STUDIO: A&E
RELEASE DATE: June 24, 2008
FEATURES: Additional Scenes

Before we get going, let me just say that if you haven’t seen the first season of History’s aerially explosive series Dogfights, it doesn’t matter. The main point is that you check it out. Dogfights is one of the best shows History (The History Channel) has ever brought to air. Imagine watching an action packed video game of real life combat while listening to commentary from real characters and that’s what you get with Dogfights. It’s one of the coolest shows on the air.

The most groundbreaking aspect of Dogfights is that it utilizes state-of-the-art CGI technology to recreate some of the most gripping and hair-raising aerial battles in the history of 20th and 21st Century warfare while the real pilots involved give blow-by-blow, second-by-second, bullet-by-bullet breakdowns of what they went through during each showdown. Since some battles go back 80 years, contemporary pilots and historians return in Season Two to tell the true stories of the pilots who are no longer with us. At the same time, viewers are schooled in the mechanics of each plane, the technology used at the time, the weaponry carried by each plane, and various fight and flight strategies employed by each pilot. It’s the first Air Force based series I’ve ever seen that truly (and accurately) puts you in the thick of the high flying action of days and wars gone by.

Much like the first season, the second season of Dogfights features a wide range of battles across several decades of aerial warfare spread across five discs in 17 episodes. From “The First Dogfighters” of World War I to the “Dogfights of Desert Storm,” the action, commentary, education, and intensity continues in the same format as the first season, with a few new surprises thrown into the sky. In the second season, while many specific battles and wars are featured, there’s a heavier emphasis on educating viewers on the many strategies, weapons, planes, and tactics used by various countries. For example, the set kicks off with “Kamikaze,” which explores the philosophy of why and how Japanese pilots turned themselves into high-speed suicide weapons through various recreations, including incredible perspective views from the cockpit and deck as the plane was about to hit. While similar live-action shows would simply show stock footage, Dogfights pushes the envelope by showing both sides of the impending doom, which you rarely (if ever) get to see. This is what sets the series apart from any other show about aerial combat.

The educational entertainment continues as the set also serves up the history of “Supersonic” flight and the development of jet aircraft with commentary from test pilots, “Secret Weapons” such as the first remote-controlled bombers and brutal new-age Kamikazes, low altitude combat where there’s “No Room for Error,” and the technology used to battle at night in the dark that was employed by Hellcats, Black Widows, and F-16 fighters. If you’re a war geek, you’ll be swept away to the skies by the sheer volume of information in each episode. Unless you have a family member in the Air Force, you’ll be hard pressed to learn any of this from history books, or even the internet. From a higher historic standpoint, the second season of Dogfights also spotlights the heroic “Tuskegee Airmen,” the famous African-American 322 Fighter Group who left a big imprint on the airfields of World War II despite the challenges of racial intolerance at the time. For those unfamiliar with the Tuskegee Airmen, this episode certainly serves as a great action-packed primer to the upcoming George Lucas project, Redtails, about the legendary unit.

Although war and combat pits enemy against enemy, it’s truly fascinating to see pilots from a variety of countries reflect on what they went through in the skies. Dogfights isn’t a series that solely waves the Stars & Stripes like a Michael Bay movie, you also hear from the German, Russian, and Japanese fighters on the receiving end of the bullets. For the many war geeks out there, the scope of the series is truly remarkable. Another highlight of the set is the “Desert Aces” episode, which focuses solely on the Israeli Air Force (IAF) as they learned to master the Mirage III fighter. Not only do viewers get boot-camped in Israeli air tactics, but the episode also highlights the most decorated fighter pilot of the IAF, who provides commentary as he chronicles one of the most hair-raising missions of his career. After watching “Desert Aces,” you might be surprised by the fact that you’ve just seen one of the greatest pilots of all time.

Other highlights of the set include the “Death of the Luftwaffe”, “MiG Killers of Midway”, “The Bloodiest Day” of Vietnam air combat, the three most prolific battles of the “P-51 Mustang”, the “Luftwaffe’s Deadliest Mission”, the warhorse known as the “Thunderbolt”, “Gun Kills of Vietnam”, and the 500mph combat that took place over North Korea in “Jet vs Jet”.

As for bonus material, fans also receive a diverse collection of additional scenes that only add to an already impressive series. It’s hard to think of the extra scenes as bonuses since Dogfights Season Two already feels like you’re getting something special and truly unique. If you’re the slightest bit interested in aerial combat, the history of war, and you spend a lot of time surfing back to History (The History Channel), this is one of the best TV to DVD sets you’ll find from purely a show standpoint.