All Rise...

Judge David Johnson is a battlefield detective and he only charges 25 cents a case.

The Charge

The secret history of nine historic battles.

The Case

From Athena, perhaps the classiest DVD release studio in the world (which I base solely on the fact they release a lot of history documentaries and the name "Athena" just sounds classy), comes Battlefield Detectives a series that should appeal to any war buff in your household.

The nine episodes:

• "Who Got Lucky at Hastings?"
• "Agincourt's Dark Secrets"
• "What Sank the Armada"
• "Trafalgar's Fatal Flaw"
• "Massacre at Waterloo"
• "The Charge of the Light Brigade"
• "Custer's Last Stand"
• "The Gallipoli Disaster"
• "Vietnam's Bloody Secret"

There's obviously a lot of history spanning this show, running from the 11th century (The Battle of Hastings) to the 20th. Each installment runs about 45 minutes and blends brief, grainy re-enactment footage (like, really brief, so don't worry about cheesy actors with bad accents here) with typically stern narration and plenty of expert interviews.

The hook for Battlefield Detectives is the re-examination of these battles using new technology and research methods to uncover never-before-seen details about the entanglements. Don't expect any jaw-dropping revelations, like Napolean was actually a woman or the Spanish Armada was hit by meteorites or anything. These discoveries mainly reside on the periphery, but it's still interesting. Besides, you get an excuse to watch nine mini-documentaries of a group of awesome battles.

The three-DVD set is solid: 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen transfers and Dolby 2.0 stereo mixes. One extra: Biographies of major military leaders.

The Verdict

This is great way to brush up on your historical dust-ups. Not Guilty.

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