In honor of the 2004 Olympics in Athens, The History Channel has brought out The First Olympics: Blood, Honor, and Glory to take a look at the origins of the Olympics thousands of years ago in ancient Greece. This isn't a single documentary, however, but rather a compilation of three more-or-less related individual documentaries. That "more or less" is actually where things get a bit problematic, as we'll see in a moment.

The first program on the DVD is "The First Olympics." This 45-minute documentary jumps right into the subject matter, providing a steady stream of information on the origins of the Olympics in ancient Greece. It's quite interesting, with material that's sure to be new even to viewers who are familiar with the general outlines of ancient Greek history and culture. Using a combination of footage of archaeological sites and some reasonably well-done re-enactments, "The First Olympics" leads viewers through the religious origins and significance of the games, as well as the details of how a typical set of games was held. Some of the sports discussed in detail include boxing, wrestling, pentathlon, and chariot racing, all of which turn out to be quite interesting.

When we get to the second program, "Blood and Honor at the First Olympics," it's suddenly revealed that the person or persons who assembled The First Olympics didn't actually take a look at the contents. You see, "Blood and Honor at the First Olympics" is the same program as "The First Olympics." It has a different voiceover narrator (Leonard Nimoy instead of the nameless narrator of the first program), but the text is almost identical... and by that I mean word for word. The topics are the same, presented in the same order. The visual footage is nearly identical. It's abundantly clear that one of the two programs is merely a minimally tweaked version of the other, perhaps having undergone a bit of a touch-up and a re-titling when it came time to re-run a program on the Olympics. For obvious reasons, there's absolutely no point in watching both "Blood and Honor at the First Olympics" and "The First Olympics," so one-third of the material on the DVD is pointless.

The third and final documentary on the DVD is "The Greek Gods," and as the title indicates, it's really only tangentially related to the topic of the first Olympics. This program, which runs approximately 45 minutes, covers the major Greek deities and major myths associated with them, and wraps up by briefly considering the origins and cultural relevance of the gods. While the program has a reasonably clear structure, the key fault here is that it's basically a video Cliff Notes for Greek mythology. The narrator introduces a god, outlines his or her origins, describes a few key exploits, and then moves along to the next god. The presentation is completely bland, with no attempt to look at any of the incidents in more detail or explore any of the topics in depth. It might be worth watching for someone who's completely unfamiliar with the Greek myths, but that's about it.

The DVD

Video

All three of the programs are presented in their original television aspect ratio of 1.33:1. The image quality is good, and certainly satisfactory for the material being presented. Colors are bright and clean, and the picture is reasonably sharp and clear.

Audio

The Dolby 2.0 soundtracks for the three documentaries are quite satisfactory as well. The narrators' voices in each program are always clear and easy to understand, with no background noise or other audio faults.

Extras

The only special feature is a text list of Olympic medal rankings, arranged by country.

Final thoughts

The first documentary on this set, the 45-minute "The First Olympics," is a reasonably interesting and informative piece. However, it's not substantial enough to hold up the DVD on its own, which is why two other programs have also been included. Unfortunately, though, the second program is quite literally a rehash of the first (nearly word-for-word and image-for-image) and the third, "The Greek Gods," is no more than a bland video Cliff Notes for Greek mythology. If you're interested in the subject, The First Olympics is worth a rental to check out the first program on the DVD, but it's not worth a purchase.