Cleopatra 2525

After Hercules aired its final episode, Renaissance Pictures premiered two new series: Jack of all Trades and Cleopatra 2525. This article looks at Cleopatra 2525.

In the early twenty-first century, a small-time actress and exotic dancer by the name of Cleopatra went into a plastic surgeon for routine breast augmentation surgery. For some reason, complications arose during the procedure and young Cleopatra was placed into cryogenic suspension, to be awakened in the future after a cure for her affliction had been found. She wakes up five hundred years into the future to find humanity has retreated below the surface of the earth to hide from the mysterious "Baileys" that have taken over the surface.

It is virtually impossible to take a show with this premise seriously. That, I believe, is precisely the point. Just as Hercules took the conventions of Greek myth and television action-adventure and mixed them with a twist of that unique Raimi and Tapert flair, Cleopatra takes the conventions of science fiction and does much the same thing.

The show isn't perfect; there were several aspects that prevented it from catching on. The biggest problem, I believe, is the amount of time they had to tell the story each week. It seems to me that there was a rich back-story present in the setting, but the half-hour time limit prevented much of this background from being presented.

This wouldn't be as much of a problem if the series were presented in a serial format, but it wasn't. Each episode is supposed to stand more or less on its own, and there were too many blanks left unfilled in the course of the first season. The second season expanded the time to a full hour, but by that time I think it was a case of too little, too late.

With my background in science fiction, I could guess at the missing pieces without too much difficulty –- that is one of the advantages of the Renaissance Pictures style. But for people who don't have as extensive a background in the genre, I can see where difficulties might arise.

The other problem I see with the show is that it wasn't terribly original. Science fiction on television was actually doing fairly well on TV at the time. Shows like Star Trek (in its various incarnations), Babylon 5, and Farscape all stand out as excellent examples of intelligent, exciting science fiction. Cleopatra 2525 is more action oriented than any of the other shows out there, but that isn't really enough to distinguish it, either in the action or science fiction genres.

The show does have quite a bit of potential, however. It remains to be seen whether that potential will pay off with a successful series.

The effects on the show are solid, clearly taking advantage of the techniques developed on Hercules and Xena. The computer generated Baileys, the gravity-defying stunt work, even the bizarre make-up of the mutants and freaks that populate the underground all recall various aspects of the other Renaissance productions.

The stars of the series should be familiar to any regular viewer of Xena as all three have appeared on that show at some point in the past.

Jennifer Sky plays the title character, Cleopatra. She played Amarice during the last half of season four and the opening few episodes of season five on Xena. Her portrayal of the fish-out-of-water Cleo is in some ways the antithesis of Amarice. The Amazon youth wasn't afraid to dive into a battle. Cleopatra, on the other hand, spends most battles cowering behind some cover. Both characters, however, display a wide-eyed naivete and fiery spirit that propels them.

Gina Torres plays Hel, the de facto leader of the group. Gina played Queen Cleopatra in the third season episode King of Assassins on Xena. She also played the pirate queen Nebula on several episodes of Hercules. Hel is guided by the mysterious Voice, which she hears through an implant behind her ear. Just who Voice is, and why Hel has the implant, were continuing questions on the show. Gina presents Hel as the solid foundation of the team, the one who keeps her head when all around her are losing theirs.

Victoria Pratt plays Sarge, the tough-talking, blaster-firing member of the team. Victoria played Cyane, the deceased queen of the Amazons in Adventures in the Sin Trade, the fourth season premiere of Xena. Sarge is happiest when she's blasting the circuits out of a betrayer, agents of the Baileys that are reminiscent of the Terminator robots. Sarge escaped from the surface, and still has family "topside".

These three heroines are aided in their fight by Mauser; an android that contains within his memory banks a great deal of information on the underground and the fight against the Baileys.

As I said previously, the show wasn't perfect. It never really captured the imagination of the public the way Xena did, and even a shift in the latter half of season two to an hour long format, with more story development, couldn't save the show.

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