A&E Home Entertainment / 2006-2007 / 460 Minutes / Unrated
Street Date: April 29, 2008
In addition to juggling classes and social lives, the supernatural sleuths of the Paranormal Research Society (PRS) of Penn State University investigate everything from poltergeists to hauntings in an attempt to uncover the truth behind frightening real-life mysteries. Sought by clients ranging from the Catholic Church to ordinary families, the PRS, aided by psychologists, psychics, priests, and demonologists, helps terrified people find solutions to their paranormal problems.
Ryan Buell started PRS when he was a freshman at Penn State back in the fall of 2001. He claims to have had frightening supernatural encounters when he was a child for a number of years. Since no one listened to him, he tried to learn about the supernatural himself, thus, began his trek into this debatable field. Buell is not the most charismatic guy, and his low monotone voice can grate. Yet it’s Buell’s sober conviction and good people skills that give this show its drive.
And where Sci-Fi channel’s hugely successful reality show Ghost Hunters are all `teched out to record evidence of a ghost first and foremost, A&E’s reality show Paranormal State seems primarily interested in resolving traumatized folks who are pleading for help. Both shows are jazzed up in post-production with swelling dissident musical chords and quick-cut editing for obvious entertainment purposes. But it’s Paranormal State, which is more affecting because the people are frequently older, frightened, and…tired. Frequently, they just want the spiritual thing to leave, plain and simple.
The supernatural opens up Pandora’s box that asks a zillion questions: where is God? Is God here? A Demon? A Ghost? A Poltergeist (which is considered psycho kinetic energy manifesting itself without a spiritual entity)? Why is this happening? Are their assessments correct? How much of this is hysteria (which was notable in episode The Knickerbocker)? Is it all hysteria? PRS tries to answer these questions by interviews that filter out domestic issues and other impacting elements including the historical background of a location, recent trauma or high electromagnetic fields in the wiring of a home, which can cause nausea or hallucinations. But while all questions are never exactly answered, some spectacular coincidences on occasion do emerge.
The episode of Vegas might be the most fascinating when a Las Vegas girl begins to have night visitations from a particular entity in the form of a young Latin girl with a number of specific features who gives her name. It turns out that this girl is a “Jane Doe” murder victim hundreds of miles away in Texas. It is one of the most amazing shows in the series. It just makes one think, “what the heck goes on in the afterlife?” And that is why I find it all fascinating.
The show isn’t perfect, and some episodes are near-laughable such as The Haunted Piano. And while medium Chip Coffey appears to unearth some stunning discoveries, it’s clear that he also loves the drama of the situations in which he is called to assist. With his staunch declarations including dramatically raised eyebrows, there is a bit of a diva going on. But the fact is that he usually aids the case (especially the sad Pet Cemetery). Folks who frown on or dismiss the paranormal field will likely find many more faults with this show than myself; they probably didn’t make it this far in the review. Overall, the variety of stories and the freshness, compassion and openness of the young investigators driven to help terrified folks makes for some intriguing couch-potato time.
The Video: How Does The Disc Look?
The television show’s aspect ratio of 1.85:1 is presented in nonanamorphic video. Video quality looks great in many exterior daylight scenes with nicely saturated colors, and a solid contrast ratio that provides some good depth and shadow detail. Certain interior scenes, which have been set up properly, also exhibit a nice quality of hues and depth. During the interview with the clients with the close-ups, the quality reveals quite good small textures and fibers. Images could have been more clear with an anamorphic transfer, however. Because this is reality-TV, some spontaneous scenes in the dead of night display excessive grain and fading – ghost don’t perform or “hit their mark” on cue. Edge haloes did not emerge too intrusively. For a reality TV show, most of this is fine and shouldn’t cause complaints except for the lack of anamorphic enhancement and for those who normally watch the show in high def on cable.
The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?
The disc includes one solitary track, Dolby Digital stereo. The frequency range was a bit less than I’d hoped for considering how post production jazzes things up for entertainment value. However, audio is very reasonably produced with average highs and passable lows. Aside from some music cues and effects, there isn’t much stereo panning between the front speakers. In fact there isn’t much imaging depth at all. Overall, the stereo presentation doesn’t sound altogether for some reason including dialogue, which is just ok.
Throwing the mix into Dolby Pro-Logic II surprisingly made everything line up. Surround effects came through very nicely at just the right spots, dialogue honed in on the center speaker and was far more clarified and natural sounding, and low frequency effects through the woofer harmonized well with the fronts. Audio from the front two speakers also sounded more natural and buoyant. With all that said, if your home theater has an option to alter the mix into old Dolby Pro-Logic or another “cinema” mode that can break out the mix, then that detour is recommended. It might be something you’ll want to play around with…and isn’t that one of the fun things about having a home theater?
Sadly, no Closed Captions or subtitles are include (sigh).
Supplements: What Goodies Are There?
Ryan Buell and his tech specialist, Sergey, and producer Betsy Schehetter give audio commentaries on three episodes The Name, Beer, Wine & Spirits and Mothman! Most interesting is the discussed trivia about additional happenings at the places that didn’t make it onto the show. Buell is just as interested and passionate here as he is on the show.
The featurette (11:39) Behind the Scenes shows Ryan Buell talk about what it takes to be in the field and the requirements. Some technical aspects are also discussed.
The next featurette (12:20) Getting to Know the PRS Team introduces each person. All talk about their backgrounds and interests in the paranormal and being with PRS. The varied backgrounds are interesting. But most of this is on their website.
Following that is another featurette (7:05) Guest Experts which includes a respected historian, Chip Coffey the medium who frequents the show and makes some amazing discoveries sometimes, and the one and only Lorraine Warren (of the infamous Amityville Horror fame) who helps out the PRS team with her discernment skills.
Lastly is a featurette (15:41) Additional Footage which includes many of the cast and crew messing around. It also shows some of the camera crews’ creepy reactions to certain filming encounters.
This Complete Season One includes 20 episodes running a brisk 21-22 minutes each.
Exclusive DVD-ROM Features: What happens when you pop the disc into your PC?
There are no DVD-ROM features on this DVD.
Final Thoughts
A few friends of mine consider these folks to be charlatans and we get into some great fights about it. While this show might provide some good ratings for A&E TV, it seems to me nothing would stop these investigators. Ghost Hunters focus hard and cold on capturing supernatural activity, while Paranormal State puts that technique in the backseat and focuses mostly on the afflicted people. It’s not perfect, and some episodes are weak, but many are fascinating. If you don’t believe in supernatural things or don’t like it, this show probably isn’t for you. All others should check it out, because of some effective moments.
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