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My good buddy Troy and I don’t fight much, but the question that is sure to get us going is this: “If you could be Han Solo or Indiana Jones, which would you be?”

For Troy, it’s a no-brainer: give him Indy every damned day of the week. I’m more conflicted in my response; while I understand completely the mythos and, well, aweseomeness of Indiana Jones (just an excuse to wear that fedora every day would be welcome), I don’t know that I could say ‘no’ to riding around in the Millennium Falcon with Chewbacca as my co-pilot. Am I wrong?

Our argument gets even more heated because the Indiana Jones legend just got a little suckier. You fan boys can try to deny it, but I have news for you: The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones really blows. And not in the way that LucasFilm curios like The Star Wars Holiday Special suck (that one is a true exercise in skin-crawling viewer stamina). The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones starts awfully and just goes down the tubes after that.

In theory, it’s an exceptional idea: a weekly television show giving us the travails and exploits of young Indy (an adventurer among adventurers, to be sure) as he solves mysteries, unearths long- lost relics and beats the bad guys? Sounds great! But there are problems.

Number one: Pace. First and foremost, this is not The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles as aired on television. In the mid-90s, when facets of the show were authored to VHS, LucasFilm disregarded the hour-long TV format of the series, instead fusing together different elements of various episodes in collections of 90-minute ‘movies’. And this two-for-one ethic simply aborts any kind of organic narrative flow that these adventures could possibly have.

In the Indiana Jones movies, Spielberg proved to be astutely deft in going back and forth in time, allowing us a chance to view elements from different eras as a prelude to the central voyage at hand (the classic example being the true ‘young Indy’ sequence that opens Last Crusade). Here in these episodes, while there might be intellectual strains that intersect with the two adventures, they make little sense:  Indy’s in Kenya meeting Teddy Roosevelt, then in Paris with Norma Rockwell; Indy’s meeting the real-life Nancy Drew at Princeton, then he’s talking revolution on the streets of Ireland.

Number two: The writing and acting. Lucas has made quite a feather-bed for himself as overseer of major films such as the Indiana Jones movies (and even Labyrinth!). So the overall scope of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones remains true and appropriate in each of these 90-minute entries, but the individual efforts of actors and writers are nothing short of abysmal. Luckily, the series improves somewhat after the first installment here (I made it through about three minutes of the first film before throwing my dinner fork down on my plate and forcibly tearing the DVD out of the player. And yes, I revisited the episode a while later and it still stunk), but where Harrison Ford and company exude charisma and Lucas/Spielberg were smart enough to hire writers like Peter Kaufman to pen the Indy film scripts, The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones is chock-full painful, neo-Waltons altruism that does nothing to serve the drama at hand, not to mention the Indiana Jones legend at heart.

And understand, there are twelve discs of material to swim through on this collection (call LucasFilm anything but encyclopedic) and yet THIS IS NOT A DEFINITIVE COLLECTION. Maybe volumes two and three (slated for release over the next few months) may include original material that isn’t here, but I wouldn’t hold your breath. The biggest omission is that the original-airing codas from an older Indiana Jones (George Hall) simply aren’t here – at all. They have been excised. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me: Lucas, as effective as he can be, is all-too-notorious for his attitudes toward revisionist filmmaking.

So that’s The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones for you (I hate referring to the show like that, in the same way I refuse to refer to it as Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark – THERE’S NO WAY). Those of you with Indy tattoos may give the show a lot more credit than this writer. And as I’ll get to later, there can be no complaints made in regards to bonus features here. But these are chopped-up, illogically-combined installments that diminish the Indiana Jones magic.

If Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull sucks, I just don’t know what I’ll do…

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

These simply don’t look like Indiana Jones-level presentations. Yes, the show is presented in its original full-frame format (fine) and we need to remember that the series was shot on 16mm film instead of the standard 35mm in order to cut costs (in my mind, not a good call). And for these and other reasons it was hard for me not to wince at certain points. Color accuracy is painfully off; skin tones are almost orange the whole way through; saturated hues don’t pop at all. And the overall sense of fine detail quality is hit-and-miss at best. There’s a groady smear to almost every moment of this set. LucasFilm has set their standards quite high with DVD releases in the past, but start dropping your expectations: These presentations are run-of-the-mill, if even that.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

I would have bet you $100 a year ago that LucasFilm would upgrade to 5.1 with these releases, but as it stands, the audio remains in simple stereo. And it’s not even that exceptional of a mix to begin with. Dialogue isn’t crisp and clear, indoor scenes are a lot more reliably discernable than outdoor ones, and the show’s musical score comes through with an almost tinny lack of fidelity. Sound effects are solid most of the time, but the show also isn’t peppered with atmospherics the way the films were. Disappointing.

Also included are English Closed Captions.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

Good news and bad news: There are literally hours of bonus features, but absolutely none of it has to do with the show itself (it’s all history-based). If that doesn’t mean much to you, you’ll definitely dig these extras, but this writer is pissed that there aren’t any bonuses specifics to the show on this set.

On Disc One, we get four documentaries: Archaeology: Unearthing Our Past (20:00) is a nice crash course in the intricacies of archaeology; Howard Carter and the Tomb of Tutankhamun (23:00) treads similar thematic ground as the My First Adventure episode (the docs are set up this way), and looks at the famous discoverer’s life and findings; Colonel Lawrence’s War: T.E. Lawrence and Arabia (36:00) is a peek at the historical figure’s controversial life and legacy; and From Slavery to Freedom (30:00) is a short, cursory introduction to the modern history of slavery.

Six documentaries are included on Disc Three: Theodore Roosevelt and The American Century (31:00), a look at the president’s exploratory exploits and travails; Ecology: Pulse of the Planet (24:00) looks at our relationship with planet Earth (and how it’s kind of going to pot); American Dreams: Norman Rockwell – The Saturday Evening Post (24:00) is a self-explanatory look at the iconic artist; Art Rebellion: The Making of the Modern (26:00) is a quick peek at early-20^th-century art and a handful of its movements; and Edgar Degas: Reluctant Rebel (23:00) and Braque and Picasso: A Collaboration (22:30) offer perspectives on these artists and their contributions.

Disc Five brings us more docs: Giacomo Puccini: The Music of the Heart (26:00) and It’s Opera! (29:00) offer thoughts on both opera as a form and a more specific look at one of its most notable luminaries; The Archduke’s Last Journey: End of an Era (21:00) is one of the better docs here – it looks at Franz Ferdinand’s assassination and how that opened the door to WWI; Powder Keg: Europe 1900-1914 (26:00) also looks at the leadings-up to the war; Sigmund Freud: Exploring the Unconscious (22:00) and Carl Junk and the Journey of Self Discovery (19:30) are biographical looks at those two behemoths of modern psychology; and Psychology: Charting the Human Mind (26:30) is a more general overview.

On Disc Six, we get four documentaries: Seeking Truth: The Life of Leo Tolstoy (31:00) and Unquiet Voices: Russian Writers and the State (26:00) look at one of the kings of Russian literature and his contemporaries, as well as how they both worked in and forever influenced the country in which they lived; and Aristotle: Creating Foundations (22:00) and Ancient Questions: Philosophy and Our Search For Meaning (24:00) are looks at ancient forms of philosophy that have paved the way for many of our modern democratic practices.

More docs on Disc Seven: Jiddu Krishnamuti: The Reluctant Messiah (27:00) and Annie Besant: An Unlikely Rebel (27:00) are straightforward looks at these two historical figures (they both play prominent roles in the Journey of Radiance tele-film); and Medicine in the Middle Kingdom (27:00) and Eastern Spirituality: The Road to Enlightenment (30:00) take aim at illuminating Chinese medical and spiritual histories.

Disc Nine offers these docs: Thomas Edison: Lighting Up the World (27:00) and Invention and Innovation: What’s Behind a Good Idea? (23:00) are self-explanatory looks at the famous American inventor and the history of world-changing inventions; The Mystery of Edward Statemeyer (26:30) is a look at the creator of The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew; and Wanted: Dead or Alive – Pancho Villa and the American Invasion of Mexico (28:00), General John J. Pershing and His American Army (28:30) and George S. Patton: American Achilles (30:00) are biographical peeks at these military mavens’ lives and careers.

On Disc Eleven we get: Easter Rising: The Poets’ Rebellion (26:00), The Passions of William Butler Yeats (28:00), Sean O’Casey vs. Ireland (25:30) and Ireland: The Power of the Poets (27:00), all of which are looks at the modern history of Ireland from a literary perspective; and Winston Churchill: The Lion’s Roar (34:00), Demanding the Vote: The Pankhursts and British Suffrage (27:00), and Fighting for the Vote: Women’s Suffrage in America (31:30), are all interesting looks at these figures and movements (the American women’s suffrage entry is particularly engaging).

Then, on Disc Twelve, we get a longer-than-usual (yet far more surface-level) documentary about intellectual progress in the 20^th century and how the adventures of the Joneses interacted with them.

Exclusive DVD-ROM Features: What happens when you pop the disc into your PC?

Disc Twelve offers the set’s only non- documentary bonuses. We get some DVD-ROM materials: An interactive timeline and a cute game.