Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

The Universe: The Complete Season Seven Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 19, 2014

Is it the end of the world? History’s The Universe, a series which has repeatedly poked and prodded every apocalyptic thesis ever imagined (and probably even a few never imagined), positing death, destruction, and depression from everything from invading aliens to asteroids to black holes to our sun going ballistic and exploding, has suddenly gone all kinder and gentler in its seventh season (the way Lionsgate and A&E have been releasing the series doesn’t tally with how some outlets have delineated seasons, and some may feel this is actually the complete eighth season). Branding the four episodes with the soubriquet Ancient Mysteries Solved, The Universe attempts to provide cosmological answers to questions surrounding such structures as Stonehenge and the Pyramids of Giza, while also looking at the physics of the Star of Bethlehem. Because no season of The Universe would be complete without at least a passing reference or two to doomsday, though in this case it’s with regard to that long ago nastiness at Sodom and Gomorrah, not anything imminent facing us on our morning commutes. As a result, this is actually one of the more interesting and non-sensationalized groupings of episodes from The Universe in several years. It may not have the cosmic sweep of some space faring episodes from past seasons, but it has a focus and general level of detail that makes it informative if never especially surprising.

Stonehenge

I had the pleasure of visiting Stonehenge with my family last summer on a wonderful daytrip, arriving there in the late afternoon where it was largely deserted other than the few people that were on our particular tour bus. It was an amazing way to see this iconic monument, and our tour guide informed me that my initial “Wow, it’s not as big as I thought it would be” statement was something he heard on virtually every tour he escorted to the site. While we were there, my wife and I actually ended up talking to one of the caretakers, who took us around the walking path and pointed out a number of interesting features that this Universe episode also gets into, including the fact that while everyone seems to know how the sun appears over the so-called heel stone on the Summer Solstice, the monument’s charting of various starry activities actually includes wintry markers as well, not to mention stones that show the various arcs the moon takes each and every month. The best part of this rather interesting episode is its use of a really cool new software developed at Indiana’s Ball State University that has replicated Stonehenge digitally and can move through the monument on a literally hour by hour basis for any day (past, present or future) to determine how various stones point toward various heavenly objects.

Pyramids

The Universe attempts to offer a new vantage point from which to view the giant pyramids of Giza with a tie-in to stars like Polaris and the constellation of Orion. While some nuts and bolts (and/or bricks of sandstone) of how the pyramids were built are included in this episode, the bulk of the information here focuses on how the construction seemed to orient the pyramids toward the cardinal directions while also providing “portals” to various points in the nighttime sky. Some of the metaphors here may be stretching it a bit, as in one scientist who likens the pyramids to a kind of “soul transportation machine”, but there’s some really interesting information here about how incredibly accurate the engineers who conceived the pyramids were in terms of knowing what was going on around the planet and in the sky.

Heavenly Destruction

Well, to up the ante on a well worn phrase from yesteryear: three out of four ain’t bad. It’s evidently genetically impossible for History to release any kind of Universe set without at least one episode devoted to the destruction of our planet, or at least a couple of spots on it. What’s actually commendable about this episode is that it tends to focus as much on the archaeological record in two spots which might—emphasis on might—be the fabled Biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah as it does on a sort of reverse Deus ex machine in the form of a blazing asteroid which wipes out large swaths of the populace. There’s a really interesting subset of information on the destruction by sonic boom and conflagration caused by these interplanetary interlopers, including two relatively recent examples in Russia over the past hundred years or so.

Star of Bethlehem

This episode delves into both astronomy and astrology to try to find some sort of historical event which could have created the phenomenon mentioned in the Bible. There’s a long segment on Halley’s Comet here which also gets into how the year of Jesus’ birth was set. When Halley’s Comet is ultimately dismissed as a likely suspect, the hunt moves on to another comet which had been notated by ancient Chinese astronomers. There are more spectacular phenomena like supernovas addressed as well, not to mention an astrological explanation that looks at so-called conjunctions when planets move in concert and supposedly exert their cosmic influences. It’s alleged here that the Magi were astrologers who may have been looking at something quite mundane but interpreting something earth shattering.

The Universe: The Complete Season Seven Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Universe: The Complete Season Seven 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. This is an interesting set of episodes from a visual standpoint, for compared to some other episodes, these four aren't especially overrun with CGI and instead tend to use lots of stock footage interspersed with occasional graphical elements and talking head sequences. The stock footage varies in quality, though all looks relatively contemporary. In the Pyramids episode, for example, there are some shots that flutter and roll, while other shots look nicely sharp and stable. There are of course still some CGI elements in all four episodes, and those usually boast incredibly vivid color in the interstellar recreations and an overall very sharp appearance. Talking heads segments feature accurate looking color and good contrast.

The Universe: The Complete Season Seven Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Universe: The Complete Season Seven features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix which is a model of restraint for the usually overly noisy and boisterous History mixes. That doesn't mean there isn't surround activity here, for there is in any number of sequences, many of which use things like panning effects as perspective changes in some views of outer space. Both narration and the talking heads sequences sound just fine, with no problems of any kind to report.

The Universe: The Complete Season Seven Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The only so-called "supplements" here are trailers for other Lionsgate releases and bookmarks.

The Universe: The Complete Season Seven Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I'd like to take credit for this sudden change in History's use of its Universe franchise, for those of you who have read my reviews of previous seasons of the show may recall I have repeatedly harangued the series for too often going to the "apocalypse now" well. Since chances are I had absolutely nothing to do with this new approach The Universe takes in its seventh season, I will still politely tip my hat to whoever made the decision to get away from the constant fear mongering, death and destruction tack the show has taken too often for my personal taste. And these four episodes prove that The Universe is perfectly capable of addressing historical phenomena from an astronomical perspective with great facility and interest. The fact that they snuck in a little doom and gloom courtesy of Sodom and Gomorrah may be a necessary evil at this point. Recommended.