Academy Two Months Old, Picked Up By Major Retailer Online

Wing Commander Academy has now been out on DVD for two months - do you have your copy? Check out this video for a sample of the gorgeous image quality, although the final product is even better. All thirteen episodes have been beautifully remastered - and in some cases restored - to ensure Wing Commander fans have a high fidelity archive of the fantastic show. We've been pointing out Deep Discount's low price of $16.86 for some time, but there's a new retailer now carrying Wing Commander Academy! Most impressively, Target now carries WCA on their website for just $16.49! Red Card holders get an additional 5% off, plus free shipping! Local sales tax may apply, but this is still a great deal.

Here's LOAF's first impressions from May:

The good:

• The show looks AMAZING. You have NEVER seen Wing Commander Academy look this good. It's like watching a modern series, SO clear. I felt like I was seeing for the first time after being blind for a long period. Which has actually happened to me, so I know what I'm talking about!
• The missing footage from On Both Your Houses WAS CORRECTLY RESTORED thanks to the legwork LeHah and I did. You can tell the (two or three two-second shots) that came from the VHS master because the quality is obviously lower, but it's so much better than the alternative. Interestingly, the scenes that were missing from NBC's master copies were the front-facing in-cockpit shots of Archer from the end of the episode. Someone with a Dana Delaney fetish must have spliced them out and made off with them...
• The missing audio from Word of Honor (from the original broadcast) is intact here.
• Ahh SO GREAT to hear the end credits music without an announcer plugging "PACIFIC BLUE" over them!

The bad:

• Some of the in-flight dialogue in the earlier episodes seems quiet. I went back to the original VHSes and you could tell that the original mix had the same problem, but it's more pronounced here (because the music and sound effects and especially engine noise are MUCH CLEARER, maybe.) It's possible it's just my weird amateur sound setup, I will run some tests this weekend.
• I can confirm that it is coded for region 1... but at the risk of editorializing, I confirmed that by putting the disc in a region 2 player to see if it'd run. A player which /cost less than I spent on the DVD set in the first place./ So... maybe people should make similar investments. Not just for Wing Commander Academy... there's LOTS of cool region-exclusive discs out there.

Also: VEI has the license to sell this set in the US and Canada only. I've checked with NBC/Universal and Academy has not been licensed anywhere else in the world. What this means is that if you want a real region 2 release what you need to do is find a European DVD publisher and convince them to license the show. This isn't expensive for them and no labor is involved (NBC/U provides the transfers.)