Dark Blue – The Complete First Season (2009/WB Shop/Warner Bros. DVD)
Picture: C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D Episodes: C
PLEASE NOTE: This DVD set can only be ordered
from The WB Shop at the link below.
Of all
the cop crime dramas on TV, a usually overlooked subgenre is the undercover
investigative thriller, where the series spends its time sending police or
other approved of and qualified people (even if they do not have the skill or
weapons they need to handle said assignment) so a large, evil organization can
be brought down. It happens in mob TV
shows and in police series as diverse (and usually as subpar) as Wiseguy or 21 Jump Street,
though the former spends the whole series doing so. Dark
Blue is somewhere in between.
Dylan
McDermott heads an undercover task force who must deal with an FBI agent as the
target of a murder attempt, crossing into his carefully worked-out infiltration
operations, especially when the FBI considered one of his men a traitor and
possible suspect. Over ten shows, we get
different situations, but they are linked in some ways so you would have to
watch it in order if interested and if it worked.
Sadly,
despite McDermott and a decent cast, Jerry Bruckheimer’s long played-out action
hands and that of half-baked director Danny Cannon (Judge Dredd, Goal!) co-produce
(with Cannon directing the Pilot as
he had for their The Forgotten and
they also botched a U.S. remake of the British hit Eleventh Hour and we covered both versions elsewhere on this site),
so any interesting idea, set-up or situation quickly degenerates into a horrid
formula of violence, soullessness, hollowness and formula. You have seen this all before and done much
better and they only needed to produce 10 episodes. Far inferior to Southland, the show somehow moved on to a second season, but you
would never know by watching this set.
Only for
the ultra-curious.
The anamorphically
enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is a little soft throughout due to its
down-styling (dark, slightly gutted color, possible HD shoot, slightly
overexposed shots) that is beyond clichéd and since these are DVD-Rs, that is
holding back some detail. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has some
surround information and this is well-recorded, but the soundfield (even in a
Pro Logic way) is inconsistent, as well as sometimes harsher than it should
be. There are no extras.
As noted
above, you can order this DVD set exclusively from The WB Shop at this link:
http://bit.ly/WB_DarkBlue
-
Nicholas Sheffo