[DVD REVIEW] POLE POSITION

JiiDee has started writing full reviews to various television shows. He has allowed us to post them up on here for you all to check out. I will warn you, Jii has a brutally honest opinion of the subject matter, but it is none of the less a very interesting read, and I find reviews like this a lot easier to swallow than pre-checked "OK to use" versions that you may find in some online shopping sites. But don't take my word for it, take a read!

- Time Lord

"Since I've been watching an ungodly amount of 80s toons of late, I've found myself reviewing them in my own head, so I could I'd put digital pen to cyberspace paper and share my thoughts on both the shows themselves and the DVD sets that are available to purchase.

First up.. Pole Position!"

- JiiDee


The DVDs

I think it's fair to say that the Pole Position DVD Set...is the most amateurish hack job I've ever seen.

Now don't get me wrong..Pole Position was never the greatest of shows and I never expected it to high quality..but dear god in heaven I could do a better job than this and I've never authored a DVD in my life.
The Cover art...well..the characters depicted don't look even remotely like their on screen counterparts, and the Logo doesn't even approximate the Logo for the show..the colours aren't even remotely accurate!
The back is a little better as you get some screens shots from some of the episodes, but what you DON'T get is any kind of technical details! Not even an episode count, or Region information, Ratings.. etc..
OK I wasn't expecting a list of special features because...well..there are none, but then again I wasn't expecting any.
The episode selection function doesn't work properly. While you can select any episode you want, it does not return to the main menu after it finishes..it just continues onto the next episode regardless! Considering that this is one of the THE most basic of DVD functions it boggles my mind that they couldn't even get THAT right.
But you best get used to that cover art as you're going to see it a lot. I.E. on the face of every single one of the discs, and the menu screen for each disc.
Speaking of which the menu screen it utterly barren..there isn't even any overlaying audio or music clips on the menu screen. Not even the shows title theme! (Which is arguably the best thing about the whole show)
To say this set was thrown together would be an understatement.

Now having said all of that, at the end of the day you're getting the entirety of Pole Position on DVD. It's not exactly the most popular or successful of 80s cartoons . The very fact that this set even exists is actually pretty amazing, and lets be fair, you're not buying this set for pretty covers or special features.

The audio and video quality are on spec. It's the best visual representation of Pole Position that you are likely to ever find.


The Show

As a show itself, it is comparable to other shows of its time; that is to say..not very good, but if you're considering buying this set then you shouldn't be under any illusions as to the quality of the story telling..
To be fair it was actually better than I had originally anticipated, but then again I was expecting it to be absolutely dire so that may not be a fair assessment.
I'd say that as long as you keep in mind what time period it is from and that it's no Mysterious Cities of Gold, or Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers, then you can find a way to enjoy Pole Position, even if its entirely because of its retro 80s kick. I will say that the driving and stunt scenes always looked good and were well scripted, but consider that the cars/driving aspect is the main gimmick for the show you would EXPECT this to be the case.
I mean its basically a cartoon version of Knight Rider with a brother and sister team...almost..Team Knight Riderish one could say...*shudder*

So if for some bizarre reason you are an avid Pole Position fan..well who are you and what kind of paint chips have you been eating? But jokes aside you can't say no to a bit of 80s cheese and considering that I picked this up for a decent price I can't complain TOO MUCH..even though I just did...

I'd say pick this set up if you've already picked up all of the better shows that are out there already, or if you have fond memories of it from your childhood. Just don't kid yourself as to what you're buying.
Its cheap enough and if nothing else you can torture your friends by making them sit down to watch the sucker.

The set gets 2 stars purely because by rights it should never have existed in the first place.

Pole Position can be purchased HERE

And you can send feedback to JiiDee by posting on the thread HERE