Another freebie from Amazon. This time a DVD boxset of a new science fiction TV show. Well, not exactly new, but new to the UK. It is a South African/Canadian joint production which is unusual for a start.

I approached this with an open mind, having never heard of it before. As a fan of science fiction generally I was drawn in by the teasing synopsis about a private investigator finding himself trapped in an alternative world, but after watching the review copy I can’t really say whether I like it or not.

The entire series is 21 episodes, the boxset will probably be about 10 episodes, but the preview copy was only two episodes and was only starting to get going towards the end of them. It did not help that the picture quality was poor, with no navigation menus, and a timer ticking away in the corner of the screen all the time. Hopefully the picture quality will be better on the finished product.

It does take time to get a series started, introduce characters and situations, and set everything up for the rest of the series. With science fiction it can take even longer as there is also a different environment to introduce as well, and Charlie Jade reached the end of the second episode before I really felt I knew what was going on. Had there been a third or fourth episode on the disc I might be in a better position to say whether the full set is worth having – from what I have seen so far it could go either way.

At the start there is a real Bladerunner feel to everything, with low lights, lots of shadows and a green tint to the picture. Very much a typical cliched vision of a dystopian future, with a few confusing cuts to the other alternative worlds. I was tempted to give up – nobody wants 21 episodes of squinting to work out what is going on – but as the alternative worlds featured more in episode two it became easier to see and eventually easier to follow.

Obviously there are plenty of science problems to ignore. Very little science fiction works without some willing suspension of disbelief, and anything involving time travel or alternative worlds requires even more. I am still bothered though by the idea of there only being three alternative realities: the most likely options seem to be that there is only one or an infinite number. I try not to let that bug me, but it does.

In this case the three worlds are one which is very similar to our own, one where everything is a lot worse, and one where everything is a lot better. The hero, Charlie Jade, starts in the bad universe and gets trapped in the ‘normal’ one. Another character starts in the good universe and gets trapped with Charlie, so it looks like most of the action will take place in ‘our’ world, although there is one character who, conveniently, is still able to move between the worlds despite the fact that the machinery to move between the worlds has been destroyed.

The series has all the ingredients to be a cult programme but I’m not sure if I will be part of that cult. If I saw that it was on TV I would watch it, and I might be tempted to rent it to see what happens next, but what I have seen so far doesn’t make me want to buy it.

Having said that, I really hope that future episodes are better, and that it gets a following. Already I get the feeling that this is a series with a long story arc (like Heroes or Lost) which needs to be watched in order rather than something where the emphasis is on lots of self-contained episodes (like Quantum Leap for example) There is a trend towards this sort of thing now, encouraged by the Tivo/SkyPlus technology, on demand TV and DVD boxsets and it does mean that a series can change direction.

What that all means is that during the series we might find the answers to some of the mysteries already appearing (what are those blue stones? what does the conspiracy theorist know? Why was Charlie Jade already getting glimpses of the other worlds?) but are likely to get new questions at a faster rate than answers.