Black Scorpion - The TV Series

I agree with seawasp's review. This is very entertaining with tongue firmly in cheek. The set comes with excellent artwork and the 16 page booklet is full of colorful stills of the super villains. An added bonus is Behind The Sting: The Making Black Scorpion hosted and narrated by none other than our favourite hero ADAM WEST, who also happens to appear in four episodes as 'The Breathtaker'. Interviews with Roger Corman and other cast members are both informative and entertaining as is the audio commentary on the first two episodes.It is also good to see Frank Gorshin as Clockwise make a memorable appearance.Buy it now you will not be sorry.

Fed up with corruption and haunted by her father's murder Detective Darcy Walker becomes a vigilante. As the Black Scorpion, she protects Angel City from the criminals that are too powerful for police. Each episode she faces -off against super villains bent on destroying the world. While she stays one step ahead of the police looking to arrest her. This includes her coworker Steve Rafferty the man she's in love with.Although Black Scorpion is campy there are at times romantic subplots,and political, or environmental messages that give the show depth. The things I like best about Black Scorpion are:* Michelle Lintel is very attractive and the Black Scorpion costume is quite sexy.* Most of the villains are women that are just as hot as Michelle.* Amazing amount of cleavage in camera angles.* Black Scorpion and her antagonist fight three- four times each episode.* Despite them having a sympathetic back story Black Scorpion always kills her foe.* Car explosions, not CGI, but real cars blowing up.The packaging of the disc is very nice.

Roger Corman's Black Scorpion ran for only one season, 22 episodes broadcast during the first six months of 2001. It was an interesting idea, satirize men who avidly watch exploitation cinema by featuring bumbling and corrupt male characters exhibiting the standard misandrist caricatured behaviors. But in the tradition of "Batman", cancel much of that out by also featuring young exploitation babes in scorching hot costumes.Done right you expand your target audience, getting not just those tuning in for young babes but those who also appreciate the opportunity to laugh at themselves. You might even get some female viewers who appreciate a nice bit of irony and the relatively well written banter that goes on during each episode. The problem was that unlike "Batman", "Black Scorpion" was a show that canceled itself out. Casting was the biggest problem. Michelle Lintel in the title role seemed like a good choice physically. She had the looks and the athletic ability, filling out her costume nicely enough. But she was far too sterile and few of the episodes were directed well enough from a acting-for-the-camera perspective to move her character into erotic territory.And unlike "Batman" the female guest stars brought very little sizzle to the production. The series seemed intent on employing aging actresses who looked like they had just arrived at the studio after dropping a station wagon of kids at soccer practice. Pretty much all the main female villains (Athena Massey, Sherrie Rose, Renee Allman, etc.) were pushing forty and had been physically unexceptional even in their prime.Some of the sidekicks (Faith Salie, Ava Fabian, Kimber West, and Patricia Ford for example) were absolutely sizzling but that brings up the other main issue with the series. These actresses were hopelessly underutilized and the hyper-editing of the action sequences typically cut away from them after a few poorly lite frames. Their costumes were certainly gratuitous but with the horrible lighting and the wide master shots it was impossible to became engaged. The situation cried out for some well-lighted lingering close-ups, but the producers arrived ticketless at the clue-bus station. It was just too antiseptic to even be a gentle tease.

At the time of its filming, Roger Corman described the Black Scorpion tv series as his ultimate life's work. He believed in it so much that he poured his life savings into making all 22 episodes without going through the usual procedure of making a pilot episode and approaching television channels. As a result there was a two-year gap between the filming of the series and its first airing. Was it worth it?First of all, what was the goal of the series? It was meant as a respectful homage to the 60's Batman series, combined with the sexy fighting females so common in Corman's films. The bat became a scorpion, the man became a woman. The tongue-in-cheek humour and camp nature of Batman were to be retained.As a crime-fighting icon, Black Scorpion is an immediate success. While the 60's needed a male hero, our 21st Century is better fitted with a powerful female to bring law and order. Michelle Lintel proves to be an adequate replacement to Joan Severance, who played Black Scorpion in the previous films. Her self-confident entrances with corny jokes are the equal of Batman at his best. The colourful villains are made even better by their inherant lack of credibility. This is escapism at its best, not reality! The references to Batman are strengthened by casting Adam West as Breathtaker and Frank Gorshin as Clockwise. Other elements used as sub-plots to the series are the incompetent police force, the corrupt politicians, and the budding love affair between Black Scorpion's alter-ego and a police detective.However, the series has weaknesses that need to be addressed. Despite the large budget, the car chase scenes are constantly re-used, which I find grating. Gangster Prankster's character is based so closely on the Joker that Corman can be accused of plagiarism. But the greatest weakness is that the comic elements are overdone. It's one thing that the police are incapable of dealing with super-villians -- that's why Black Scorpion is needed -- but it's another to portray the police as layabouts who throw baseballs about in the station instead of trying to solve crimes. Scott Valentine is a credible detective, but Shane Powers and Steven Kravitz are totally out of place. The running humour between the scientific genius (B.T.) and his scatty girlfriend (Enya Flack) is so silly that it just isn't funny. How could a man like that love a woman like that?Overall, the series is a success, and the DVD box set is good value for money. It's a crime that until now Black Scorpion has rarely been aired and still remains unknown. If Roger Corman has any money left, he should make a second, improved series of Black Scorpion, toning down the sillier humour. The series has the potential to become a classic, but based on the evidence of the first series, it isn't quite there yet.