Customer Reviews

Mysterious Island

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Fun if you can take a joke - this follows a "shell" of Verne's masterpiece. My quibble is the personalities of the adult characters were not the same from episode to episode. Mama is tender,loving, understanding and helpless for three episodes, then a raging banshee for the next three. Neb, the former slave, is all helpful then decides to pick sides. Killing off major characters so close to the beginning of the series was puzzling (contract issues?). But a fun series - kinda like Lost in Space in Tahiti.

Great serialized plot, although somewhat different to Jules Verne's novel.
Capt Nemo is presented as a hidden recluse, toying with the island's castaways, using them as subjects for his rather pointless twisted experiments, all recorded with introductory phrase "Modification of human behaviour experiment number ..."
There is no escape from the island in the last episode, only betrayal, as the plot diverges as far as possible from the novel, possibly to pave the way for a second season. Though none was made.
Alan Scarf plays Capt Cyrus Harding to perfection, only a few years before his great performance in time travel sci-fi series "Seven Days."
If you're a Jules Verne fan, get these great prints, and enjoy.

MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (1995), 22 episodes, based on the classic novel by Jules Verne. This series features a capable cast--the *beautiful* Collette Stevenson in particular--and some beautiful scenery (the show was filmed in New Zealand). The DVD released by Echo Bridge has quite a few digital artifacts & pixelation--in other words, a typical Echo Bridge DVD. This series was "okay"--not super-great, but neither is it super-bad. There are several other "castaway" drama series (all of which were produced after MYSTERIOUS ISLAND)--"Peter Benchley's AMAZON", "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's THE LOST WORLD" and (of course) "LOST"--all of these shows are available on DVD and are heads-and-shoulders above MYSTERIOUS ISLAND in every way imaginable. MYSTERIOUS ISLAND is a slightly-above average series, enjoyable for the most part but (perhaps) not "essential" viewing. MYSTERIOUS ISLAND--Starring Alan Scarfe, C. David Johnson, Colette Stevenson, Stephen Lovatt, Gordon Michael Woolvett, Andy Marshall and John Bach as "Captain Nemo".
EPISODES:
1) "Genesis"
2) "Down Under"
3) "Safe Haven"
4) "White Water"
5) "A Death in the Family"
6) "Love Thy Neighbour"
7) "All That Glitters"
8) "The Price of Vengeance"
9) "The Phantom's Lair"
10) "It Should be an Englishman"
11) "No One Rules Me"
12) "He's Not Heavy"
13) "Make Yourselves a Home"
14) "First Impressions are Skin Deep"
15) "Gideon's Tale"
16) "Last Rites of Spring"
17) "Labours Lost"
18) "The Visitor"
19) "What Are You Afraid Of?"
20) "Plan and Attack"
21) "A Pact With the Devil"
22) "Going, Going..."

Very good series, no sexual scenes, and no cursing that I recall. However, in the end it's about the triump of the 'human' spirit. Was disappointing in that regard. Because the truth is that Nemo is right all along, at least in the real world. To bad the writers were wrong.

Alan Scarfe is excellent, as always.

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