Ancient Aliens: Season 6, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Ancient Aliens: Season 6, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 15, 2015

The kind of bafflingly “on again, off again” Blu-ray releases of History’s Ancient Aliens seems to be back on again, at least as evidenced by this new Ancient Aliens Season 6, Volume 2 entry from Lionsgate, A&E Networks and History, as well as an already announced Ancient Aliens: Season 7, Volume 1. The show continues to a personal guilty pleasure of mine, though I, probably like many who watch, may tend to scoff at the series’ continuing stretches to try to link “ancient aliens” to everything from insects to Nikola Tesla. The series has its format down pat, with each episode beginning with a statement of a typically preposterous thesis, followed by some wide eyed talking head saying something like, “It could be true,” and then a gaggle of historical and contemporary anecdotal vignettes which seek to illustrate the idea. It’s in those vignettes that most episodes of Ancient Aliens, no matter how outlandish as a whole, tend to present at least marginally interesting factoids (and sometimes a good deal more than merely marginally interesting). Anyone trying to build a “complete collection” of the series on Blu-ray is going to have a hard time of it, but this latest offering seems to point to a decision on the part of the releasing entities to try to offer something more consistent. For those wanting to check out previous releases, our reviews can be found here:

Ancient Aliens: Season 1 Blu-ray review

The Best of Ancient Aliens Blu-ray review

Ancient Aliens: Season 4 Blu-ray review

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

Ancient Aliens: Season 6, Volume 1 Blu-ray review

The twelve episodes included on this three disc set are:

The Shamans. A typically tenuous connection between terrestrial religious practices and ancient aliens is nothing new for this series, but this episode offers some reasonably interesting overviews of various shamanic practices as well as a couple of unexpected sidebars, including a trip to ancient China in the early 13th century and one Genghis Khan, who reportedly climbed to extreme altitudes to commune with so-called Sky Gods before battle. Khan supposedly also had the ability to control weather on demand, which of course means he had tapped into an ancient alien power (well, in this series, anyway, that’s what it means). The most interesting segment actually details the still ongoing practice of despacho, and there’s some good footage of an actual despacho ceremony.

Aliens and Insects. It turns out there’s a reason filmmakers like James Cameron make their Aliens look like big bugs—bugs are alien, at least according to some of the more hyperbolic participants in this episode. While that thesis may be laughable, as tends to be the situation with this show, there are nuggets of fascinating information that pop up now and again, including the recently discovered fact that dung beetles follow the light of the Milky Way when rolling their booty in impossibly straight lines. There’s also some good stuff about the San People, who believe Man was created by insects. A brief segue to the Ten Plagues (three of which included insects) tends to push the thesis to its breaking point.

Alien Breeders. This is one of those episodes that is both laughably ridiculous as well as just titillating enough to generate a bit of prurient interest, though some of the more unhinged seeming interview subjects who insist they’ve “done it” with Little Green Men (and/or Women) don’t do the series’ high-falutin’ pretense of offering “scientific” data any favors. There is some great information here, including a nice segment on the Max Planck Institute’s relatively recent discovery that Man mated with pre-human hominids at some point, as well as the tantalizing discovery that human DNA also includes some as yet unidentified species.

Alien Transports. Virtually every season of Ancient Aliens can’t help but travel over at least some of the same territory as previous seasons, and this is one the episodes that tends to repeat information the series has already covered (repeatedly). There’s the expected information on various UFOs, as well as yet another account of Ezekiel’s chariot, but at least this episode also works in modes of transport like flying carpets.

Mysterious Structures is another example of this show returning to the well a few too many times, as it once again explores the supposedly mind boggling mysteries of ancient stonemasonry and how these mere primitives could have possibly built so many complex structures in days of yore. Of course the series wants the viewer to consider the fact that alien technology was involved, though just as obviously no actual evidence is ever presented. There’s a good segment on the Carnac Stones, one of the largest, if not the largest, arrays of standing stones in Europe.

Mysterious Devices is the episode for anyone who has ever suspected Bill Gates or Steve Jobs exhibited alien traits, for among other things, the modern day computer is obviously the result of ancient alien seeding. The best thing about this episode is an extended examination of the mysterious door in a supposed ventilation shaft in one of Egypt’s iconic pyramids. While the thesis that the pyramids were ancient power plants is easy to scoff at, the episode does a commendable job in offering actual scientific data bits to support it, and the result is unusually compelling. A couple of the science experiments play like a slightly stuffier version of Mythbusters.

Faces of the Gods kinds of wends between older tropes, like those aforementioned Little Green (and/or Gray) Men, and newer ideas, with a trip to Nazca not emphasizing the infamous Nazca Lines but instead looking a cache of weirdly elongated skulls that was discovered there. There’s some actual archaeological evidence supporting the Paiute Indians’ contention that there was a race of giants in their area at one point. Another segment deals with the Mayan god Comozotz who was half man, half bat.

The Reptilians has the audacity to conjure up none other than Carl Sagan late in its running time, albeit in the guise of talking about his book The Dragons of Eden and ideas of the so-called “lizard brain.” There’s a kind of funny segment of a 1930s “Lizard Man” in South Carolina that seemed to me to be perfect fodder for a routine by South Carolinian Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report, if that show were still airing. Maybe he can do something with it on his new CBS late night outing.

The Tesla Experiment. Usually at least once or twice a season, Ancient Aliens manages to deliver a stellar episode, and that would be this one for this season. A nice biographical overview of Tesla is provided, albeit within the series’ context of sometimes outlandish theses. There’s a kind of rampant paranoiac quality running through the episode, with allegations of governmental cover-ups with regard to any number of Tesla inventions and/or experiments, including the now infamous Philadelphia Experiment. Overall, though, this episode proves just how fascinating this show can be when it finds something or someone really remarkable to cover.

The God Particle is a worthy runner up to The Tesla Experiment for this volume’s most memorable entry, with a nice discussion of how religion, science and even philosophy are attempting to get to the same answers via different paths. There’s nothing too technical here, and the episode gets into some more whimsical, if scientifically accurate, data about how the god particle, should it ever be discovered, might allow us to “defeat” gravity and to travel at the speed of light.

Alien Encounters is probably the most recycled feeling episode in this volume, with another retinue of vignettes that supposedly offer “proof” that various people have had alien interactions throughout history. Who knew that the Spanish Armada was actually defeated by an alien weather event? At least that offers the show a chance to get into some English history.

Aliens and Superheroes. It’s of course mere coincidence that this episode, which liberally features several iconic Marvel characters, not to mention Stan Lee himself as a talking head, first aired in the wake of the release of Guardians of the Galaxy 3D. This is another goofily entertaining episode, trekking through a number of iconic superheroes’ superpowers and trying fitfully to link those to aliens.

Ancient Aliens: Season 6, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Ancient Aliens: Season 6 Volume 2 is presented on Blu-ray by a coalition including Lionsgate, A&E Networks and History with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is completely in line with releases of previous seasons, meaning there's a kind of patchwork quilt of quality since the series is sourced from so many disparate elements. Contemporary interview segments fare best, with appealing sharpness and clarity, and good, accurate looking color, along with consistent contrast. The archival video, stock footage and stills are a different matter entirely, varying in quality from very good to pretty shoddy looking.

Ancient Aliens: Season 6, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Ancient Aliens: Season 6 Volume 2 offers a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which makes consistent use of the surrounds courtesy of the show's ubiquitous utilization of (sometimes annoying) sound effects. The mix is generally very well prioritized, however, with narration and talking heads segments always placed forward in the mix over competing elements. Fidelity is excellent, dynamic range is really fairly wide, all things considered, and there are no issues of any kind to report.

Ancient Aliens: Season 6, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Don't be fooled by those Main Menu choices touting "Special Features" on all three discs of this set. Those "Special Features" are only "special" if you consider things like Bookmarks a supplement. Sorry, not even close and no cigar.

Ancient Aliens: Season 6, Volume 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The two best episodes of this volume, which in my estimation are the ones on Tesla and the God Particle, as well as the silly but still immensely enjoyable Marvel Comics EPK masquerading as an episode on superheroes, singlehandedly raise this volume's overall score up a point from Season 6's first volume. Anyone who has watched Ancient Aliens probably knows pretty much what to expect here, namely a sometimes preposterous mix of outlandish theorizing along with some actually quite interesting data bits. Recommended.