Boulder Dude

I was smacked down by sickness when I went to bed Sunday, so I stayed home Monday (No cold meds and lozenges in the house, so needed to wait for the stores to open) and decide to read (as I figured would be the case) Persepolis 1 & 2 that were on the counter at Time Warp and watch MI-5 (Spooks) series 5 that I received for my birthday.

Persepolis 1 & 2 were great. Funny, sad and scary graphic novel autobiographies of/by Marjane Satrapi and her life up to 25 when she left Iran for the last time. Well worth the read and an interesting perspective on the world, and now I can go and see the movie. :)

Now on the other hand MI-5 series 5 started off well enough with the first two episodes finishing off the cliff hanger from Series 4. And as per normal for Mi-5 (and the one thing that is its strength) it killed off a Main Character. The first two Eps dealt with a wholly believable scenerio of a Coup in the UK and the steps taken to achieve it. Sadly the same scenerio would also work in the U.S. and would most likey be successful. The way it ended was a bit far fetched, since things like that would not get any air play on the 24 hour news cycle, but then again the UK has the BBC so maybe it would work out that way there.

One of the things that I find amusing is how the U.S. is portrayed in the series versus how it is portrayed in the U.S. shows, and personally I find the U.K. versions far more believeable.

Now all was rolling along swimmingly until I hit Disk 3 (of 5). It would not play past the FBI/ID placards on the DVD player. So I popped it on the laptop and it would not play there either. I opened the DVD files and played them. One episode (two episodes per disk) was a repeat from disk 2, and Episode 6 was there….

But…

No episode 5.

The big plot moving episode.

The one with a Major Spoiler that had been set up in Episode 1.

Gone.

I went to Amazon and all of the reviews noted that Disk 3 was borked.

I have put in an email to BBC America’s Customer Support to have them replace disk 3 since it is obviously a manufacterig error, and we will see what the response is.

I did love this quote from episode 1:

Colin: I'm not strong enough to fight you, I was never any good at this running and jumping thing, I was… To be honest, I'm not really meant to be out in the field, it's just that we're very very stretched, so… Just get on with whatever it is you're gonna do to me, because I might be smaller and weaker than you, but… You can hurt me… but you won't humiliate me.

And there was a bit from Episode 2 that I am going to have to see if I can find.

UPDATE: Word back from BBC America is the disk problem has been brought to their attention with a large number of the disks and they are working on a solution and will email me an 800 number to take care of it soon.

So we will see how that goes.

It will be really nice if I get a brand new working Disk 3 out of it, and it was nice to see that quick of a response on an issue like this.

UPDATE 2: Woot! The BBC is going to replace disk two for free and free shipping. :)