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Ah the life of being an extra in a television show! Low pay, bad food, no lines to recite. Oh, sorry. Clearly the extras we're talking about here are the ones on the discs. Again, Paramount and Fox need to take a page from Anchor Bay's handling of box sets. They don't price them at a premium and add on just the right amount of extras. Who wants to look at a talking head discussing the mythology of the "X-Files" on DVD more than once or twice? The extras here provide value although the trivia section seemed the least substantial of all the extras included. Although you might have fun with other fans using it. Perhaps a drinking game could be constructed around this..nah, too many liability issues for Anchor Bay. The CD-Rom with bios of the cast and directors provided an interesting distraction although you'd have to be a really hardcore fan to want to watch it more than once or twice. ***

The photo gallery provides a lot of nice stills looking at both the action in the episodes as well as behind-the-scenes stuff. The only way to improve the photo galleries would be an option to create your own using various images or allowing fans to print them out. The elaborate graphics for would have made it difficult for them to be incorporated ( aka the "Star Trek" reissues on DVD) into the various episodes but I'd rather have the trivia and bio information available within the body of the DVD than on a separate disc. Still, I can't argue with the inclusion it's a nice extra for hardcore fans of the series. ---

So much to say, so little time for Kevin Sorbo to do it in. Actually, in all the episodes he's kept quite busy thank you very much. Luckily, Sorbo and the other actors involved in the audio commentary have lots of rich stories to share about the making of the series and most of them have something to do with the episode at hand as well. ***

The two commentaries I listened to in the set were both entertaining and made the episodes fresh again. The best commentaries provide trivia about an episode or film but ultimately allow us, the audience to see the episode through fresh eyes. It's a rare gift and not all actors or directors have the necessary skills to tell retell a story from a different perspective. These folks do and they make it a lot of fun. The only other set I can think of that does this as well is the "Babylon 5" sets put out by Warner. ---

"Hercules" continues to be an Olympian monument . Other companies should provide as much value and quality for such a small sum of gold. Another supreme set the gods would be proud to own, Herc's third season had a number of fun episodes. The series managed the difficult feat of being action, drama and comedy within just about every single episode. In many respects, it harks back to the old school of Hollywood like Errol Flynn's "Robin Hood" (no, not the botched version by Kevin Coster-that should have been called "Rambling Hood"). ***

Another fine set with just enough extras to entice the fans to purchase it, "Hercules The Legendary Journeys - Season Three" continues to build on the strong writing and personalities of the first two seasons. We also get the treat of seeing actor Michael Hurst try his hand at directing (he's quite good at it). Inventive and always creative, "Hercules" made syndicated television worthwhile for a brief moment in time.