The Nickelodeon series, Monsters vs. Aliens revisits our favorite characters from the Monsters vs. Aliens film, chronicling the further adventures of Ginormica (aka Susan), Link, Dr. Cockroach Ph.D., B.O.B. and General Monger. There’s always a lot of crazy things happening at Area Fifty-Something, and this DVD set collects the first 8 episodes/15 adventures of the TV series:
 

• “Welcome to Area Fifty-Something”
  The monsters are sent to investigate a UFO landing in Australia, but when they arrive, the ship steal Ginormica’s quantonium, shrinking her back into to normal sized Susan. Meanwhile, an alien named Coverton arrives at Area Fifty-Something to apologize for the whole Gallaxhar incident. The president soon finds himself trapped aboard Coverton’s ship, which he accidentally sets to self-defense mode.
• “Danger Wears a Diaper”
  It’s the president’s birthday and he asks the monsters to give him something gadget-y. Dr. Cockroach gives him a Rejuvenalizer, but the President goes a little overboard and accidentally turns himself into a baby.

  “The Toy From Another World”
  The monsters suspect Coverton is hiding something. They discover an alien teddy bear while investigating his quarters, but B.O.B. accidentally triggers the toy’s mission to kill them, and can’t remember the shutdown code.

• “The Bath Effect”
  Susan convinces B.O.B. to take a bath by telling him it cures crankiness. B.O.B. then goes on an insane rampage to wipe out all crankiness by ensuring that everyone on the base gets a bath.

  “The Fruit of All Evil”
  Link accidentally eats B.O.B.’s girlfriend Diane—a Fruit Gelatin Mold. While Susan and Dr. Cockroach try to cook up a replacement, Link distracts B.O.B. with a trip—but they soon find themselves under attack by a giant mutant pineapple.

• “Fremeny Mine”
  The general assigns B.O.B. to be Coverton’s evacuation buddy. As Coverton tries to perfect his death ray, he finds his efforts constantly being interrupted by B.O.B.’s staging of some new emergency drill.

  “Maximum B.O.B.”
  Coverton receives an order from the Grand Coverlord to make an army of evil clone B.O.B.s. However, the original B.O.B. may cease to exist if he doesn’t reintegrate himself with the clones.

• “It Came…On a Field Trip”
  While the team is investigating a series of alien sightings in the Pacific Northwest, they meet the cute young alien child Sqweep, who is on a field trip to Earth. They must prevent Sqweep from transmitting her Earth Studies report as it could threaten the safety of humanity.

  “Educational Television”
  It’s a lazy Saturday on the base, but when the cable goes out, Link and B.O.B. don’t know how to pass the boredom. That is, until Sqweep offers them her educational television—but it’s not quite what they expected.

• “Flipped Out”
  B.O.B. discovers the Ultimate Emergency Switch in the basement of the base and has an uncontrollable urge to flip the switch. While the monsters try to help keep B.O.B.’s mind off the switch, Coverton does the opposite after he learns that flipping the switch may have bad consequences for Earth.

  “The Wormhole Has Turned!”
  The general asks the team to figure out a faster way to get to the places that need their help. After Sqweep tells her plans to build a super-sonic engine, to save face Dr. Cockroach claims he has invented a teleportation machine—but his wormhole can only transfer things 20 feet away, and is lactose-intolerant.

• “The Two Faces of Dr. Cockroach”
  Dr. Cockroach thinks he has perfected his teleportation machine, until it causes his mad scientist self to be split into two Dr. Cockroaches—one a mad party guy and the other serious scientist. Now the rest of the monsters have to figure out how to re-join them back into one before the doctors kill one another.

  “The Thing With One Brain”
  Dr. Cockroach gives B.O.B. a brain after he accidentally launches some missiles by pressing what he thought was the “lunch” button. But the new “Robert” becomes an evil genius bent on world destruction.

• “Night of the Living Dog”
  The general refuses to give Sqweep a puppy for her Earth Studies research so B.O.B. agrees to play the part. When B.O.B. fails to act like a convincing dog, Sqweep blasts him with canine brainwaves, but having no brain, these go right through him and cause all of the base personnel to act like dogs.

  “Attack of the Movie Night!”
  Sqweep sneaks into the monsters’ scary movie night and becomes terrified that zombies are after her brain. She uses a machine to remove her memories of the film, but accidentally causes her nightmare to come to life.

While none of the original cast from the film has returned for this follow-up series, the new voice actors (Diedrich Bader, Chris O’Dowd, Kevin Michael Richardson, Eric Edelstein, Riki Lindhome and James Patrick Stuart) do a decent job of recreating similar voices for the characters. The series also introduces two fun new alien characters, the evil Coverton and the cute young “innocent” Sqweep.

The series currently airs on the HD Nickelodeon channel, but this collection of episodes has only received an SD DVD release. Most of the time the picture looks great, but at times, the darker scenes look a bit dull. As for the audio, the show makes great use of the stereo and surround channels to help add dimension and ambiance to the scenes.

There are no bonus features included on the DVD except for some trailers and music videos for other DreamWorks releases. However, the DVD does come with a code to get an UltraViolet digital copy of the episodes (in standard definition only).

I can’t help but compare this release with the Kung Fu Panda DVD that was also released this week. I found myself laughing out loud a lot more while watching that series, and generally enjoyed those episodes more. This may be due to the fact that episodes of Monsters vs. Aliens are actually comprised of two shorter, separate stories, which doesn’t give them a lot of time to develop each story. Instead, it relies more on the crazy antics of the monsters and aliens and less on a longer story arc. Perhaps this is geared more toward younger audiences with shorter attention spans. That said, I did like that there was continuity between some of the episodes—where events from prior episodes were referenced in later ones. It would just be nice to see them tell some longer stories with some more double-length episodes, like with the pilot.

All told, I think fans of the original Monsters vs. Aliens film will find the series to be a fun extension to the franchise.

What’s Included on the DVD:

Episodes:
DVD:

• The first eight episodes/15 shorts from the first season: (3:02:00)
  

  • “Welcome to Area Fifty-Something”
  • “Danger Wears a Diaper/The Toy From Another World”
  • “The Bath Effect/The Fruit of All Evil”
  • “Fremeny Mine/Maximum B.O.B.”
  • “It Came…On a Field Trip/Educational Television”
  • “Flipped Out/The Wormhole Has Turned!”
  • “The Two Faces of Dr. Cockroach/The Thing With One Brain”
  • “Night of the Living Dog/Attack of the Movie Night!”
• Widescreen 1.78:1
• Audio: English DD 5.1
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
• Closed Captioned

Digital Copy: (Redemption Deadline 10/15/2015)

• UltraViolet SD Copy redeemable via Vudu or Flixster

Extras:

• B.O.B.’s Super Freaky Job App
  The box for this DVD lists a “Game App”, however, the app is free to download from the iTunes and Google Play app store, and there is no special code included in the insert to unlock any kind of exclusive content.
• World of DreamWorks Animation (11:54)
  Watch music videos and trailers for various DreamWorks animated films and DVDs.
  • “Shrek” — “I’m a Believer” (1:17)
  • “Madagascar” — “I Like To Move It, Move It” (1:04)
  • “Kung Fu Panda” — “Kung Fu Fighting” (2:07)
  • “How To Train Your Dragon” — “Fly High” (1:52).
  • Holiday Favorites (5:34)
    Play All or watch trailers for “Shrek the Halls”, “Merry Madagascar”, “Kung Fu Panda Holiday”, “Gift of the Night Fury”, “Rise of the Guardians”, “Original Christmas Classics”, “Veggie Tales/Merry Larry”

Final Thoughts:

Monsters vs. Aliens is an entertaining follow-up to the hit film that brings back all of your favorite characters and introduces a couple fun new aliens. While the DVD sounds great, the picture sometimes falls a little flat—it would have been nice if there had been a Blu-ray release as the series airs in HD on Nickelodeon. Also, the DVD only contains the first 8 episodes (15 short) of the series and no bonus features, except for an SD UltraViolet digital copy of the episodes. The episodes themselves are short, but fun and entertaining. This DVD is worth checking out for fans of the original Monsters vs Aliens film.