Frankenstein

This mini-series version of Frankenstein has two parts - selected individually from the DVD menu screen. There isn't a "play all" function which means narrative is broken by the forced inclusion of rolling credits and the viewer can do nothing to stop opening music and a "catch-up" interlude from playing at the beginning of the second part. Just in case you share your attention span with a goldfish, you can catch up on scenes from the first part of the mini-series that you saw played out all of five seconds before.

The making of featurette is surprisingly short and includes a brief interview with the director and some of the cast along behind the scenes production shots.

The photo-gallery is tacked on to the DVD extras simply because someone in a crowded office thought it would be a good idea for people who bought the DVD to see a dozen or so Polaroids of the special-effect shots of the fork lightening.

The picture and sound quality are excellent on the DVD release but the scene selection menu appears to have been assembled at random and it is hard to imagine quite why anyone would want to weave in and out of the narrative in quite the order the DVD manufacturers suggest.

A huge fuss is made about the make-up and costume design for Luke Goss's interpretation of the Monster. Yet, there isn't a make-up related feature included on the DVD. The discussions with the director and screenplay writer are over so fast that you don't gain a sense of why this band of creative individuals decided to retell Shelley's classic tale. Never before has mutton been dressed as lamb quite as much as in the case of this DVD release.

Why, when those with digital satellite in the UK, can quite probably catch this mini-series on the TV for free, has the series been released on DVD with so little included in the special features filing cabinet? The mini series appears to be nothing more than a bodged retelling of a classic story which can stand on its own without the help of an impatient movie cast and crew desperate to bathe in glory by association. The DVD appears to have been designed to try to get as much as from your wallet as possible while giving you as little as possible in return.