You just woke up and are
pleasantly surprised at how swell your new breasts now look.
However, you will be less pleasantly surprised to find that
over 500 years have passed since your augmentation surgery
and that the world has been taken over by machines called
Bailies.
This is how our heroine, an ex-stripper named
Cleopatra (Jennifer Sky), wakes up. She is a Valley Girl in
a world where the Valley no longer exists and mankind was
forced to move underground. Nearly everyone is a trained fighter,
and they have to be, because Bailies have learned how to create
T-1000-ish transforming androids, appropriately named Betrayers,
that are able to mimic humans.
But,
thankfully, she has allies.
Enter Hel (Gina Torres) and Sarge (Victoria Pratt), who happen
upon Cleo as she is being thawed from her cryogenic sleep.
Hel and Sarge are elite fighters and members of a resistance
group. Hel receives direct communications from an unseen commander
known only as Voice (Elizabeth Hawthorne), who instructs the
team on just about everything possible. Back at their base,
they have a re-programmed Betrayer, who they named Mauser
(Patrick Kake), to help out with the  revolution. Their main
nemesis is Creegan (Joel Tobeck), who dresses like an absurd
looking clown and is hell-bent on finding a way to get to
Voice herself, wherever she is. Hel and Sarge survive using
the smarts they were raised with and Cleo compromises by using
the now alien-wit of the twentieth century, and things she
remembers from movies.
Cleopatra 2525 existed in a very short era
of television that matched a budding American optimism; optimism
that was destined to fold, collapse and ultimately fail. At
12:00 a.m. EST, January 1st, Dick Clark ushered in a new millennium
and the world over was very happy their Pentium IIs didn’t
bomb out and that planes stayed in the sky. Just over two
weeks later, Cleopatra 2525 made its debut
alongside Bruce Campbell’s Jack of All Trades (sadly still not on DVD). Slightly over a year later Cleopatra
2525 was canceled after its second season wrapped.
Less than six months after the final episode aired, the date
9/11 became the new “day that will live in
infamy.”
Now I am not trying to compare the Y2K Scare, Cleopatra
2525, and 9/11 as if there was some correlation between
them. It's simply that this show fit perfectly in the small
window of safety the world felt during the time.
The first season's episodes are all less than thirty minutes
long, and sadly there is little worth to them aside from the
high-camp the premise of “today’s stripper in
the future” allows. After Jack of All Trades was canceled, the show was bumped up to an hour long, and
the second season improves  dramatically
as a result. Characters are given depth, back-story, and motivations.
This took a campy show and brought it to a level where it
could be compared with “serious” science-fiction.
Hel has doubts about her commander. We learn that Sarge used
to be a ruthless mercenary killer. Cleo’s past comes
back to haunt her and Creegan and Voice are revealed to have
a very interesting past. All of the characters grow greatly
and the history of the Bailies is slowly revealed. It all
leads up to a solid finale that unfortunately reveals just
enough to make any fan extremely mad that it was canceled.
Another season or at least a two-hour TV movie would have
been an awesome cap to a series that started out as kitsch
entertainment and ended as a well-crafted story.
Alas, it was not to be, and these twenty-eight episodes are
all that we have.
But there is something to be thankful for. Now, for the first
time ever commercially available in the US, Universal has
released the entire series on a three-disc set with enough
bonus material for fans to get nostalgic, but not completely
satisfied. Just like we were as the final episode aired.
Presentation
Every episode of Cleopatra
2525 is presented in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio as it
originally aired. The quality of the video is well done; I
don’t think much restoration work was necessary. Much
of the show takes place in The Underground, so most of the
sets are dark and  hide
blemishes on the film. Where bold colors exist, they are extremely
vibrant. Creegan and the teams’ outfits stand out and
don’t bleed. The few scenes above ground have exceptionally
blue skies and lush greenery. I can’t imagine anyone
not liking the video. Audio is presented in a Dolby Digital
2.0 mix which sounds authentic; just as it originally aired.
Good mix; dialog is never covered by the sound effects –
and there are a LOT of sound effects. Subtitles exist for
both the episodes and bonus features in English and Spanish.
The set spans three DVDs. The 3rd disc has nothing on its
b-side. It would have been nice to have some disc art on the
blank side to avoid confusion, but I can’t really complain
otherwise.
Extras
Earth2: “The
Man Who Fell to Earth (Two)” – (46:48) This
is a complete episode of another sci-fi series called Earth2 , which was released on DVD simultaneously with Cleopatra
2525. I haven’t seen the show, but if this
episode is any indication, it is completely average. This
episode starred Tim Curry, but he appears to be a guest star.
It intrigued my interest enough to pick it up if I ever see
it cheap. It has nothing to do with Cleo though, so unless
you have the outside interest, you can skip it.
Deleted Scenes – (9:07) Nearly
10 minutes of deleted scenes from the episodes Run Cleo
Run, Trial and Error, Last Stand, Brain Drain, Out of Body,
In Your Boots, The Soldier Who Fell From Grace and The
Voice. Most of these scenes must have been removed due
to time constraints and not much else. Regardless, they don’t
really add much the story. Any fan of the series will be happy
to see a little bit of stuff they haven’t seen before.
Outtakes – (4:17) Various
flubs from different episodes edited together into a big reel.
It's short, but I laughed quite a bit. Lots of line flubs
causing expletives to fly. The show’s fans should appreciate
this.
Special Effects and Stunts – (1:53) You aren’t
going to learn anything watching this. This is simply a reel
of wire-fu and blue-screen stunts accompanied by a nice enough
techno song. It comprises stuff mainly from the first episode,
and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was made as a promo
piece for something similar to the TV series Movie
Magic. It is neat to see the comparison shots and
how’d-they-do-that type stuff, but a little narration
might have helped.
And Now Some Parting Words
Cleopatra 2525 is a perfect example of how TV on DVD has infiltrated the marketplace. There are nearly as many TV releases on any given
week as there are films. While it is seemingly impossible
to even count these, let alone  find
the time to watch them, I can’t complain about their
availability. Since the VHS and laserdisc eras only ever released
big name shows like Star Trek and The
X-Files - and these were often huge space takers
- it is a marvel to live in the day that one can own much
lesser-known shows such as this at a reasonable cost.
With the market flood comes rush-jobs and half-hearted effort.
Studios are forced to make sacrifices when it comes to extra
features. While this isn’t the set that Cleopatra 2525
fans were dreaming about, this is a set that is actually tangible.
I’m pretty sure for most American fans, that’s
the only feature necessary.
For anyone unversed on the show, you are in for a ride. The
show was fun from the get-go and only gets better. This is
twenty-eight episodes of television unlikely to be duplicated
in today's, faux-reality drenched television landscape. I
would recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the Hercules and Xena series (which are produced by Sam
Raimi and Rob Tapert, just like Cleo), or anyone who likes
B-level sci-fi.
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