Customer Reviews

The Invisible Man: Season One

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After seeing so many poor or banal sci-fi series released on DVD, I was upset that the Sci-Fi Channel's THE INVISIBLE MAN series was not amongst them (at least not in the US anyway... it's been available for years on Region 2 DVD's), but now, at long last, it's coming! This is by far the best show that the Sci-Fi Channel has ever created (aside from the great BATTLESTAR GALACTICA) and it has been deserving of reruns at the VERY least, but other less interesting and less entertaining shows have been clogging up Sci-Fi's airwaves (STARGATE series, I'm looking at you!).

But onto the show itself. Darien Fawkes (the underappreciated Vincent Ventresca) is a thief who is finally caught and put in prison. He's looking at a life sentence, but his brother comes to his "rescue" of sorts when he offers him a deal: Testing an experimental gland implant in the brain that will release a chemical nicknamed "Quicksilver" that coats the skin for a brief period of time that bends light around the subject, allowing them to become invisible to the naked eye. Darien accepts the deal, but we know what road good intentions lead to. Fawkes' brother is double-crossed and killed by his assistant Arnaud DeFehrn (the wonderfully sleazy Joel Bissonette), and Fawkes is stuck with the experimental gland before it's perfected. The gland has a potentially fatal flaw which is that if used for too long of a period of time, the user (in this case, Fawkes) will experience what is called "Quicksilver Madness" which he experiences psychotic and sociopathic tendencies. Fawkes is recruited by "The Agency", a covert ops organization that answers only to The President, run by a perenially frustrated bean-counter usually referred to as "The Official" or "The Fat Man" (the hilarious Eddie Jones) and his yes-man Eberts (the also-hilarious Michael McCafferty). Fawkes' condition is watched over by the lovely Claire "The Keeper" Keeply (beautiful and dry-witted Shannon Kenny), who must regularly give him injections of a counter-agent that wards off the Quicksilver Madness, and is determined to find a way to remove the gland from Darien without the procedure killing him.

The show also gives us a brilliant buddy cop story with Fawkes partnered with Agent Bobby Hobbes (the wonderful and easily recognizable Paul Ben-Victor), a self-professed ladies man and martial arts master, who also may be suffering from schizophrenia that may be fueling these delusions of grandeur (or are they delusions?). The chemistry that is developed between Fawkes and Hobbes is just amazing, and it becomes one of the high points of the show.

One of the other high points is the amazing special effects. When Fawkes goes invisible (and vice versa), the transition is totally seamless. It was this level of achievement that unfortunately brought this show to an all-too premature end because it was just too expensive to keep up that level.

Overall, this is a really great and really fun show that just ended way too soon but it finally is back to watch on this DVD series!

I watched this series when it was on Sci-Fi, and it is one of the best shows to ever be aired (especially on that channel) and was actually one of the highest rated shows on Sci-fi (only being canceled due to the huge costs to make an episode) I recommend this series to any sci-fi fan, or fan of shows like X-Files. Very great stories while funny at the same time! Glad to see that Sci-fi finally listened to all the petitions and is bringing this out, just hope Season 2 sees a release too!

The Sci-Fi Channel's The Invisible Man finally gets a long overdue release on DVD, and be glad that it has. Arguably the best, original show to ever grace the network, The Invisible Man stars Vincent Ventresca as Darien Fawkes, a con-man and thief that undergoes an experiment upon getting captured and put in jail. The experiment involves a gland imprint in his brain that allows Fawkes to turn himself invisible, and after his agent brother is murdered and betrayed, Fawkes sets out to avenge his death, and battles assassins and other enemies in the process. He gets teamed with Agent Hobbes (Paul Ben-Victor), which provides some of the best moments of the series, which is frequently entertaining and even surprisingly innovative for its time. For a Sci-Fi Channel series, The Invisible Man also features some nifty effects work, and the underrated and underutilized Ventresca is wonderful and magnetic as Fawkes. Its so great to finally have The Invisible Man on DVD, and if you watched and enjoyed the show when it aired (it was one of the highest rated original programs to ever air on Sci-Fi), this first season set is an absolute must own.

This is a great guilty pleasure! Not an epic sci-fi show like B5 or even Farscape or anything like that, "just" a really fun, fast-paced, witty, sci-fi laden secret agent-type show with well-delivered humor, action and special effects to boot. I watched this show every week when it was part of Sci Fi Prime on the Sci Fi Channel. This was one of those rare periods when they were producing and airing a decent line-up. The lead actor was great fun and quite endearing, and the supporting cast was just right for the action/humor combo nature of the show. Not that this was a comedic series or anything. The lead was wise cracking and he and his buddy-agent had their differences, and it worked. This show even had a fair amount of heart. Take the worst of what Sci Fi Channel has thrown at us on the cheap every Friday and Saturday night during their worst cycles, and this is the antithesis of that. This is the type of show Sci Fi should still be producing instead of that really lame Flash Gordon rip or 99%-100% of their Saturday night movies. Since they will continue to toss the cheapest crap they can come up with at us Friday and Saturday nights, maybe watching reruns of this in your DVD player will hold you over until they stumble on the next Battlestar Galactica by the same sheer, blind luck that ever brought us Farscape or SG1. Or The Invisible Man, for that matter!

No, that isn't a quote to start off an episode of Criminal Minds - The First Season: It's from The Invisible Man. I can hardly believe it's been 6 years since I've watched this show on the Sci-Fi Channel. I'm so glad there's no more waiting!

Oh, you haven't been introduced? Well, let me take you into a world where nothing is as it seems, and you'll meet a man so transparent, you can see right through him.

Darien Fawkes, a two-bit hood who tries to do good on his latest job, gets thrown into jail for the longest stretch possible: life imprisonment.

Darien's brother Kevin decides to help out, and gets Darien paroled into his own little science project. It's quite simple, really...Kevin operates on Darien and implants a gland into his brain that delivers a substance called Quicksilver. This substance has a unique benefit - it turns its host completely invisible.

But this kind of power can't come without a catch, right?

Well, it turns out that Kevin's little gift has an unforeseen side effect on Darien. After prolonged use of the gland, it causes him to become a murderous psychopath, a condition called 'Quicksilver Madness', which can only be suppressed with a counteragent injection.

Over the course of this first season boxed set, we get to watch the adventures of an unlikely cop-buddy comedy/sci-fi team up between Darien Fawkes, the man with the Gland, and his partner Bobby Hobbes, who can't even get a prepaid calling card from their boss, a man only known as "The Official". You'll watch their adventures of taking out spy networks, disabling assassins, uncovering Agency experiments that went horribly awry, and much more.

It's all in a day's work for - The Department of Fish & Game?!?!?

Okay, so that's the recap of the first season...now let's tackle the DVD treatment itself.

I had to give this one 4 stars because the special features fell short of my expectations. The sit-down with series creator Matt Greenberg provides some insight into how he conceived the show, but at only 10 minutes long, this left me with more questions than answers. The bonus episode of "Legends" from season two was a nice touch - it's like our own little shot of counteragent to offset the Madness of waiting until season two becomes available. I also expected commentaries on more than just the pilot episode. Why doesn't the commentary track have input from Paul Ben-Victor? That's like having a Dukes of Hazzard commentary without Tom Wopat.

I'm hoping that when the next season comes out it'll have features like how the Quicksilver special effects were done, or the TV ads that aired for the show, bloopers, anything to make up for the lack of features here.

You'd better order this, before all the available copies Quicksilver away before your very eyes!

The brilliance of this show is in its cast and its unique, irreverent perspective on a very traditional set-up. The superhuman secret agent has been done a thousand times... but what if this time, instead of a giant, high tech organization, it's a tiny, perpetually broke black ops agency that gets their hands on him? What if he has to keep use of his powers to a minimum because the serum that keeps him sane is too expensive? What if instead of saving the world every week, they get whatever random, bizarre mission their bosses can turn up? (A break in at a sperm bank for geniuses, anyone?)
Halfway through the first season, the show goes from good to fantastic when Vincent Ventresca and Paul Ben-Victor (as the paranoid but more experienced operative) started improvising and embellishing their scenes together. Their buddy-buddy chemistry gives the show a grounded, lived-in feel that you rarely see on a special effects laden television series. It was shocking when the show was canceled due to budget issues because you didn't even see the special effects, you saw the characters.

It's about time The Invisible Man came out in the U.S.!

This show demonstrates one of those rare confluences of talent: Great acting, chemistry and occasionally brilliant writing, all of which came together to produce something far greater than the sum of its parts. The Invisible Man was part of that once-epic friday night prime Sci-Fi Channel lineup that now resorts to rehashes (excuse me: 're-imaginings' if you go with Hammer-speak) of other networks' old shows.

Together with Farscape, another Sci-Fi Channel masterpiece, I-Man illustrated the truly original programming that now-blighted network once produced. I'm delighted that it will finally be appearing on DVD in its home country. We've waited an awfully long time for it, considering the drek Sci Fi HAS released (Black Scorpion, anyone?). But I-Man was always treated like the proverbial red-headed stepchild, ignored by its parent who showed every sign of being embarrassed by this quirky, funny, wonderful show.

Watching I-Man is a treat, and makes me long for a few good, old-fashioned scripted series. Ones with the same heart, brains, humor and talent behind them as The Invisible Man. I miss the adventures of Darien Fawkes and Bobby Hobbes. Give a me buddy show with characters like these any time! When Sci Fi killed both its original series in rapid succession, I left and have never gone back.

For reasons that escape me, Sci Fi Channel waited nearly seven years to release this in the U.S.. As with the other reviewers, I hope they'll be releasing season 2. But in the mean time, I'll bask in the glorious goofiness that was I-Man.

...because I've been waiting for this show to come out on DVD since it was cancelled. I was beginning to lose hope that it would EVER come out on DVD, but thank goodness I was wrong! ^_^!

I watched this show for its entire run on the SciFi channel, and even now it's one of my favorite television shows. The humor was so dry and wonderful, and the story was incredible! I loved Vincent Ventresca's sardonic and surprisingly deep portrayal of a former con-man thrown into a completely new situation with his new-found powers, and Paul Ben-Victor's and Eddie Jones' characters had me cracking up for the full 42 minutes!

I highly recommend this show to anyone who enjoys comedy, drama, action, adventure, science, fiction, science-fiction, or cop shows, because this delightful show is a well-turned mix of all of them. Thank you Universal for finally getting this mini-masterpiece out on DVD! The only question I have now is: when is season 2 coming out? ^_^!

I loved this show. An old fashioned series like the serials on radio or early TV. Almost Lone Ranger-esque. Nothing begets watchability like chemistry, and the tandem of Fawkes and Hobbes was wonderful. From the first episode, Hobbes stole the scenes consistently until they started writing Fawkes up to the same level. Never understood why they kill shows like this but they feel the need to spin off Stargate Atlantis. Anyway, thrilled it's become available.
A recent show kinda reminds me of this. It's called Burn Notice, a summer show on USA. Go read the reviews of season 1 (which isn't out yet) and pick it up when it comes out. You won't be disappointed.

I have been waiting what seems like forever for this series to be released. My only complaint, other than the length of time it has taken, is I wish it was the whole series available now as I like my collections to be complete. (Which is why I was so disappointed that only the first season of Murphy Brown was released but none of the rest.) I wonder how long before the rest of this great series is available.
Does anybody know when season 2 will come out? I'm holding off watching the 1st set because I know if I do I'll want to watch the rest!