As the season one opening voiceover repetitively announces, Sara Pezzini is a New York city cop. For reasons she doesn’t fully understand, she is the latest in a special line of women chosen to wear the Witchblade, an ancient shape-changing bracelet that bestows amazing mystical powers on the bearer. Unfortunately, the talisman also attracts enemies, among whom are billionaire Kenneth Irons (Anthony Cistaro), his multi-talented bodyguard Ian Nottingham (Eric Etebari) and his old flame Dominique Boucher, and Sara’s new boss, Capt. Bruno Dante (Nestor Serrano). Luckily for Sarah, partners Danny Woo (Will Yun Lee) and Jake McCartey (David Chokachi) and antiquities dealer Gabriel Bowman (John Hensley) provide backup whenever she finds herself in tight situations.
Witchblade had a lot going for it in terms of concept and cast. The pilot movie was fast-paced and pretty looking and promised a great fantasy/action series. Unfortunately, however, when the episodes begin, it doesn’t seem like the producers had a clear idea of what they wanted to accomplish, or even what genre they wanted to be in. The focus wavers between the mythology of the Witchblade and the real-world conspiracies surrounding Sara’s work on the police force. Balancing ongoing story arcs with stand-alone episodes can be difficult, but Witchblade fails where shows like X-Files and The Dead Zone have succeeded, largely because it feels as though the production team was just making things up as they went along. This lack of direction is especially strange because the show was based on a established comic book that should have provided plenty of material to draw on, but the ultimate result is that the quality of episodes is spotty and the series plotline is muddled.
I wonder if these problems were the reason that season one ended the way it did, leading to the changes in season two, but frankly, season two left me nostalgic for season one. As unfocused as it was, I felt the character development in season one was more satisfying. Season two also didn’t continue much of the mythology arc from season one, so the series became less about the Witchblade than about Sara fighting crime with some minor special abilities. This was a disappointing turn because cops shows are a dime a dozen and the supernatural elements added by the Witchblade were what really set it apart, along with the luscious Highlander-esque sword-fights and Matrix-inspired gun battles.
On the positive side, the series has a fantastic soundtrack, great cinematography, good costuming, and excellent special effects that still look good 6-8 years later. Some fans of the TV show have complained because some of the original music was replaced on the DVD set due to licensing problems, but the new music fits the action very well. The DVD is also nicely put together – both seasons are combined on seven discs and sold together in one box set with a slipcover. The set includes a booklet with brief descriptions of each episode and a few special features, including two “making of…” featurettes about the comic book and the show, clips of the cast’s original audition tapes, and “Gabriel’s Philosophical Insights” on selected episodes. The video and sound quality is clear and crisp making this an all-around good set for the Witchblade fan to add to his or her collection.