shows in 16:9 format with impressively loud Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. The special features include a documentary about the cancellation of Farscape, in which the cast talk about their shock and grief and fans talk about the "Save Farscape" campaign. There are a couple of extended versions of scenes from these episodes and an extensive blooper reel, much of it hilarious. Also included is an illustrated glossary of terms from the Uncharted Territories and a collection of interesting facts about these last four episodes. --Roz Kaveney

• Farscape 3.5 | DVD | (16/09/2002) from £15.98   |  Saving you £9.01 (36.10%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The final four episodes of Farscape's remarkable third season prove conclusively that this is the show's best and bravest year to date. Powerful issues of love, loyalty and sacrifice remain to be resolved, but after enduring a vertiginous emotional roller-coaster ride in recent episodes, Moya's reunited crew have no time to recuperate as Crichton determinedly calls them to arms for their sternest challenge yet. Scorpius and his Wormhole research must be destroyed at any price. Thus the scene is set to conclude the series' biggest story arc in a climactic confrontation aboard the Peacekeeper Command Carrier. In "I-Yensch, You-Yensch" the plan is set in motion, as a canny Rygel bargains with Scorpius and gains his grudging respect during an unexpected and tragi-comic heist by two murderously incompetent criminals. Then the two-parter "Into the Lion's Den" takes everyone onto the Command Carrier, where Aeryn is confronted by her past, Crichton's subconscious finally releases its Wormhole secrets, and Crais persuades Talyn to do something extraordinarily noble. By the end, it's hard not to sympathise with poor put-upon Scorpius. In the final episode, "Dog with Two Bones", Moya's crew seem finally free to go their separate ways as a mysterious refugee helps Crichton confront his worst fears about Aeryn. Emotions reach a climax and remain tantalisingly unresolved at the cliffhanger ending. On the DVD: Farscape, Volume 3.5 carries all the usual gallery of extra features--including deleted scenes, "Info-Pods" on Rygel, Crais and Scorpius, "Farscape Facts", trailers and stills--plus of course four uncut episodes. --Mark Walker

• Two Men Went To War | DVD | (05/05/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  This comedy drama is the story of two Army dentists Sergeant Peter King (Kenneth Cranham) and Private Leslie Cuthbertson (Leo Bill) who, in 1942 stole a bag of hand grenades, two revolvers and a set of the best dental equipment that money could buy and went off to invade occupied France on their own - without permission!
  Two Men Went To War tells their outrageously irresponsible, yet eccentrically heroic story for the first time. With an all star cast in a sumptuous, funny and moving drama...

• Farscape 3.2 | DVD | (06/05/2002) from £12.97   |  Saving you £15.01 (150.40%)   |  RRP £24.99

  With the third season well under way, it's clear that Farscape has developed into a grown-up show. There's a new self-confidence and a new maturity here that's entirely welcome after the often wildly erratic tone of the second season. The production design and high-quality effects work remain true to the show's original quirky style, although both the look and the more adult-themed scripts have become progressively darker. This second box set of Season 3 features five of the nastiest, most shocking and incident-packed episodes to date. Things start badly when psychotic madman Kaarvok kills D'Argo and Chiana and sucks out their brains. Only later do we discover he's "twinned" them when the same fate befalls Crichton--though both Crichton "twins" survive. Life just gets more and more complicated thereafter. Crichton twin 1 stays on Moya with D'Argo, Chiana and Jool, while Crichton twin 2 transfers to Talyn with Aeryn, Crais, Rygel and Stark. Talyn is being pursued by a Peacekeeper retrieval squad led by Aeryn's mum, Xhalax Sun, and is then swallowed by a Budong (in the Ben Browder-penned episode "Green-Eyed Monster") before Mrs Sun catches up with her daughter and pals. Back on Moya a mysterious "Energy Rider" possesses the crew in turn. Meanwhile on Talyn, Aeryn and Crichton twin 2 have been blissfully having sex, while Crais lusts vainly for Aeryn. Just wait until Scorpius gets involved. On the DVD: This box set contains the usual "Info Pods" and other extras, plus the first Region 2 commentary, for the episode "Relativity", with actor Lani Tupu and director Peter Andrikidis; it's a shame that they don't have a lot to say. --Mark Walker

• The Making Of Lawrence Of Arabia | DVD | (27/10/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A documentary about the making of the film 'Lawrence Of Arabia' which is the story of a British Officer T.E.Lawrence who helped the Arabs revolt against the Turks during World War I. Also includes rare footage of the production of this epic. Please note: this is a NTSC disc.

• The Magic Bubble | DVD | (03/09/2001) from £6.53   |  Saving you £-3.54 (-118.40%)   |  RRP £2.99

  Julia a unhappily married mother is magically transformed into a dynamic younger woman and falls in love with handsome Mac. Will her family survive?

• Farscape 4.3 | DVD | (19/05/2003) from £7.65   |  Saving you £17.34 (226.67%)   |  RRP £24.99

  In the episodes contained in this third volume, Farscape's fourth series finally kicks into gear and does some of the most surprising things a television show has ever done. The first three episodes are all Farscape classics, which take our expectations and jump up and down on them. "Unrealised Realities" takes John Crichton (Ben Browder) through a wormhole to be interrogated by a creature who regards the Ancients who put the knowledge of wormhole technology in his brain as annoying bumblers and who tells him a lot about time and about alternate universes. This gives the cast a chance to play each other again--Claudia Black's performance as Chiana is particularly disorientating. In "Kansas" John finds himself finally back on Earth, during his own adolescence, with the task of ensuring that his father does not die in the Challenger explosion and alter his personal history. The visit to his long-missed home continues in "Terra Firma" where the crew of Moya have to cope with Bush's America and John discovers the hard way--politics, family, old girlfriends, alien assassins--that you cannot go home again. Lastly in the moderately weaker "Twice Shy", Chiana (Gigi Edgeley) and the others learn that no good deed goes unpunished as a slave they rescue turns out to be one of the more deadly individual menaces they have ever faced. --Roz Kaveney

• Farscape 2.2 | DVD | (07/05/2001) from £19.27   |  Saving you £5.72 (22.90%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The second season of Farscape expands upon and develops the characters introduced in the ambitious first season. John Crichton's new nemesis is the deadly Scorpius, replacing Crais who has taken the living ship Moya's offspring on a voyage into the unknown. Moya's regular crew--Aeryn, Zhaan, Chiana, D'Argo and Rygel--remain as divided and suspicious of each other as ever, yet somehow manage to pull together at times of crisis. After revelations about Pilot's introduction to Moya in "The Way We Weren't", the writers continue to exploit the show's gift for surprising as well as emotionally convincing character development. The CGI effects, prosthetics and state-of-the-art puppetry, courtesy of Jim Henson's Creature Shop, continue to make Farscape the most original looking sci-fi show on TV. The witty scripts, peppered with post-modern pop culture references and movie in-jokes, are also a breath of fresh air. The result is episodic TV sci-fi that continually pushes at the accepted boundaries of the genre. On the DVD: the four episodes included here are all distinguished by ambitious storytelling, somewhat let down in the execution. In "Picture if You Will", an old enemy returns with a truly bizarre and barely comprehensible scheme to imprison Moya's crew inside a picture (shades of Dorian Gray maybe?). "Home on the Remains" has a contrived plot that harks right back to classic Star Trek, with Crichton even quoting Jim Kirk (the highlight, though, is Zhaan's transformation, which gives a whole new meaning to hay fever). Both "Dream a Little Dream" and "Out of Their Minds" play around with the crew's perceptions of reality--the former is a curious flashback episode set in between the first and second season, as Zhaan is put on trial for murder on a dystopian planet run by lawyers; the second plays body-swap with the crew, with everyone obviously having fun pretending to be everyone else (the aliens, however, look like leftovers from The Dark Crystal). DVD extras include a handful of deleted scenes, a DVD-ROM screensaver and yet another photo gallery. --Mark Walker

• Nomi Song-Klaus Nomi Odyssey | DVD | (17/10/2005) from £10.78   |  Saving you £-2.79 (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.99

  He came from outer space to save the human race. Part documentary part music film part sci-fi The Nomi Song is a 'non-fiction film' or maybe even an oral history. It's not just the tale it's the telling. But it is also visual partly because Klaus himself was so visual someone who's main concern was putting forth an image of himself in everything he did - literally illustrated by the photos films videos and artworks that go with it and featuring many never before seen live performances. However there are also the images that the stories conjure up images that no actual picture could capture that emerge out of impressions memories and even exaggerations fermenting in somebody's brain for twenty years. It's like a novel with a whole cast of characters and supporting players - revealing themselves as much as (and sometimes more than) they do Klaus - with subplots background stories flashbacks and contradictions.

• Farscape 2.4 | DVD | (27/08/2001) from £25.00   |  Saving you £-0.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  The second season of Farscape expands upon and develops the characters introduced in the ambitious first season. John Crichton's new nemesis is the deadly Scorpius, replacing Crais who has taken the living ship Moya's offspring on a voyage into the unknown. Moya's regular crew--Aeryn, Zhaan, Chiana, D'Argo and Rygel--remain as divided and suspicious of each other as ever, yet somehow manage to pull together at times of crisis. The writers continue to exploit the show's gift for surprising as well as emotionally convincing character development, while the CGI effects, prosthetics and state-of-the-art puppetry, courtesy of Jim Henson's Creature Shop, continue to make Farscape the most original looking sci-fi show on TV. The witty scripts, peppered with post-modern pop culture references and movie in-jokes, are also a breath of fresh air. The result is episodic TV sci-fi that continually pushes at the accepted boundaries of the genre. --Mark Walker

• Farscape 2.1 | DVD | (12/03/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Farscape is genre television at its most ambitious, inspired both by the cult appeal of Babylon 5 and the continuing success of the Star Trek franchise, but taking a visual and conceptual leap beyond those shows. Making extensive use of CGI, prosthetics and state-of-the-art puppetry, courtesy of Jim Henson's Creature Shop, the Farscape concept has a freshness that makes it look and feel completely original. The production design is all bio-mechanical curves and the script, which is peppered with post-modern pop culture references and movie in-jokes, never takes itself too seriously. It may be expensive to make, but it certainly looks (and sounds--in Dolby Digital 5.1) like every penny made it to the screen. Ben Browder plays leading man John Crichton as a latter-day Buck Rogers but with an entirely believable sense of bewilderment, not to mention loss; the rest of the living ship Moya's crew also has plenty of difficult issues to deal with, allowing Farscape's writers licence to develop their characters in often unexpected ways. The result is episodic TV sci-fi that continually pushes at the accepted boundaries of the format. Box Set 6: after the nail-biting cliffhanger at the end of the first, the second series gets off to a shaky start in "Mind the Baby", as all the loose plot ends have to be gathered and resolved. Crais apparently has a change of heart, and Scorpius takes his place as Crichton's new nemesis. In "Vitas Mortis" D'Argo falls for a lonely Luxan, with catastrophic and barely plausible results for Moya. "Taking the Stone" showcases Chiana's grief in an episode that manages to be even more confusing. Fortunately by the fourth episode, "Crackers Don't Matter", the show has really hit its stride once again: the crew slowly succumbs to a state of paranoia-fuelled madness, fighting and trying to kill one another thanks to the presence of an odd light-seeking alien. Crichton has a string of great lines ("I hate it when villains quote Shakespeare") and much fun doing an impersonation of Jack Nicholson in The Shining. In "The Way We Weren't" there are shocking revelations about both Aeryn and Pilot's past lives and the show's gift for surprising as well as emotionally convincing character development is once more brought to the fore. Extra features on the DVD include a handful of deleted scenes, cast biographies, a picture gallery and TV trailer. --Mark Walker

• Matrix: Reloaded | UMD | (25/11/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99