Ancient Aliens: Season 5, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Ancient Aliens: Season 5, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 5, 2014

As much grief as I regularly give certain History Channel outings (simply reference the new Big History for a salient example), they occasionally do manage to surprise, and over the course of the past few years, Ancient Aliens has often been an unexpectedly interesting series, despite the fact that its premise seems ripped from the headlines—of the National Enquirer. However, there’s another reason to give History some grief—namely, their truly weird and haphazard methods of releasing this show on Blu-ray. Just look back on what they’ve done so far and you’ll get some idea of how piecemeal their high definition releases have been: Ancient Aliens: Season 1 came out in November of 2010, which was followed almost two years later by The Best of Ancient Aliens (which included an episode already on the Season 1 set), and then two months after that we got Ancient Aliens: Season 4. Now comes the really oddly named Ancient Aliens: Season 5, Volume 2. Excuse me: Volume 2? Did little green men descend from the skies and alter the space time continuum to delete all knowledge of a previously released Volume 1? Of course there is a bit of questionable logic to it all, as History has been releasing some seasons on DVD, and did in fact release the first part of Season 5 on that format. But that seems like at best a debatable marketing decision, one that will probably frustrate collectors who consider themselves “rabid completists”. Why are some episodes worthy of a high definition release, but not others? Perhaps an ancient scroll left in the tip of a pyramid by a long ago astronaut can provide some answers. Until then, there are the eight episodes on this two disc set to keep us occupied.

The eight episodes included on this set are:

The Power of Three. This rather interesting episode may want to deal in eschatology, but it’s actually the epistemological aspect of Mankind’s fascination with the number three that provides the bulk of what’s so compelling here. As with a lot of Ancient Aliens episodes, this is a globe trotting affair that examines everything from the prevalence of spirals (almost always in trios) in Hindi culture to the three pyramids of Giza to, of course, the Christian Trinity. While some of this episode gets dangerously close to New Age psychobabble (a segment on the Third Eye and the pineal gland, for example), there’s some salient analysis here, as when one talking head suggests that our interest in things triune is due to our trifold experience of time in past, present and future.

The Crystal Skulls. Lovers of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull should get a passing kick out of this episode, which gets into some of the history of the “real” crystal skulls (which the episode makes clear might be a kind of cosmic hoax). There’s lip service paid to the Mayan Calendar and the now passed “end of time” in December 2012, but perhaps the most interesting segment here is about Sherry Whitfield, an unassuming woman who ended up owning a vaunted crystal skull with the name of Synergy.

The Anunnaki Collection. Ancient Aliens often struggles to make connections between its subject matter and its thesis, and things are just slightly stretched here with a long expository segment devoted to the looting of Iraqi museums after the fall of Baghdad in 2003. The portentous narrator hints that it may be part of some massive conspiracy designed to keep “forbidden knowledge” out of the hands of the hoi polloi, when a much more simple explanation—looters went for the most valuable stuff so that they could resell it on the black market—is never addressed. There actually is some very interesting data here about various archeological digs in the region through the past centuries.

Magic of the Gods. While fitfully interesting now and then, this is another episode that really struggles to tie itself to little green men of yore. Instead we get some fun footage devoted to such modern day magicians as David Blaine while the episode seeks to illuminate our almost atavistic desire to witness the supernatural, as channeled by shamans and magicians. The best part of this episode deals with the cloaking technology recently developed in Texas at the NanoTech Institute.

The Satan Conspiracy. Fundamentalists may want to skip over this episode, for while it gives a passably decent history of Satan in Western culture, it goes on to examine worldwide phenomena in various religions (like Kukullan in the Mayan World) that seem to suggest Satan wasn’t such a bad guy after all, merely someone (or something) out to help Mankind access forbidden Divine knowledge. Some of this episode is pretty turgid (exorcisms), while some of it is quite interesting (a brief segment on the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and The Book of Enoch).

Alien Operations. This episode begins with an overview of some of the latest developments in medical technology, like robotic operations and bionic limbs that are throught controlled, and then drifts back into time immemorial to look at archeological and other evidence of long ago operations that seem to include technology that ancients really shouldn’t have had. Some of this is a bit on the graphic side, like a segment on a bunch of skulls which were unearthed with huge holes in them, suggesting cranial trepanation, but there’s quite a bit of interesting information in the episode as a whole.

Emperors, Kings and Pharoahs. This is another episode with a somewhat tenuous connection to aliens, ancient or otherwise. There’s quite a bit of time spent on both the coronation and ultimate jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, while lip service is given to the “divine right” of monarchs and how they perceive they’ve “inherited” that right. The best segment here is about Huangdi, a legendary ruler in China who is called The Yellow Emperor and who is alleged to have basically jump started Chinese culture by inventing technology, writing, acupuncture and a host of other things.

Mysterious Relics. This episode takes a whirlwind journey through a number of interesting curios like The Shroud of Turin and The Blarney Stone. Some of the episode is rather flat, like a longish segment dealing with the history of why precious metals are used to glorify heroic soldiers, but other parts of this episode, like a segment devoted to Howard Carter’s expeditions in Egypt, are quite interesting even if they don’t reveal any unexpected information.

Ancient Aliens: Season 5, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Ancient Aliens: Season 5, Volume 2 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films and A & E Networks Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. While this is ostensibly an upgrade due to its progressive presentation, it's obvious that at least some of the source elements here were initially interlaced, for there are stability issues and combing artifacts clearly on display in some of the stock footage and archival footage utilized for the series. As with previous seasons of Ancient Aliens, there's a rather wide variety of sources used, including stills, old newsreels, archival interviews, and then newer segments produced specifically for the show itself, and so a certain leeway must be granted considering the disparity in quality among these. Generally speaking, things are reasonably sharp and well defined, with the contemporary talking heads segments looking the best, as should be expected. Still, this is far from a reference quality looking series, even taking the different source elements into account.

Ancient Aliens: Season 5, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Ancient Aliens: Season 5, Volume 2's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 provides reasonable immersion in its use of sound effects, though the bulk of this series is either narrated or features talking head "experts", so the opportunity for a nonstop surround situation is nonexistent. Fidelity is excellent here throughout all episodes on this set. The narrator does have an annoying habit of saying three or four words at a time and then pausing, which gets to be tiresome if you watch a bunch of episodes in one sitting.

Ancient Aliens: Season 5, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

While there are indeed "Special Features" menu options on both discs included in this set, they point to such exciting items as Bookmarks and/or Trailers.

Ancient Aliens: Season 5, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Ancient Aliens continues to provide more than its fair share of interesting material, though as with previous seasons there are times when the series really struggles to make connections between "little green men" and whatever is actually being talked about. Why A&E continues to brings this show out piecemeal on Blu-ray is really a head scratcher, though. This particular set has acceptable looking if occasionally problematic video, very good audio, and no supplements that I personally count as supplements. Recommended.