Cleopatra 2525: Season 1 - Episodes 1-6 [DVD]

Sadly, this was a short lived American television show created by the makers of Xena and Hercules. The executive production was done by Sam Raimi, the creator of this summer's blockbuster Spiderman. His titles also include such legendary films as the Evil Dead trilogy and Darkman. It was originally part of an hour long block called Back To Back Action, which featured Cleopatra followed by another Sam Raimi creaton, Jack Of All Trades. Cleopatra went on to out live Jack and was expanded to an hour before Sam Raimi had a fall out with Renaissance Pictures, which in turn brought about the cancellation of Xena also. But if you were ever a fan of Xena, Hercules or even the Evil Dead, then Cleopatra 2525 is a must own. It was the perfect blend of comedy and scifi. It was very unique and is well worth adding to any collection. Jennifer Sky, a beautiful young actress stared as Cleopatra. Her credits include an episode of Buffy called The Pack and a role on Xena as Americe, the Amazon with attitude. Cleopatra was an exotic dancer who went in for a breast augmentation only to end up being frozen for 500 years. She awakes to find man kind has been driven underground and robots rule the earth. Now Cleopatra must join the battle to reclaim the surface while facing the fact that she can never go home again and spurting out humerous catch phrases, that no one else remembers 500 years into the future. The supporting cast consist of Vicky Pratt, a fitness model and actress, best known for her current role on the American scifi series Mutant X. Gina Torres, the host of E!'s talk soup, playes Hel, the team leader who was aslo facing her own personal battles. Throw the breath taking Jennifer Sky into the mix and you get one awesome cast. It is a shame that no one else picked this show up, such as the scifi channel, so don't miss your chance.

I thought that I would hate this series. It looked pretty silly (based on the cover). Nevertheless, I ended up getting hooked, and now I love it. I like the fact the the heroes are all women. It has lots of Sci-Fi action and the girls are pretty, but also quite respectable actresses. I would suggest that if you enjoy programs such as Farscape, Lexx, Andromeda, Xena and the like, that you would also get a kick out of this. For those interested, there is no nudity and the violence is fairly cartoonish, i.e. not much blood. Suitable for ages 12 and up.

Calling this 'Xena in the future' is a bit too simplistic, but that's the general idea - the plot revolves around three main characters - Hel (the leader, carries 'the voice' and is the most Xena-like character), Sarge (used to live on the surface, kind of idealistic but in a practical way, sort of a 'hard' Gabrielle), and Cleo (somewhat naïve, but has her uses...).

Yes, there really are a lot of sci-fi cliches here and many plot lines that seem very familiar, but in many ways that's the charm of the series. If you're a sci-fi pureist then you should look elsewhere for a series with plots that have a few less holes. Cleo is the writing of Xena in a sci-fi context - if you expect that and not a intricately planned story arc a la Babylon 5 or Star Trek, then you won't be disappointed. Unfortunately, the critics didn't see this, and tore the series to bits, which arguably led to its cancellation in the US. I've been told there were a few 1 hour long episodes filmed for series 2, but they most likely won't see the light of day outside the US or on Video or DVD - so this is in effect all there is.

Sub-30 minute episodes are a little short for weekly installments, so this works far better on DVD than it did on TV - you get much clearer character development and are able to get into the whole story more. It's just a pity there won't be any more of it :(

The picture quality of the DVD is very good, but the sound is only stereo rather than surround and is a bit fuzzy in places. There also aren't any special features at all (a picture gallery would have been nice...) and the packaging is a little flimsy. Still, the important bits are there.