Miracles The Complete Series
July 2005 Reviewed by: Josh Barber Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Ever since The X-Files proved popular, paranormal investigation has become a thriving subject for television shows and movies. The efforts are of varying quality, and none of them have really struck it as big as X-Files, but that doesn't mean the efforts are all bad. One of the recent overlooked examples is Miracles.

Paul Callan (Skeet Ulrich) is an investigator debunking claims of modern-day miracles, finding simple explanations behind seemingly otherworldly occurrences. When he comes across something he can't explain, he's drawn into the world of Sodalitas Quaerito, a paranormal investigation group headquartered in Boston.

From that point, the show seems to be one big ghost story. Where The X-Files was obsessed with aliens, Miracles tries to explore the afterlife. Examples of three early episodes include a doctor who finds his star patient possessed; a young girl who keeps appearing at the scene of horrific accidents just before the fact; and a boy who fears his dreams of people being violently murdered are becoming reality. There are lots of possessions and messages from beyond the grave, with the faintest hint of a larger arc forming behind the stories we're seeing.

The show is presented fullscreen, and for the most part the transfers are good. A lot of the episodes come out a bit grainy, which might have been a specific choice, but doesn't seem to be the case. Paranormal-investigator shows spend a lot of time in the dark, where grain is more obvious. Other than that, the colors are good, and the few bright spots there are don't bloom out of control.

Miracles is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, which is extravagant for such a small show. Voices and incidental music come through clearly, and every so often the surrounds actually get a little bit of attention. The discs do not offer any additional languages, and if you want subtitles, your TV better have closed-captioning capabilities.

This set was produced by Shout! Factory, the folks who did such an excellent job on the Freaks and Geeks collection. The show's 13 episodes are on four discs, so there's plenty of room not only for quality transfers but for decent extras as well. The extras are spread out among the discs.

You'll find five deleted scenes, with an introduction by Richard Hatem, the show's creator. Six of the episodes have commentaries from Hatem and executive producer David Greenwalt, plus several writers and one of the directors. The commentaries often devolve into simple narration of what is happening on the screen, but there are some interesting moments as well. A two-minute series promo really isn't very impressive. The video is of poor quality, and the production values are lacking; this seems like something that would have been in a press kit before the show's premiere.

The most interesting feature is a 30-minute interview with Hatem in which he talks with great passion about the show, the direction in which he wanted to take it, and how much he appreciates the fans. Listening to him speak, you really want the show to have done better than it did so he could still be telling the stories he wanted to tell.

The characters in Miracles are thin, but the episodes at the end of this collection show that the series had potential. It is a shame it wasn't given a chance to find its legs.

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