Swamp Thing:the series Volume One - DVD Review

I was 14 years old when the Swamp Thing television series began to air on the USA Network. I faithfully watched every week, and for reasons unbeknownst to me, my mother joined me in viewing this fine piece of American television every Friday night. Much like me, I guess she didn’t have anything better to do on a Friday night. As I got older, I began to appreciate little things like this: obviously, some parents will do whatever it takes to connect with their children on some level.

Having spent the past two weeks immersing myself in Volume One of the Swamp Thing television series, I appreciate my mother even more. Any parent willing to sit through this show on a weekly basis is truly dedicated and possibly deserving of some sort of Parent of the Year Award.

Okay, okay. It isn’t that bad. But it isn’t that good either. Swamp Thing: The Series Volume One, recently released by Shout! Factory, contains the first two seasons of the cult classic series, totaling 22 episodes. Reprising his role as the muck-encrusted mockery of man is stuntman-turned-actor Dick Durock. Mark Lindsay Chapman portrays Dr. Anton Arcane, Swamp Thing’s evil nemisis, and Carrell Myers rounds out the cast as Tressa Kipp, a divorced mother who has recently relocated to Houma, Louisiana to start a new life with her young son Jim. I’m not sure what the name of the actor is who played Jim, and to be frank, it isn’t worth my time or yours to look it up. The kid is terrible. He makes Jake Lloyd’s performance in The Phantom Menace look like Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood.

The first season finds Tressa moving into her familial estate on the outskirts of the mysterious swamp inhabited by Swamp Thing. Her son Jim has a reputation as a compulsive liar, so naturally Tressa doubts his tales of the swamp creature he’s befriended, but what becomes very clear to her in little time is the evil nature of Anton Arcane, a local mad scientist. (I guess every small southern town has one.) Arcane’s goals are never exactly stated, but he basically spends all of his time either hitting on Tressa or splicing the genes of humans and animals together.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Swamp Thing comic books, here’s the basic gist of the story: Scientists Alec and Linda Holland were working on a bio-restorative formula capable of rapidly increasing the growth of plants. When their lab was sabotaged, Linda was killed and Alec was doused in the formula. He ran into the swamp and several days later, Swamp Thing emerged. Anton Arcane is a wizened old codger well-versed in black magic who is constantly trying to capture Swamp Thing in order to transfer his mind into Swampy’s body. For the purposes of the television series, this story has been slightly changed so that Dr. Arcane is a strapping young scientist responsible for blowing up his rivals’ laboratory. When he’s not creating bird-men or trying to get a piece of Tressa Kipp’s action, Arcane occasionally tries to capture Swamp Thing in an attempt to find the secret to the bio-restorative formula. No reason is given, but when you’re a mad scientist, do you really need one?

For the first season, the series basically follows a monster-of-the-week formula, sometimes without the monster. Something weird happens in the swamp, Jim and/or his mother is placed in danger and Swamp Thing acts as something of a deus ex machina, showing up for about 5 minutes to bring someone back to life or frighten away Arcane and his goons. It’s very basic and very bland.

Season One’s finale finally gives us a reason for Arcane’s genetic menagerie: he’s creating mindless slaves to sell on the black market. This episode sees Jim get captured and sent to a work camp and (thankfully) written out of the series. The series was retooled for Season Two, introducing Jim’s older step-brother Will and bringing on Kari Wuhrer as Abigail. The show became more action oriented, the scripts got a lot better and… dare I say it? The series actually started getting pretty good.

In Season Two, we find out that Arcane is just a small part of a larger evil organization which is headed by General Sunderland. Sunderland essentially plays the same role that Arcane played in the comics. He’s an old man who wants a new body, and he hopes that Alec Holland’s bio-restorative formula will be the key. In addition, it is revealed that Arcane hopes that the formula will hold the secret to saving his wife, who is kept alive in some sort of stasis after a near-death experience. Apparently, the writers realized that actually giving your characters some sort of motivation makes them vastly more interesting.

Will Kipp (played by Scott Garrison) basically takes over Jim’s role, only he’s in his early 20’s and isn’t completely annoying. It seemed that the creators of this series still felt a need to have a complete black hole of talent on the show though, and Kari Wuhrer was added to fill that void. She’s also pretty easy on the eyes, and her constantly being outfitted in very short shorts in nearly every episode may further explain why the second season outshines the first. Her character’s name is Abigail (no relation to Abigail from the Swamp Thing comics), and apparently she was created in a laboratory as another one of Sunderland’s experiments.

The tone of the series becomes much darker in the second season, but it also maintains a sense of humor. Not a particularly funny sense of humor, but there’s a few good jokes here and there. Swamp Thing’s role is expanded, and we begin to see more of the inner turmoil of a man trapped in the body of a plant. Also, Arcane’s experiments become more violent in nature, and we get to see Swampy throw a few stuntmen through some breakaway windows. It’s almost as though the creators used the first season as a test run and completely reinvented it with Season Two. The much-needed improvements make for a much better show.

But is the show really any good? Well, it’s as good as you’d expect an early 90’s made-for-USA series to be. I can’t deny that by the end of the second season, I was really enjoying it quite a bit, but I will also freely admit that anyone who isn’t already a fan of Swamp Thing probably won’t find a whole lot to enjoy in this series. It’s what I always refer to as a “Sunday afternoon show”. When you’re sitting on the couch on Sunday afternoon, winding down after a long weekend and you have nothing better to do, it’s not a terrible way to pass the time. It doesn’t take much effort to watch the show, and if you fall asleep during an episode, you won’t really be too upset that you missed it.

The DVDs also feature some interviews with Swamp Thing co-creator Len Wein and star Dick Durock. These little vignettes are really quite interesting and are definitely a must-watch if you’re a fan of the comics, movies or television series.