Lost Girl - Season 1 (CAN) Review

Lost Girl follows supernatural seductress Bo, a Succubus who feeds on the sexual energy (sometimes called "chi") of humans. Growing up with human parents, Bo had no reason to believe she was anything other than the girl next door - until she drained her boyfriend to death in their first sexual encounter. Now she has hit the road alone and afraid. She discovers she is one of the Fae, creatures of legend and folklore, who pass as humans while feeding off them secretly and in different ways, as they have for millennia. Relieved yet horrified to find out that she is not alone, Bo decides to take the middle path between the humans and the Fae while embarking on a personal mission to unlock the secrets of her origin.

With the help of her human sidekick, Kenzi, and Dyson, a sexy Fae working as a human police detective, Bo takes on a challenge every week helping a Fae or human client who comes to her to solve a mystery, or to right a wrong. As the series progresses, Bo finds herself in a love triangle with Dyson and the beautiful scientist, Lauren, who works for the Fae.

Video

The show is, of course, presented in Anamorphic Widescreen (1.78:1), and I was very impressed with the quality of the transfer. There are lots of dark scenes, and whatever cameras they're using were up to the task, as the noise is very minimal. Black levels, which are so important to dark shows, look good as well; they were only off a few times, which is the fault of the original production more than the DVD itself. eOne has set a chapter after the opening of the episode, and provided a "play all" for each disc.

I had a couple of readers tell me that the show airs slightly trimmed episodes in the US (missing 1-1.5 mins). Since I've never seen the show before, and I live in Canada, I have no way to compare these episodes to the ones airing in the US. Hopefully someone will be able to look at the times listed above and figure out whether these are the (supposedly) longer Canadian episodes.

Audio

The first thing I noticed on this English Dolby Digital 5.1 track is that it's a bit quiet, which was a bit frustrating (ever turn your receiver up, then forget you did so, only to put something else in and get blasted? Yeah...). The track itself was nice, with some decent sound effects appearing in the rear speakers, and a lot of bass for explosions and other bass-worthy scenes. There aren't any subtitles, or captions.

Extras - How we rate extras

There aren't any special features on the set.

Summary

I've spent many hours/days/months/years watching Canadian TV, and I've noticed that it's getting better and better all the time. It used to be that "Canadian TV" meant something that was low-budget, cheesy, and sometimes poorly acted and written. Watching the first two episodes of Lost Girl brought me back to the time when Canadian TV was garbage. I really wasn't a fan of the show at all, and wondered how it could have generated so many emails to the site. I considered turning the TV off and ejecting the disc, never to revisit it again. The thing is, I've rarely turned something off, because I always hope it'll get better (even when it doesn't, like Bob's Burgers). I wasn't alone here, as my wife thought exactly the same thing I did. Then we watched episode 3. I don't know what happened, but the show was infinitely better than the first two episodes, and the episodes kept getting better and better after that. We struggled through those first episodes, and then we struggled to turn the TV off for the last 11 (darn sleep!). If you happened to only see the first few episodes of the show, you should definitely give it another shot.

The set currently sells on Amazon.ca for around $30 CAN (which is around $30 US, though you'll have to pay for shipping). Given that we don't have a US release date for the show, and eOne doesn't own the US rights, it may be best to consider importing the Canadian release. No, there aren't any extras, but you'll get all the episodes, that look and sound very good.

I can't wait for the second season, which is 22 episodes, to be released on DVD. Maybe this summer? Cross your fingers. Has anyone else noticed that Kris Holden-Ried (Dyson) looks almost identical to Chris Martin, lead singer of Coldplay? Just compare the photos of Holden-Ried and Martin.