Review of Phenomenon: The Lost Archives Volume 3

Introduction

The world is awash with conspiracy theories, fuelled by 24 hour hysterical media coverage of world events and the enormous amount of information, both factual and fictional available over the internet.

The Phenomenon Archives are American TV programs, supposedly based on "recently unearthed" government archives. The episodes deal with various topics, including alleged government conspiracies and the supernatural.

This is the third disc and features the episodes Keeping the Faith: The Mystery of Mass Suicide and Science Fraud: E=MC$.

Video

As with the other discs in the series, the video is presented in full-frame and is of variable quality depending on the source material used. The programs are introduced by Dean Stockwell and these segments are of good quality with no dirt or grain. In addition, any interviews filmed for the series are of similar good quality.

Other footage varies in quality wildly, sometimes due to age and sometimes due to it being "camcorder" material.

However, the overall image quality is no better or no worse than other programs of this nature and it is perfectly watchable.

Audio

The soundtrack comes in Dolby Digital Stereo, and performs adequately, with the dialogue being clear and understandable at all times.

There is some generic background music, which isn`t especially exciting.

Features

There are no extras, with just scene selection available from the menus.

Conclusion

Keeping the Faith: The Mystery of Mass Suicide looks at religious cults over the ages, with particular focus on the Jonestown mass suicide that occurred in 1978. This program is fairly interesting, primarily due to the amount of archival footage used, which removes the need for the continual speculation often seen in such programs. A great deal of the footage has apparently not been shown before, and was shot by a CBS cameraman who joined the cult and took part in the mass suicide after filming his last piece.

Science Fraud: E=MC$ examines the potential conflicts of interest caused by research scientists being funded by commercial corporations, who, at the end of the day are only interested in profit. This is a bizarre episode as it gives various examples of science "frauds" but eventually arrives at the conclusion that the current system of self-regulation is working in the scientific community – consequently the program seems out of place in the series.

Overall, this volume has two interesting episodes, despite one not really fitting into the series. Video and sound are both adequate and the retail price is in the budget bracket at £12.99.

As I`ve said before, I`m not of fan of this type of sensationalist investigative journalism, and those who want to watch this sort of material can get plenty of it on satellite/cable TV. Consequently, this may appeal to some, but it`s not the sort of thing that I would buy on DVD, although this volume is not too bad.