However, the story is never preachy. The artistry of the story telling, the complexity of characters’ actions and motivations, often surprising, even to themselves kept them from becoming plot serving stereotypes as in so many television series.

Hell, the show was like a great novel–dare I say as good as Faulkner’s SOUND AND THE FURY or Absalom, Absalom!

I’ve watched it several times and will watch it again just as I reread novels I love.

The acting seemed flat at first, but only certain characters and circumstances. In other scenes, the acting was brilliantly intense, complex and believable. I came to feel that the acting was deliberately understated, rather than flat, in certain scenes, and the effect was to point up things which would otherwise have been obscure, though important to the storyline, or would have had to have been over-explained to accomplish the same level of viewer comprehension. To me, this technique was ingenius.

Another clarifying ingenius technique was the subtle subtitling of each ‘verse with the format of each being markedly different, so it was possible for the viewer to understand which ‘verse was being viewed without interfering with the flow of the storyline and without dizzying or overwhelming the viewer with the confusion of switching around all the time. A great deal of clarification was accomplished almost subliminally this way.

The characters developed as real people do, complex, not one-dimensional, evolving rather than static, no one perfectly good or perfectly evil, with choices to be made from any number of commonly experienced motives. This is one of my favorite qualities of Canadian “entertainment”.

While I wouldn’t mind seeing this done again, further, I’m also quite all right with this being where it stops. Canadian productions tend to view like great novels read, and I’m always ok with the feeling that the story continues somewhere without my voyeurism. Wrapping up the storyline before the second season made it possible to accommodate a potential lack of network and/or public support, while leaving certain things open-ended allowed for the possibility, without the necessity, of continuing the story if it was well-received. I think it was skillfully done, and a huge number of American productions should take lessons from their Canadian counterparts.

The character development is another article, and the storyline at least two more. All around, this was deeply satisfying “entertainment”…well beyond my concept of “entertainment”, in that it did far more than entertain. Thought-provoking, belief-challenging, eye-opening and inspirational, Charlie Jade is too complex and intelligent to be categorized by that pale designation.

Kudos to you for such fine work.

This opus could have easily been plumbed for a second season, though I can understand how its density and intricacies could burden the less attentive mind. For me it was an incredibly satisfying meal. Major kudos to everyone involved in the production.

How knows Karl where find out Charlie next morning? And what is the blue cristal of Jody?

Bye!

We also never heard any updates about the Canadian release that Robert mentioned in his last conversation with us, so there’s no telling when or even if there will ever be a North American/Region 1 DVD of the show.

Ok, there were a few interesting points that we got some insight in to… but having seen the show a couple of times and accepted that somethings worked and somethings didn’t… I now know why some of it didn’t work, there was no real underlying stucture to the storyline… as Robert said, sooooo many times.. he was making it up as he went along, …not only does this show that there was no overriding understanding to the story on the writer’s side but that because this was the case, there couldn’t have been very much honest caring about the show on their end.. because how can you care about something that you are just pulling out of thin air, with no proper time to think about what you are writing/making.

The main thing I came away with from the ‘cast was that for most of the time, he was throwing crap together… it takes the shine away from my outlook over the show.

Any suggestions?

I’d really like to download these podcasts as a file to my mp3 player and listen to them during my jog. Is this possible?

Thanks!

Doug

The DVDs that are available from Amazon.co.uk are region 2 PAL formatted so you’ll need to have either a multi-region DVD player or one that plays region 2 PAL discs. Those can be purchased at Amazon.com and many other retailers. It’s also possible to play those discs on your computer as well. If you’d like more details I highly recommend posting a message on the Charlie Jade podcast discussion forum where many other Charlie Jade fans, including us, can offer advice. Those forums are located here…

http://www.farpointforums.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=43

We touched a little on the acting aspect of Jeffrey Pierce and Michael Filipowich switching roles in the interview special, but not on the unfolding of the second season story.

I know you guys said that the podcast was completed. But any chance of one more podcast to discuss this document?

That would be interesting.

Ron OUT.

Its a sad statement about how tv channels work that it took me until 5 years or so after it was made and originally released to even hear about. OK Yes there are some frankly terrible episodes in there (particularly early on) but overall this I was in awe at this series.

And yes I’d love to see/read/hear more from the Charlie Jade universe(s).

I think I read somewhere that the scripts or stories for the second series were written… if thats the case I wonder if they could be leaked somehow!

Amazon has added a sign-up page for a Region 1 DVD for Charlie Jade. Please go to the ScFi Channel Charlie Jade forum where I added links and more info.

John Jira

Hopefully we’ll have the next one out pretty soon!

Problem is, watching their music video, I still see the Charlie Jade images… I hope the band doesn’t mind too much

I posted the link to it from the podcast forums as well.

So, somehow, the SciFi Channel ran X-Files longer than ‘normal’ to take up the time normally used by the CJ intro.

At the end of X-Files the norm is to go straight into the CJ opening, but instead we went to the commercials that would normally follow the CJ opening.

At the time I didn’t think anything about it .. but only after I started to edit out the commercials did I realize something was wrong.

Richard in Boston

SciFi Channel had to have specifically changed the schedule, because in my DVR to-do list, that episode was listed as starting as 12:05am instead of 12:00am, like all the other episodes did.

I thought it was an adjustment of some sort, because I didn’t notice the shift of the start time until after the recording had begun… but if it was intentional to avoid the airing of that 5 minutes altogether, that certainly is an odd choice for what’s a “late night” airing now.

I hope the US DVD release makes up for it… and I hope that SciFi Channel’s burying of its airing doesn’t kill the chances of us getting a US DVD release at all.

I can’t help but notice that the version we see here is edited. Words are bleeped, and nudity is blurred.

Not that all this is *necessary* at 3am .. but maybe it was done with the expectation that it would be shown in prime time.

Anyway .. the intro to this (#15) episode we see a recap of the begining of episode #12 .. THE EPISODE THAT THE SCIFI CHANNEL did not show the intro (see my comment, and Summer’s reply, on that episode) It was pretty violent.

Maybe, just maybe, the SciFi Channel intentionally did not show us this part of #12 because of the violence .. maybe they thought it was beyond editing so they just didn’t show us the intro .. but started with the commercials after the titles.

Summer said that her DVR started “late” .. so this was *not* an emergeency that just happened that night .. it was something that was planned (not showing that part of the show) .. and the SciFi Channel let the DVR folks know the ‘real’ start of the (edited) show.

I record the show on (old fashoned) VHS and program extra time before and after, so I know the intro was not shown at all (unlike Summer, who wasn’t sure)

Oh well .. I’ve got my fingers crossed for the USA DVD.

Richard in Boston

They didn’t even air the first segment? How craptastic…

I record the show on a VCR (yes, the old fashoned way) and I have a few minutes “extra” on both ends of the recording.

It seemed, when I watched the show, that the X Files seemed to run a bit longer. I was worried that I may not have recorded all the way to the end of Charlie Jade. But I *did* get the end on tape.

THEN, I started editing out the commercials .. and I realized WHY I got to the end … the Sci Fi Channel did NOT show the first segment of CJ!! The opening and the title segments were CUT!! We started with the commercials after the title .. we usually start with the opening right after X Files.

It’s bad enough that they screw with us by putting CJ on a 3am .. then they have to cut it too??

Richard in Boston