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Rating:  -
I love this show. Love it, love it, absolutely love it. Andthe DVD set absolutely does it justice. Probably UPN's best show, ever. Period. Enough said...
The DVD's are perfect, the casing is beautiful (book-style, if a bit prone to attracting fingerprints ;] ), the audio and video are stellar (though I don't have surround sound or a plasma tv, I was more interested in the storyline than examining with a microscope for dust or other digital artifacts of analog videography: dust, grain, etc.).
The special features are great. I love the commentaries, and the video commentaries, deconstructino of a few scenes and what the cast/crew were going for. Plenty of making-of stuff, even some of the original UPN trailers, even a lame archive clip of Bruce Greenwood recording promotional spots for different affiliate stations (it was kind of funny in a couple places and obvious that he was ad-libbing).
Ahh, the genius oozes from this set. Get it watch it all t eway through from the beginning so as to not taint your understanding of the series if you've never seen it. Once you've watched it all the way through, re-watch it from the beginning and pick up on all the subtle clues and hints and red herrings they dropped throughout the season. The ending is satisfying (they knew they were being dropped, so they tied up the loose ends, mostly; don't worry, I won't spoil the surprise!).
Like I said, don't watch the last episode until you've watched the rest of the series in order. Otherwise it will ruin the tone and character of the other episodes, which should always be watched with a fresh eye first before the big ol' bomb that's dropped at the end.
Highly highly recommended! Excellent suspense/paranoia/conspiracy theory show.
Rating: -
'Nowhere Man' has finally arrived on DVD! Now millions everywhere can experience the brilliance of a program that, sadly, was canceled after one season.
The subtle layering of darkness and paranoia as Thomas Veil worked to uncover the truth is an example of masterful writing, directing and acting. Containing cryptic visual and auditory clues, each episode added to this patina of darkness ever-so-slightly. Bruce Greenwood never overplays it; in fact, by underplaying the overwhelming stress and anxiety his character is feeling, Greenwood shows us a mounting intensity that evidences itself in his body language and intonation. We feel for him, and want him to succeed; we want the outside forces to pay for what they've done ... yet we feel there's something just not right about Veil. Perhaps a subconscious drive toward the shadowy, festering underside of life?
Measured character and story development would finally become popular a decade later, but now that programs like 'Lost,' '24' and 'Six Feet Under' exist, it seems television has perhaps reached an age in which subtlety and intelligence can, at least sometimes, illuminate our living rooms.
Take a long weekend. Believe me, once you watch the first episode, you'll want to watch the second, and before you it, the sun will have crested the sky. As the slow march of night overcomes your living room, you'll be too engrossed to realize all the lights are off. As your mind races to understand all the visual and audio clues set before you and the protagonist, you might want to take a moment to confirm that you are who you believe to be. Solidify the fragility of identity... if only for a fleeting moment.
Rating: -
Many of us look back on the 90s in the U.S. fondly and, from the perspective of programmed TV, with good reason. There was the X-Files. There was Twin Peaks. And there was Nowhere Man, possibly the best of the bunch. I kept hoping for a revival of the show, but that never happened--the dumbing down of America that really began in earnest once the 90s had run their course prevented anything like that happening.
Nowhere Man was too gosh darned smart for its own good; in fact, it's a miracle it lasted as long as it did. Very likely one of the chief reasons for its 25-episode run was that upstart station UPN wanted to offer something the big 3 (CBS, ABC, NBC) were not, amd neither, for that matter, was Fox.
Nowhere Man is unique, although as series creator Lawrence Hertzog admits in one of the several interviews with him sprinkled throughout this terrific 9-DVD set, it did have its basis in the groundbreaking, breathtaking 1967 British series The Prisoner which, in fact, was conceived by its star, Patrick McGoohan. And there are definite similarities to The Prisoner. But Hertzog is a sharp cookie; he has Tom Veil, our Nowhere Man anti-hero, always on the run, trapped by forces always running after him, while McGoohan's The Prisoner is trapped inside an enclave, The Village, he cannot escape from. So Nowhere Man is kind of like The Prisoner in reverse, updated to the '90s.
It's also kinda cool to see guest stars like Dean Stockwell and Hal Linden show up, and even the folks who guest whose names are not familiar--like Sean Whalen in "The Rough Whimper of Insanity", do a great job. The acting for the most part is superior throughout and in that aforementioned episode, the production values are just as great in depicting a concept of VR (virtual reality) which deftly manages to combine high tech and pure romance in one fell swoop.
This is a show you don't just watch; you sink into, you're absorbed by. And more than that, it's a show that without question still rings true today--maybe even more now than ever before in the history of this country. As the society dumbs down, it's easier for covert ops to do what they do; it's easier for people to not know what is REALLY going on; it's easier for everybody to be fooled by a slick veneer of the "facts" that hide the truth.
No other show, for at least 25 years, did what Nowhere Man did. And likely, no other show ever will in the future. Now I'm waiting for a DVD release of the totally obscure, incredibly sharp biting cartoon series created by Martin Short, "The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley", which was WAY too sophisticated for the Saturday morning slot it was stuck into, which explains why it was also yanked after only one season.
Too bad TV doesn't take chances anymore...yeah. Too bad.
Rating: -
This was an incredible series and the dvd release comes with an unusually large collection of special features on every one of the 9 dvds of the 25 show series.
Highly recomended. Years ahead of its time.
Rating: -
NOWHERE MAN was truly ahead of it's time, especially in our post-9/11 enviroment of government making it's own rules. The creepy tale is of the life of Thomas Veil, photographer who sees and photographs something he shouldn't have. Or did he? And, his life is "erased" by a clandestine "Organization" that's obviously government and military connected. This could happen to anyone. And of course, once his life is erased what happens when no one seems to know him and he becomes desperate? He winds up in restraints, in a sinister mental hospital as a involuntary patient, diagnosed as "paranoid". And what is more nightmarish than that-being in a place where you know your name and who you are, and your own sanity and everyone else is trying to tell you something different and why you are acting the way you are?? Except, they seem to want those negatives, the only common denomonator Veil has between his former life and, what he is thrust into. Veil discovers in a later episode, other "patients" who were the same as he-erased-and even finds a doctor, who formerly was a patient. The mystery deepens. In THE FUGITIVE-like fashion he criss-crosses the country in search of those who stole his life. On the way, he meets all sorts of characters and even gets a few allies and manages to destroy some of the conspirator's facet operatives as he goes. The ending stretches over several episodes-in one it resembles something from THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR. The final episode answers some questions but also leaves the viewer to ponder just what really went on, and keeps us as bewildered as Thomas Veil-but then I think that was all part of the game. It was the end of one aspect of the show and the possible start of another. We can interpret things as we want. Had there been a 2nd season or some follow up TV films(which almost happened) we would have been taken in a completely different direction I think.
A nice extra on the set of disks is an interview with an anonymous ex-CIA op who claims that, while aspects of the series are somewhat dramatized, that some other aspects of it are closer to the truth than we care to imagine. The idea for example, of manipulating or conditioning a society to think one way or another to meet a larger agenda. He claims that he became useless to the CIA(which is why he is an ex of it) when he started asking the "why" of what he was involved in as opposed to the "what" and just following orders. Creepy stuff.
The current hit show LOST is operating on this same idea as NOWHERE MAN-hints and clues which, we the audience can put together, or, dismiss as we see fit. And debate with others.
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