Review of Tribe, The: Season 1 (Box Set)

Introduction

It`s the end of the Summer term, the holidays are looming, how will you survive with your kids at home for two months?

Easy, get `em a lot of DVDs to watch :) Better still, the discs have no region coding so you can take them on holiday.

Series 1 of the tribe could be what you need then - 52 Episodes, 22 hours of Adult-free Sci-Fi. All you need is crisps and Sunny Delight.

The series starts with the somewhat odd idea that a virus wipes out adults. The earth (populated only by Americans, Aussies and the odd brit) falls into anarchy and the kids all rush out and get bad haircuts and abuse their parents make-up.

The tribe is a Channel 5 drama with quite a decent budget for a kids TV show and does attempt to cover issues that affect todays teenagers.

Video

I was impressed with the quality of the visuals, especially for a set-based kids tv show. The video is presented in anamorphic widescreen and is clear of any intrusive graininess. The quality remains high throughout all 7 discs despite the fairly low bit-rate used to encode the video.

Unfortunately, most of the action takes place indoors on one of the 38 sets they designed.

Each episode has 5 or 6 chapters. The DVD menu is slightly animated and has background sounds from the BBC Special Effects disc entitled "Disasters and Fires and stuff". Probably.

Audio

Assuming you make it through the cheesy, Neighbours-style theme tune (which they play way too much), you are faced with a typical Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack.

Vocals are handled fairly well and are mostly clear.

The soundtrack is truly dire though (Neighbours meets Enterprise and they go Karaoke singing...)

Features

The first 6 discs have no special features, these are all on the last disc. These are all in 4:3 rather than in widescreen.

These include a outtakes reel narrated by the cast and a series of character profiles - one page biographies of each of the main protagonists.

We also get a fairly long making-of which is actually fairly watchable and a "The Tribe on Tour" which isn`t. Although kids will probably like it.

:)

Conclusion

It`ll keep the kids quiet for ages and it`s not going to turn them into axe-wielding maniacs, perfect for the summer holidays!

The quality is better than average, the acting about what you`d expect and the plots lack something - but overall it`s not bad.