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Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > Crime > Police > Corruption > Drugs > Gangster > Dark Blue – The Complete First Season (2009/WB Shop/Warner Bros. DVD)

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


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