For the first time on DVD, the early years of mythology’s mightiest man are revealed in Young Hercules: The Complete Series! Available now from Shout! Factory, Young Hercules: The Complete Series includes all 50 episodes of the action adventure series in a 6-DVD set, as well as the bonus featurette Writing the Legend of Young Hercules.
This prequel series to the smash hit Hercules: The Legendary Journeys explores the dawn of an ancient age of light and darkness as the half-god, half-man Hercules (Ryan Gosling, The Notebook) — along with his friends, Prince Jason (Chris Conrad, Mortal Kombat Annihilation) and Iolaus (Dean O’Gorman, The Hobbit Trilogy) — struggles to find his place in the world and learns what it means to be a hero.
Executive produced by Sam Raimi and Robert G. Tapert (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess), Young Hercules aired on the Fox Kids Network from 1998 to 1999, and was nominated for three Daytime Emmy® Awards.
Bonus Feature
- Writing the Legend of Young Hercules featurette
Young Hercules was a spin-off of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, featuring Ryan Gosling as Hercules. Yes. A young Ryan Gosling circa 1998.
The episodes are only 24 minutes long but they managed to stuff plenty of action and character development in to make up for it. This series is better geared towards families and somewhat younger children as there is almost no sexual content compared to the original series. There are still plenty of comedic elements just as in the original series however and there are some recognizable characters as well (Ares, Discord and Strife).
I noticed that the episodes are arranged according to airing rather than rearranging them into the correct chronological order. For some reason when the series was aired there were episodes that came off as being out of place as we are just introduced to characters that Hercules had previously been the best of friends with. It’s more of an annoyance that they are out of order than anything, and it would have been nice to see them arranged in a chronological order rather than the airing order.
This is a really fun DVD set worth picking up whether you were a fun of the original series and didn’t catch Young Hercules while it was on air or if you did catch the series and want to re-watch it.
Elizabeth Lampman is a coffee-fuelled Mom of 2 girls and lives in Hamilton, Ontario. She enjoys travelling, developing easy recipes, crafting, taking on diy projects, travelling and saving money!