The Merchandise Guide
DVD: USA
Compiled by Martin Willey

USA: Released from Jan 30 2001; VHS sets $29.95 each; DVD sets $39.95
DVD megaset released September 2002; $199.95, DVD bonus disc $14.95,
DVD Megaset 30th Anniversary Edition released 3 July 2007; $99.95
BluRay Series 1 released 2 November 2010; $99.95
DVD Season 1 and 2 30th Anniversary Edition released 7 May 2013; $29.98 each

Distributed by New Video (from 2013, distributed by Lionsgate). These are US issues of the remastered episodes from Carlton.

The episodes (DVD)

The DVD discs and the British Carlton DVDs were released at approximately the same time. The quality of Year One episodes is mostly identical to the Carlton and Japanese discs, although some episodes are of inferior quality, suffering from obvious changes in colour and grain, and warbling sound.

The A&E Year 2 episodes are newer prints, and are generally superior to the Carlton versions. The worst episodes in the Carlton set, such as Devil's Planet, are bright and clear on this set. In other episodes, the Carlton image was good to start with and there is no obvious difference (The Metamorph, Matter Of Balance, although the latter alters one shot to remove a visible clapperboard). Space Warp has slightly brighter colours but a much darker picture. Many of the other episodes have slightly brighter pictures but there is some increase in grain and occasionally poor colour balance (The Mark Of Archanon and Catacombs Of The Moon have greenish, slightly murky Alphan corridors).

The episodes (BluRay)

See more details.

Packaging

The series is subtitled "An Adventure As Big As The Universe!". Each cover features Martin Landau and/or Barbara Bain in front of a black and white still. VHS and DVD sets are similar but not identical (the background picture varied according to the episodes in the set). DVD Box Set 2 came in two versions: for the first, the background picture was from Guardian Of Piri, and for the second a shot from Breakaway. Liner notes were by Scott Michael Bosco (a number of errors crept in; his original notes are on his site (see links). Set 3 has reversed photos (the sleeves are wrong).

The sets labelled 30th Anniversary Edition were released in 2007 and 2013.

The Lionsgate 2013 editions were initially announced with packaging images showing year 2 publicity photos on the season 1 set, and year 1 publicity photos on the season 2 set.

After the error was explained to them, the final 2013 releases used the correct photos.

DVD Extras

As extras, the DVDs contain interactive menus, scene selection and photo gallery. The opening sequence comprises the theme with shots from Breakaway (or, for the Year 2 sets, from the opening titles), before the menu appears (assembling in a brief animation). Each photo gallery contains about 20 images. These include shots from the episode, some behind the scenes views, and generic publicity, sets and model photos. A proportion are flopped right for left and a few mislabelled images from the wrong season appear. On the latter Year 1 volumes many of the photos are grainy. Set 4 contains "trailers" for all 24 first season episodes (the "this episode" sequences, used as short promos).

Sets 5 and 6 contain Landau/Bain promos for Year 2 (about 3 per disc, all identical apart from naming the station). Two other versions of this appear on the UK Carlton volumes 11 and 12. Set 6 volume 11 contains a short "behind the scenes featurette", a promotional film with scenes compiled from The Metamorph and a single behind the scenes special effects scene (this scene also appears in a much longer form on the UK Carlton volume 12). Set 6 volume 12 contains short "next week" promos by the actors.

The bulk of the Carlton extras appear on volumes 13-16, including the trailers, Horizon footage, vintage interviews and Johnson commentary for behind the scenes SFX footage. The Moonbase Alpha text guide and behind the scenes photos appear unaltered from the Carlton discs, with even the captions intact.

DVD Bonus Disc

A Bonus Disc was released with the DVD MegaSet, initially sold exclusively in the US store Best Buy, and from March 2003 separately from A&E. Megasets purchased from stores other than Best Buy and A&E before 2004 did not have the disc. It contained three remastered episodes, the Keith Wilson interview that had been missed from the earlier volumes, some unusual photos, Message From Moonbase Alpha (also on the French release), and new commentaries by Sylvia Anderson, Johnny Byrne, Christopher Penfold and A&E's consultant Scott Michael Bosco for the three episodes.

FAB #93 (2019) has an article by Jeff Smart about recording the commentary with Byrne and Penfold at Pinewood, with photos (p46-49).

BluRay Extras

• 5.1 surround sound audio for each episode, along with the original mono
• Audio commentaries
• Music-only tracks
• Behind-the-scenes featurettes
• Episodic image galleries for all episodes
• Trailers
• Textless titles
• Barry Gray's theme music demo
• Alternate opening/closing titles
• Martin Landau and Barbara Bain US premier intro and outro
• SFX plates and deleted SFX scenes with music track

All these announced extras are identical to the Network DVD with the exception of the music only tracks (announced for the Network BluRay) and the image galleries (which may be the same as the previous A&E DVD sets).

DVD Set	DVD Release Date	Volume	Episodes	VHS Set	VHS Release Date
Set 1	January 30th 2001	Volume 1	Breakaway Matter Of Life And Death Black Sun	Set 1	January 30th 2001
		Volume 2	Ring Around The Moon Earthbound Another Time, Another Place	Set 2	January 30th 2001
Set 2	January 30th 2001	Volume 3	Missing Link Guardian Of Piri Force Of Life	Set 3	July 31st 2001
		Volume 4	Alpha Child The Last Sunset Voyager's Return	Set 4	July 31st 2001
Set 3	July 31st 2001	Volume 5	Collision Course Death's Other Dominion The Full Circle
		Volume 6	End Of Eternity War Games The Last Enemy
Set 4	July 31st 2001	Volume 7	The Troubled Spirit Space Brain The Infernal Machine
		Volume 8	Mission Of The Darians Dragon's Domain The Testament Of Arkadia
Set 5	Feb 26 2002	Volume 9	The Metamorph The Exiles One Moment Of Humanity Landau-Bain Trailers
		Volume 10	All That Glisters Journey To Where The Taybor Landau-Bain Trailers
Set 6	Feb 26 2002	Volume 11	The Rules Of Luton The Mark Of Archanon Brian The Brain Trailer with behind the scenes SFX footage Landau-Bain Trailers
		Volume 12	New Adam, New Eve The A B Chrysalis Catacombs Of The Moon Landau-Bain Trailers "Next week" trailers
Set 7	June 25 2002	Volume 13	Seed Of Destruction The Beta Cloud A Matter Of Balance Season 2 trailers Pre-production gallery About Moonbase Alpha
		Volume 14	Space Warp The Bringers Of Wonder part 1 The Bringers Of Wonder part 2 BBC Horizon footage Theatrical trailers Behind The Scenes photos
Set 8	June 25 2002	Volume 15	The Lambda Factor The Seance Spectre Dorzak SFX footage with Brian Johnson commentary Blackpool Exhibit film Ice Lolly commercial
		Volume 16	Devil's Planet The Immunity Syndrome The Dorcons Brian Johnson interview Vintage interviews with Landau, Bain, Schell, Anderson, Freiberger Behind The Scenes photos
MegaSet AAE-70522	September 24, 2002	-	All 48 episodes over 16 volumes Bonus disc with remastered episodes: Death's Other Dominion Dragon's Domain The Testament Of Arkadia Message From Moonbase Alpha Commentaries by Sylvia Anderson, Johnny Byrne, Christopher Penfold, Scott Michael Bosco Production stills Vintage interview with Keith Wilson
MegaSet 30th Anniversary Edition AAE-77337	July 3, 2007	-	All 48 episodes over 17 volumes. Reissue of Megaset with bonus disc in slim cases.
Bonus Disc AAE-70614	March, 2003	-	Available separately from MegaSet (only from A&E).
Season 1 30th Anniversary Edition	May 7, 2013	-	24 episodes over 8 discs
Season 2 30th Anniversary Edition	May 7, 2013	-	24 episodes over 9 discs