Battlestar Galactica

This is a massive set, the largest blu-ray set I have seen to date and, in fact, the largest I could find in existence.  Aside from sets that were pieced together by studios (action, comedy, etc) that are merely single releases thrown together, this easily exceeds the previous largest set, Neil Young's 10-disc "Archives" set.

QUALITY:
First, I will start on a good note.  The sound quality is absolutely incredible.  The explosions are rattling, the dialogue is crisp and the whispers are surprisingly audible.  Now, the picture.  Unfortunately, it's not the greatest.  The picture is grainy.  First, when I put in season 1, I was assuming it was probably because it was a few years old but when I popped in the final season, it was the same.  The darks aren't dark and the rest is grainy.  Not the worst I've seen but certainly far from the best.

BONUS FEATURES:
Extended version of Razor, Deleted Scenes, Featurettes, Commentary, Extended Episodes, Interactive Guide to characters and ships.

PACKAGING:
Cool, at first.  The large box is, well, large and very solid.  On top, you will find a well-made Cylon action figure, not the cheap kind usually associated with box sets (I'm looking at you anime).  A cool addition would have been to put foot pin holes on top so you can display the figure solidly. 

You pull up on the top tier and, instead of coming off, it locks in the up position revealing characters from the show on each side and, under that, individual packages encasing each of the four seasons.  That's where the "coolness" factor of the package stops.  When you open up the boxes, it is suddenly a little cheap.  The discs are simply slid into cardboard slots that are a little difficult to get to.  Althought I can't say for sure, in the future, this may lead to scratching of the discs and ridiculously extreme frustration.

OVERALL:
I never got into this series when it aired.  One reason is because I'm not really all that big on space sci fi (I know, that's a huge sci fi foul), and I just figured it would be canceled before it had a chance to finish.  Now that it got to finish of it's own accord and, after all the huge acclaim and near forcefullness of friends to watch it, I finally decided to sit down and give it a go (also helped that it all in one neat little package on blu-ray).  Excuse the cliche sci fi pun, but the show is light years ahead of it's Sci Fi Channel counterparts in the quality category, with a much higher production value than even that of the recent Firefly.  The price tag is a bit hefty for 4 seasons (retail, it comes to $87.50 per season) but you are also paying for the all-inclusive and pretty impressive packaging and action figure.  I also got to take a peek at the standard DVD edition and, aside from a blu-ray stripe, it's exactly the same.  The quality is noticeably more clear on the blu-ray edition so if you are a true fan, you may want to pick this one up.  Otherwise, I'd go with the standard edition or just individual seasons (which aren't all available yet on blu-ray).