Sooo, about the Forever Knight: The Complete Series box set

[abby82]

Let's see a show of hands if you were eagerly awaiting the new Forever Knight complete series box set. 

I know I was. 

The artwork looked very promising and while Mill Creek itself has a less than stellar reputation when it comes to their products, I was willing to give them a fair shake. After all, they acquired the rights to Quantum Leap and released a complete blu-ray collection with almost all the original music.  That for me is admirable. Due to expensive music rights issues, the original DVD release only had a handful of the original songs. They also got the rights to Friday Night Lights, another favorite of mine, and their release was respectable. 

So they get Forever Knight and while it's not a blu-ray release, I'm rightfully excited. There was of course the pretty, pretty cover art to admire. 

The good news, unfortunately stops there.

Inside you will not find your typical slim digipak snap case like other repackaged series. Instead, we get a two sided piece of cardboard with a slip for a disc in the middle. Wut? In total there are six pieces of cardboard and a total of 12 discs. To open the box you have to lift the the flap from the top of the box and peer inside to see the cardboard disc holders.  I found two unboxings online here and here if you're interested. 

The discs themselves are nice. They list the episodes contained in the disc, as well as the season. The Toronto skyline is displayed elegantly in red on the lower left bottom quadrant. Each season has four discs. 

It's just disappointing. They were so close to having a lovely release. It's almost like they spent almost all their money on the key art that they completely forgot about the case for the discs. 

 

 

:(

 

The initial menu is...interesting. Okay, it's rather unattractive. I get what they were trying to do. The cross motif from the original release is present in this release but honestly they should have just kept it simple. The eyes are just ugly creepy. Forever Knight as a show had some style to it. I would never use the word ugly to describe it. Instead, it makes me think of the artwork for 28 Days Later. That's right, zombies instead of vampires. By this point, they've already got you're money so the interior aesthetics don't really matter as much as the exterior ones. And of course it's still Forever Knight and Forever Knight is just so good. Hopefully people won't be turned off by Mill Creek dropping the ball in the last couple of yards and give the show a shot.

If you're looking to downsize your DVD collection and want something to take up less shelf space, then this one's for you. When on the shelf, the spine is about 3/4ths the size of the season 1 box set and a smidgen shorter. And it is an attractive box. While I like the way the trilogy of the original releases look next to each there, this box is just really attractive. 

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Edited to add: Pics comparing the new set to the old Trilogy releases can be found on my Tumblr here

Comments

[greerwatson]

Abbey, are these your photos? (Or where did you get them?) I'm doing a page on the FK wiki for the box set; and I'd like to illustrate it.

[abby82]

Yep, they're mine. You're definitely welcome to them if they're useful. :-)

I kept struggling with DW not letting me post the photos behind a cut. To save myself the grief I've placed a few more pics of the box set in a Tumblr post. They're mostly the same photos but the post does have a better picture of the cardboard slips that house the discs as well as a size comparison with the original DVD releases. You're welcome to those as well.

The post is here: https://planetstarclaw.tumblr.com/post/186179949502/the-forever-knight-complete-box-set-has-arrived

[nicholas_lucien]

Got mine yesterday and I would agree with everything you have said. I know I was a little shocked when I saw the graphics on the disc menu. You weren't expecting it, and definitely not quite like that.

[abby82]

I hope yours was in better condition than mine. It came rather banged up in a semi padded envelope.

Yeah that disc menu ::shudders:: It was not good. It's frustrating because it they had a pretty elegant selection of images to work with. The box itself was really nicely done. If they had just opted to not go with the eyes, it would have improved it drastically. Hell, throw in a promotional still of the Raven like the one used in the first FK CD. They obvious they were going for the vampire angle more than the human one, so that would have fit in beautifully.

Oh well. At least the box looks nice on my DVD/Blu-Ray bookcase. :-)

[pj1228]

Thanks for the reminder! I had completely forgotten about the re-release.
Do you already know if the pilot is the uncut Canadian version this time?
Are the extras also on this set? Is there any hint if these DVDs are region 1 only or region-free like the old ones, so that they also play in Europe?

[abby82]

Sadly, we don't get the uncut version of DK. There's no mention of Nick commenting to the police officer about smelling Schanke's cologne or Nick to talking to Alyce about how the knight "couldn't relieve himself" :( Although I did notice that the CBS Stereo Sound is not longer present in the opening seconds. It's also missing from the American iTunes version of the episode. The Crimetime After Primetime opening is still present though, lol.

There are also no extras which I honestly wasn't expecting there to be. When Mill Creek gets the rights to a series that had seen an earlier DVD release, the features haven't translate over. I believe it's usually because the features are owned by the studio that produced the original release and Mill Creek either chooses to not or can't license the features for their release. They only license the show itself.

The box states that these are only Region 1 and NTSC standard but I imagine that they would play on a region free DVD player.

[pj1228]

Thanks for sharing your insight. Too bad that it's again the cut version. I need to get my VHS tape from the British SKY version digitalised.

The old DVDs also say they are region 1 on the back cover. But they play on my region 2 player in spite of that. I wish I knew for sure.

>I imagine that they would play on a region free DVD player.<

Unfortunately my region-free DVD player ceased working several years ago. They are no longer available here. Too bad.

[abby82]

About 10 years ago I purchased a VHS/DVD recorder for the expressed purpose of digitizing the Sci-Fi channel version of Dark Knight that I had. It coincided with the time that I purchased off another fan some VHS tapes of the actors' earlier works. I was so excited to have them that I prioritized that over converting DK. Because the universe hates me, my brand new recorder died on me after 6 months before I could even get to DK. It was expensive and heavy and I was disappointed that I pretty much bought a piece of junk that I never looked into buying a new one. I'm also skeptical of buying one second hand considering my bad luck with the first one.

>The old DVDs also say they are region 1 on the back cover. But they play on my region 2 player in spite of that. I wish I knew for sure.<

Hopefully the price will come down in the future to the point you might feel comfortable purchasing the set. Then hopefully you can see if the same thing applies to the new set. :-)

Forever Knight DVDs

[waltd]

First, I didn't know that the series had been re-released. Hurray!

Next, I've had the original DVDs for I don't know how long. I was walking through Walmart one day, and there were seasons one and two for $10 each. You had better believe that I picked them up immediately. They never did have the third season. Had to pay full price for that one. :-)

Third, I always found that including the CBS Crimetime after Primetime to be amusing. The biggest setback with the original release is that none of the discs have anything printed on them other than the season and the disc order number. Also, the accompanying summaries, while helpful, don't indicate which episodes are on which disc. There are about 4 episodes per disc, but it does vary.

It's great that the full series is available again. For a long time it was very hard to find season three.