The Sci-Fi Channel has never quite lived up to its potential. Yeah, it's had some hits, but their failures are more frequent (their original movies are notoriously bad. Do they really think consider a film like Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy to be SF?) and some of their scheduling choices are questionable to say the least (Ghost Hunters??? Come on!) One of their original shows that had a lot of potential was 2000's The Invisible Man. Lasting two seasons, the program had an interesting cast of characters, some interesting plots, and a fair amount of comedy. The first season has now been released on DVD in a nice five disc set.

Darien Fawkes (Vincent Ventresca) is a thief and not a great one either. Caught breaking into an old man's apartment, he's convicted and sentenced to life in prison under a three-strikes law. Awaiting transfer to a high-security penitentiary, Darien's brother Kevin (David Burke, Arthur from the live-action Tick series) comes to him with a proposition: if he'll volunteer for to be a human guinea pig for a top-secret medical program, Kevin can get him pardoned.

With no other choice, Darien agrees to become a test subject in his brother's experiment. He has a special gland inserted into his head, and when he wakes up discovers that he can become invisible. The gland secretes a substance dubbed Quicksilver that bends light around it. Darien can also cover an object in Quicksilver causing it to become invisible too.

There is one drawback: Quicksilver Madness. Whenever Darien uses his ability a toxin is released into his brain, and when it builds to a certain level, it causes him to go mad and attack the nearest person. The only thing that keeps him sane is regular injections of a counterserum.

Darien wants the gland removed, but before his brother can do that, his co-worker, Arnaud De Fehrn (Joel Bissonnette), steals most of the data and kills Kevin. Darien eventually finds himself working for a mysterious government agency under a man known only as The Director, teamed up with another agent and comic side-kick, Hobbes (Paul Ben-Victor). Each week he has to take on an assignment in order to get his dose of the counter-agent that prevents him from going insane, while looking for De Fehrn and trying to find someone who can remove the gland without killing him.

In the commentary track, series creator Matt Greenberg (who wrote Halloween H2O and Reign of Fire) states that he didn't like the idea when he first heard it since invisible man stories are always boring. He later changed his mind, but he was dead-on with his first thought. Invisibility is a great defense, but not so great as an offensive weapon. H. G. Wells had the right idea by making his Invisible Man the villain of his novel.

It seems like a lot of the writers for the show didn't know what to do with the character. They turn Darien into cop more than a spy, solving mysteries rather than trying to get secret information. In more than one episode he doesn't really even need to turn invisible (like the time he uses his power to sneak past some laser alarms...that's been done in other ways in almost every gentleman-thief movie), and sometimes it feels like the plot was arranged around the clock: "we're 20 minutes into the show, Darien has to turn invisible now."

The show also has a comic element that never really mixed with the action parts. Hobbes is basically a clown, an idiot spy who has been kicked out of every covert organization in the US government, but sometimes he becomes a James Bond character, which seems stupid when compared to his other actions. The department Darien works for doesn't have any funds either, he and Hobbes have to drive around in a broken down van that has trouble starting. Boy that's a real knee-slapper.

The show also has a tendency to have Darien speak a lot of purple prose, especially in his voice-overs: "My sanity was slipping like a brake on a 'Frisco hill. To go invisible might just push me over the edge. But I had to try. This wasn't about me anymore. This was for my brother, my girl. My conscious was calling. And it was time to get De Fehrn" (pronounced da-phone.)

Even with those faults the show has a certain charm, and the episodes that work are quite enjoyable. In one show a young girl witnesses a murder and is so traumatized that she won't talk to anyone but her make-believe friend, and Darien is able to go into that role in order to discover what she saw. As the season goes on, the writers get a bit more comfortable with the concept too, and the show starts to pick up a little steam. It never becomes great, but it does get better.

The 24 hour-long (with commercials) episodes that make up the first season are contained on 5 DVDs. These come in a fold out case with two discs per page, partially overlapping each other. The folded book is housed in a nice slipcase.

Audio:

This show comes with the original DD stereo soundtrack which suits the program well. A 5.1 track would have been enjoyable during some of the action sequences, but since most of the show is dialog based the lack of the rear channels wasn't a big deal. The dialog is easy to hear and there aren't any noticeable audio defects.

Video:

I was very surprised by the 1.78:1 anamorphic image. It looks pretty bad for a show that was recorded 2000. There was a fair amount of digital noise in the picture, especially where there were large patches of one color such as when the sky was in the shot. There was also some print damage, spots and dirt, which showed up a couple of times in most episodes. While the colors were fine and the white areas were often crushed, especially in the pilot. While the show is watchable and these defects never get distracting, I was astonished that they were present in such a recent show.

Extras:

The set comes with a bare minimum of extras. There's an audio commentary over the pilot with series creator Matt Greenberg, Vincent Ventresca, and director Breck Eisner. This was interesting enough, with the trio relating some behind the scenes anecdotes and giving their thoughts on the show but not overly exciting. There's also a 10-minute sit-down with Matt Greenberg who talks about the genesis of the show, the casting, and the fan's reaction. Finally, there's the first episode from the second season.

Final Thoughts:

This is a show that has a lot of flaws, but is still fun at times. The good episodes are enjoyable, but the humor never really mixes well with the more serious aspects of the show. The rather surprising video quality is also a strike against the set. Fans who enjoyed the show from its original run should pick if up, but blind buyers would be better to Rent it first.