I have noticed a rather disturbing matrix encoding problem with the surround sound of episode # 12 of season 2:

The center channel and the right front channel are flopped / reversed, i.e. the dialogue does not come from the center but from the right speaker.

Vice versa, the music and ambient sound effects come from the center speaker.

This is extremely annoying - To properly watch the episode I had to switch the speaker cables

This problem has been observed with the European PAL version of the second box set of season 2. This is a rather unusual defect that usually would require Paramount Home Entertainment to fix the problem, repress this DVD and offer a free-of-charge replacement.

Unfortunately, it seems impossible to get a reply from Paramount Home Entertainment Germany or ANY e-mail address of Paramount Home Entertainment UK (the DVDs here are pan-European, i.e. DVDs are the same all over the place).

I can only urge those in the UK or elsewhere in Europe to check the sound of their DVDs. There is a certain probability that the same problem occurs with the NTSC DVDs, but that needs verification.

(and while the picture quality of season 1 and 2 is excellent by all means, the pilot episode is of somewhat inferior quality. I hope for the ultimate DVD release that not only the box cover is changed but that they find the original negatives of the pilot episode and remaster it...).

Have a better one!

I doubt the UK is the best place to contact about this - we don't even have the boxset you are referring to!

Oops...sorry about that. I thought the second season box set (here in Germany split into two parts: 2.1 and 2.2 - so Paramount can rake in more money) was already available throughout Europe.

Hmm...checked the disc printing: It has a navy-like white 16 in a red circle. Is this Ireland or Australia? In addition to the German PG-16 blue label it also has the Spanish one. Disc printing is in UK English ("colour")

However, since usually the masters for such disc all come from the same source, there is a high probability that this problem will equally bug UK and US fans of the series (unless somebody at Paramount has noticed all the noise I'm making and will have the problem fixed prior to the release).

And while I'm at it: There is one episode in season 2 where the original negatives seem to have gone missing, so they had to fall back on videotaped footage (when Audrey meets Windom Earle in the library). There is a significant drop in picture quality but fortunately this is limited to this one episode (and the pilot episode as I mentioned earlier).

It's quite frustrating that in the UK, you still can't but ANY of the second season on DVD yet - unless you want to import a Region 1 version, like I did. It's interesting to hear about these little problems you've noticed, Morpheus - the surround sound hasn't been a problem for me (yet - I don't have surround sound at home!) but I did notice what you're saying about the meeting of Earle and Audrey. Still, after only having my old VHS tapes to rely on for the last 16 years, the DVDs still seem like a huge step up in quality!

This is wikipedia's take on matters:

The DVD box set is known to have production errors, which cause many DVD players to freeze. One known track glitch occurs during the opening credits of Episode 2. Another glitch occurs 15 minutes into Episode 4, during Donna and Audrey's scene in the girls' high school lavatory. The European DVD box set of season two has an audio flaw where in episode 12 the center and right channel have been flopped.