|
|
WITCHBLADE |
Season Overview
Sara Pezzini - Yancy Butler Jake McCartey - David Chokachi Kenneth Irons - Anthony Cistaro Danny Woo - Will Yun Lee Gabriel Bowman - John Hensley Ian Nottingham - Eric Etebari 
OTHER SEASONS Season 2 OTHER COMIC BOOK SHOWS Batman Birds Of Prey Blade The Series OTHER ENHANCED INVESTIGATORS The Champions Now And Again Chuck Bionic Woman 
|
EmergenceSara Pezzini, New York Detective, chases a man into a museum where a shootout takes place and she comes into possession of a strange bracelet. She has visions, a sort of déjà vu, of things that haven't happened. The bracelet leads her to Kenneth Irons, a rich man who wants the bracelet for his own reasons. He promises the bracelet and its powers to a woman who determines to kill Sara. His manservant, and hired killer, Ian Nottingham has been trained since birth to obey Irons and defend the holder of the Witchblade, two priorities now in conflict. At the end of Season one, the witchblade reversed the whole of time, making the events of the entire first season somewhat irrelevant. Now, Sara has to go through all the motions of gaining the witchblade again, meaning that she is not the only one suffering from a sense of déjà vu. Since the climax of the last season already showed Sara saving her partner by changing her mind about following mobsters into an abandoned theatre was there really any need to go over this old ground? Once the main plot of Irons, revealed in the last few episodes of the last season as being the main enemy, setting a woman just as deadly as Sara and twice as ruthless on the detective's trail kicks in then the familiarity fades a bit and things move forwards, but since there isn't a lot of time left for that plot and the action is catered for mainly by the reheated bits from the last season, it's all a bit perfunctory. The constant flashbacks to Sara's memories are distracting and the fact that she is having to learn all that she new about the witchblade all over again is just annoying. There is a good cliffhanger as Sara's partner wakes up in a coffin, but that's about all there is to recommend this. If we're going to have to relive the entirety of season one then it's going to get very dull. TopDestinySomewhat annoyed that his hired killer didn't get the witchblade off Sara Pezzini, Kenneth Irons imports an ancient spear that is everything the witchblade is, only evil. Can Sara master her weapon in time to face off his attack? The cliffhanger of Woo being in a coffin is dispensed with straight away in this second episode, Sarah being guided to the cemetery by visions from the witchblade, though it is unclear as to whether the villains buried him in the exact same grave as he was really buried in last season by coincidence (hugely unbelievable) or by some sort of cosmic karma. The outcome of the face off between Irons and Sara comes as a bit of a shock considering the importance of both characters last time around, but it at least shakes things up a bit and proves that the show isn't just going to retread old ground. TopAgapeThere's a new drug on the streets and it's killing people. As Sara and Woo try to track down its source, Jake is loaned temporarily to a cop with a chip on his shoulder about Sara following an abortive date. His methods of investigation don't sit too well with Jake and things come to a head when Jake is set up for a mindless shoot out that leaves several people dead. Apart from an action sequence right at the end in which Sara takes out half a dozen heavily armed gangsters on her own (and a sequence that is rendered completely ineffective by strobing it throughout) this is a straight police procedural and all the less interesting as a result. Admittedly, the bent copper is a pretty good bent copper, but if we wanted that sort of thing we'd be watching THE WIRE. TopConsectatioIan Nottingham has taken over Kenneth Irons' corporate empire and uses his connections to hire a group of military experts turned bank robbers to kill Sara Pezzini so that he will no longer be tormented by his feelings for her. Apparently you always kill the one you love, or at least you do if you're linked to pagan myths and appear in this show. Kenneth Irons might be dead, but his disembodied hand still apparently has the power to influence Nottingham, which might at least explain the ridiculous emotional turnabouts that the character is forced to go through. That aside, this is a deadly dull episode that goes nowhere and displays the show's lack of good ideas in only its second season. TopStaticA rock star is killed and then his groupie girlfriend commits suicide. There are a series of deaths all linked to a single person and that person has set her deranged eyes on Sara Pezzini. There are some interesting images here all based around the killer's penchant for watching an untuned television channel, but they only help to muddy the waters of a fairly routine and rather dull detective tale. TopNailedA particularly nasty serial killer is released from his trial and Sara's team are given the job of protecting him, as much to make sure that he doesn't strike again as much as anything else. He does strike, though, and close to home by taking the troubled neice of Sara's partner Woo. This is straight up police procedural with no place for the Witchblade other than providing an insight that Sara could quite easily have just got from professional experience. If it weren't for the fact that Currie Graham's serial killer is a very creepy bad guy then this wouldn't be as effective as it is. TopLagrimasWoo announces that his wife is pregnant and just when Sara is bemoaning the fact that she doesn't even have a boyfriend she meets the man of her dreams, literally. They have a deep connection, but she keeps seeing him in visions of Joan of Arc's execution. Can he really be that old? What is his secret? Now here's a fascinating idea that even the directorial tics of this show can't completely submerge. The roman soldier who guarded Christ on his walk to Golgotha cannot die, cursed to walk the world forever by the son of God himself. He has sought out Sara because the Witchblade might be the only thing that can break his curse. For once the show manages to live up to its idea and tells its tale with a conviction that takes it through to a moving ending. TopHierophantSomeone is bringing the crime syndicates of the city together in fear. The mysterious man is known only as V and he leaves tarot cards behind him. Is he the Devil incarnate? Why does he have the fingerprints of Sara's long dead father? Roger Daltrey is back as the evil demon who is responsible for the resurrection of Sara's father as his weapon of evil, but his most startling performance is dragged up as transvestite tarot card reader. That's a long way from being the front man of the Who. What starts off as an interesting idea falls apart badly thereafter. TopVeritasThe investigation into a murder leads Sara and Gabriel into taking on an organisation so secret that it practically runs the US government without anyone knowing. The dead man had something that could bring them all down, but can Sara really take on such powerful men and survive? This is a pure police procedural, and a rather unbelievable one at that, but for the single fact that Sara is having conversations with JFK in her sleep. Though the face is kept in the shadows until the end (what a weird piece of effects work that is) it is obvious who he is meant to be and therefore what the event is that can destroy the men in black. At least the ending makes sense without resorting to some unbelievable feelgood cop out. TopParabolicThere's a cult in town that is stirring up a string of hate crimes. There is also a vigilante who takes out the bad guys in the most permanent of fashions. That vigilante turns out to be a young girl who has been chasing the man who killed her father for hundreds of years. Now at last, with the witchblade, she has a chance to kill him. Eric Roberts plays the bad guy Lupo with his usual efficiency, but this story is all about the teen vigilante, played well by Alexis Dziena who has clearly seen LEON a few times. Sara comes over all motherly, as apparently all strong women characters must at some point, but at least the final action sequence is worth watching for a change. TopPalindromeIn order to investigate the death of a man killed in a fight club, both Jake and Woo go undercover. Once in the club, they discover an irishman who has an instant connection with Sara. There's someone else who has a connection with Sara, one that will leave her facing her greatest enemy - herself. How many plots can you jam into a single episode? Well at least one too many if this episode is anything to go by. The first is the fight club story, which is hardly original and isn't even convincing as all it takes to get into the supersecret fight club is to have one fight on the docks and you're in. Then the love of Sara's life, resurrected by the Witchblade's turning back of time, walks back into her life and leaves anyone who didn't see the original love story episodes in the first season thoroughly confused. Then finally Sara's evil twin pops up. This is the most promising part of the episode with Yancy Butler getting a new stylist and getting to play the bad girl, which is more fun than her playing the good Sara. Unfortunately, the face off between the two of them is an utter misfire. TopUbiqueSarah dreams that she has lost the Witchblade to one Lucretia Borgia and when she wakes up she finds that it has gone. A nationwide epidemic of murderous crime is sweeping across the States and it appears to be linked to a website called Cyberfaust.net and that website appears to be linked to the not so deadk Kenneth Irons. It's the series finale and the show tries to jam in two stories where only one will fit and doesn't do satisfactorily by either of them. The Lucretia Borgia story might have worked on its own and is certainly the more interesting of the two, but it is so undernourished that it gets run three times, twice in premonitions and then once for real. The Cyberfaust/Irons story is then grafted on towards the end to little effect other than to bring about an end to Sara's nemesis in a bewildering sequence that tries to make his comeuppance something different and visually exciting, but instead just makes it pointless and stupid looking. There is a cliffhanger ending, but this was the show's end and it's hard to mourn it. Top |
|
|
If this page was useful to you please sign our 
