Season 4 DVD Review

The Fourth Season (Region 1)
Release Date: 3/25/08
4/5

This Fourth Season set is very similar in appearance to the Third Season. It looks like a disappointment yet again, and it harkens back to the rigid plastic that was presented for the third season. However, once you open the green colored case and discover more, it’s quite a different story.

The set is actually a book case design, and you can fold over each page. Each page contains one disc and they’re not overlaid. Best of all… the discs are single sided. Yes, the plastic is cheap, but what case isn’t? This fourth season case holds together so much better than all of the previous sets.

Once you slide out the case you will find an episode guide that’s actually a part of the case; it’s on the front and it continues on the back. Guess what? It’s in the correct episode production order too. The plastic case has a little style to it and I think you’ll enjoy it. There was really no style given to the third season set, just a bunch of clear orange plastic. On the back of the box there’s a synopsis of the series and the design is also similar to the previous set. But interestingly enough it’s not glued to the back, it’s actually a part of the box.

The menu has a totally new look with some Sliders theme music with a short interval of collaborated video. On a good note, the scenes that were cut for U.S. commercial airtime are included in the episodes for those who haven’t seen them. On to the disappointments; there are neither episode summaries nor any scene selections. The episode summaries are including on the case, however they’re not in the DVD menus. All you get is a numbered list of the episodes to play. However there is a “Play All” feature which is quite nice since the episodes are placed in the correct order. There are no extras which is a shame since “The Making of Sliders” was aired during the run of the fourth season. There are some sneak peeks of other Universal Studios shows, if you want to call that an extra.

Overall this is a rather big step for the Sliders DVD sets, at least for the packaging. While there are no extras, scene selections, or menu episode summaries, I feel that the case design more than makes up for those flaws.