In 1953, the war began: Martian invaders, bent on the conquest of Earth, destroy human civilization and leave death and panic in their wake. If not for our planet's tiniest bacteria, they would have wiped human existence from the Earth.
Captured and quarantined, the aliens' threats are all but forgotten; their insidious plans lay dormant for decades.
But now, freed from captivity, revived and resuscitated, they vow not to repeat their mistakes. And if not for a small band of human resistance fighters, they may yet get the chance to finish what they started.
Here, for the first time on DVD, War of the Worlds: The Complete First Season continues the story of alien attack, human defiance, and interplanetary war in this six-disc box set. Let the battle begin.
War of the Worlds was syndicated for two seasons back in 1988-89 and 1989-90. Jared Martin (who played "Dusty Farlow" in
Dallas) starred in both seasons as Dr. Harrison Blackwood, and
Highlander Adrian Paul came on board as "John Kincaid" for the second season. The show picked up right where the 1953 George Pal film left off, showing how the aliens didn't actually die from the Earth-bound germs, but instead went into a kind of hibernation, and were revived 35 years later to try a more insidious approach to conquering humanity!
DVDEmpire has added
a pre-order listing that shows a
November 1st release date for
War of the Worlds - The Complete 1st Season. TVShowsOnDVD called the studio, and Paramount has confirmed that date for us, but we advise you that the cover art shown at DVDEmpire is early concept art, and has not been finalized at all, so consider it "temp art" for now (no surprise; the picture there looks very rough). The list price is $39.99 according to the e-tailer, but they are discounting it to $29.99 at the moment. Running time is 1086 minutes, and there are no other details yet.
The reason this release is arriving on that date, along with a "Special Collector's Edition" of the 1953 film, is surely to tie in with the expected (but not-yet-announced) DVD release of the new version of the film, which stars Tom Cruise. We don't know if that scheduling plan bodes well for fans eventually getting the second season of the show later on, because there won't be anything marketing-wise to tie in a Season 2 release with. Most fans, though, tend to lean toward enjoying the first season in any case, which contained Richard Chave's standout performance as "Lt. Col. Paul Ironhorse," along with Phillip Akin's role as "Norton Drake." Out of 42 episodes produced for the entire run of the show, 22 of them come from the first year, with lots of guest stars including Ann Robinson (reprising her role as Sylvia Van Buren from the 1953 film!), John Vernon, Michele Scarabelli, Jill Hennessy, Patrick Macnee, John Colicos, and many others. Stay tuned for updates on this cult classic release!
