The Cape Season One: DVD Review

By Alan Campbell

It all began back about 3 weeks ago, you know when you're looking at buying DVDs and when you click on one to buy, the clever people at Play/Amazon/Zavvi (or whichever one you use) then have the "we think you'd also like to buy..." section? well usually i just ignore it, how dare they suggest what i'd like! they don't know me! but this time...boy they couldn't have been more right, from the moment i saw the picture i was intrigued...a Superhero programme i'd never even heard of, surely there must be some mistake, i checked it out and was more than pleasantly surprised.

There's something rotten in Palm City! The police force are at breaking point, a new company on the scene, The Ark Corporation, wants to privatise the force, there's corrupt cops everywhere, the few good cops left have their hands full with a new masked villian, Chess...who could he be? how can they stop him? Vince Faraday is a good cop, he's also a devoted husband and father, but after the Chief of Police dies in a car explosion orchestrated by Chess he's had enough...that night he's contacted by the mysterious Orwell who tells him there will be a shipment of the same explosive and the opportunity to tie it all to Chess and unmask him for the monster that he is...how can Vince resist? He calls his partner Marty Voyt, the only other cop on the force that he truly trusts and they head to the freight yard to intercept the shipment. Vince gets captured and is forced to don the Chess mask, he's then pursued through the freight yard by an Ark Corporation security team which is all caught on live TV, as he rips the mask off, the cameras zoom in...in the publics eye, Vince Faraday is Chess! He's framed for the death of the Chief of Police, his wife and son are distraught and it's soon made worse when the train car Vince has hidden under explodes, leading the world to believe he is dead. Luckily for him (and us) Vince is found by Rollo, one of The Carnival of Crime and taken to the ringmaster Max, who after some discussion and debate, trains Vince in the arts of escapism, illusion and many more to become The Cape, a comic book hero that Vince used to read with his son. So the adventure begins...

 

The cast includes more than a few instantly recognizable faces...Vince Faraday/The Cape-David Lyons (ER) Max Malini-Keith David (The Thing, Coraline, Theres Something about Mary) Orwell-Summer Glau (Firefly, Sarah Connor Chronicles, Dollhouse,4400) Peter Fleming/Chess-James Frain (24, True Blood, Invasion) Dominic "Scales" Raoul-Vinnie Jones(it's Vinnie Jones...you know him) and the weekly cameos are also fairly well known too...Tom Noonan, Elliot Gould, Mena Suvari to name but a few. Everyone plays their characters brilliantly, there's a great balance between action, set pieces, humour, which is, in my view, spot on...that said, i'm not blind to the fact that there are problems, there's the fact that the police apparently just assumed that Faraday died in the freight yard blast (they don't even bother looking for a body) there's the fact that Faraday doesn't really disguise his identity other that a half mask and a hood (not even his voice...and he speaks to his own wife...who doesn't recognise him...mmmmm) but then i suppose that's part of the fun of it...sit back and switch off...it's a fun ride.

There were a few stand out episodes, most notably The Lich Parts1&2 and Tarot and there's also a really good mythos and plot arc under all the usually weekly episodic entertainment too, you get the sense that there's definately more to Max and The Carnival of Crime and to Orwell and Chess and the sinister League of Assassins. Sadly though, as is often the case with American TV networks, The Cape was cancelled after 9 episodes (there's a 10th episode included on the DVD which was originally shown online) it's an all too familiar problem...it happened with Harsh Realms, it happened with Firefly to name but two, but that should in no way stop you from buying, watching and enjoying The Cape...who knows, maybe we haven't seen the last of him.