Glen here...
...with a review by THE MIDDLE MAN. He's taking a look at The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne.
If memory serves, this series is part of the Action / Adventure Network - an outlet which will (basically) be the first "satellite dish-only" network. I.E. everything on said network is being produced primarily for sattellite. I'm pretty sure this is the case, if I'm misspeaking myself, someone please correct me.
Now, I gotta confess, when I saw the bible for this show - and some of the design work that was being done - I....doubted. "Ain't no way this shown is gonna work" I said to myself. "Too ambitious, not enough cleverness out there to make this happen in a way that won't bore audiences."
Now comes indication from The Middle Man that I might well have been wrong. Here's what The middle Man had to say about The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne:
The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne (reviewed by The Middle Man)
The new TV season doesn't cease to surprise me. I mean, all the new shows in syndication basically turned out to be crap: Mortal Kombat, Crow, Air America, VIP.
Then, practically out of nowhere, came Farscape. And now The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne.
This had all the makings of a big time flop: shot in South Africa, produced by more companies and producers than you can shake a stick at, and starring no one you need to know (okay, Michael Praed was in "Robin of Sherwood" and "Dynasty").
The concept sounds like it wants to ride shotgun with every classic fantasy story you have ever read. That is no miracle, since the creator Gavin Scott also came up with the concept for The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. And Jules Verne bears more than a passing resemblance to that show.
It's about a young Jules Verne (late teens), who travels the world in an airship / balloon with Phineas Fogg (yep, the guy from Around the World in 80 Days, and Rebecca, a British secret service agent. They meet just about every character from the booky of my youth. And later, those'll be the basis for young Jules' stories.
The acting, in general, is quite good, even where you don't expect it: Patrick Duffy play a vampire count in one episode! There are tons of CGI effects and matte paintings. While they don't look "real", they give the series tremendous scope, and they have the charming vribrancy of adventure book covers. It reminded me of the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea two-parter with Michael Cain.
The sets are also flawless, re-creating different countries, cityies and continents quite nicely. The stories are quite well written, and some nice twists keep you glued to the set. For example, we find out that vampires can't fly or turn into bats (and as the count puts it: "There is only so far a man can go in one night"). So they decide to develop rocket-packs to become an army of the flying undead!
It's as weird as it sounds, and beautifully realised. Btw: Jules Verne is the first show shot for digital high-definition TV, which should allow for added viewing pleasure on DVD or laserdisc. At the end of the day, Jules Verne is NOT like the current fantasy shows Xena or Hercules. It is really more old-style adventure with no excessive violence. It has a family appeal, and thus might not please the hardcore genre fans.
But a lot of love went into this one, and it shows.
Glen here, again...
The Middle Man also sent in a massive promotional flyer for the show. It's got a lotta writing on it, and it's just too damn big to post hereing. However I've provided a direct link to the document, should you be interested in learning more about this show. It's got some information, and quaite a few pictures (mostly FX shots) from the series.
Here are a few clumsily Adobed shots from the promotional flyer, and you can access better-quality images from the entire flyer by CLICKING HERE!
