The Fades-Series One (2010)

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General		Extras
Category	TV Series	Deleted Scenes Additional Footage Outtakes Featurette-Mac Explains Featurette-Behind The Scenes-8 Featurettes Interviews-Cast-Johnny Harris and Natalie Dormer
Rating
Year Of Production	2010
Running Time	394:00
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered Dual Disc Set	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Farren Blackburn Tom Shankland
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Iain De Caestecker Lily Loveless Daniel Kaluuya Johnny Harris Natalie Dormer Tom Ellis Sophie Wu
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Paul Thomson

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     Paul Roberts (Iain De Caestecker) already knows he's not your average 17-year-old. His b****y twin sister Anna (Lily Loveless) takes every opportunity to let him know that he is seriously less than adequate. After all he is pretty dorky, he doesn't have a girlfriend and his best and perhaps only friend Michael "Mac" (Daniel Kaluuya) is a Star Wars quoting nobody. What with the apocalyptic dreams he has been having, leading to embarrassing bed wetting, Paul is pretty sure that things couldn't get much worse.

     When he and Mac are hanging out in a disused shopping centre he sees a man fighting with a strange creature and tries to help. The man, Neil (Johnny Harris) explains to Paul that he is special. He is an Angelic who can see the recently departed known as the fades. The dead have one task which is to find their way to an ascension point where they are accepted into the afterlife. Ordinary mortals can't see, hear, touch or smell the fades. Then there are those who have been left behind. Those who cannot make the ascension. They are sad and angry but powerless to do anything about it.

     Unfortunately, the delicate balance between the living and the dearly departed is coming unstuck. The fades are beginning to assume physical properties and to attack people. When fighting at the supermarket Neil was trying to find Sarah (Natalie Dormer). She has been killed by the leader of the angry fades and enters the realm of the supernatural. That's doubly bad news for her husband Mark (Tom Ellis) who was not only missing his wife but is also suspected of her disappearance. Truth is Mark and Sarah were going through a bad patch. Mark suspected her of having an affair with Neil.

     Paul struggles with the revelation that he is an Angelic. How could he be one of those people with a special ability to perceive the dead and, not only that, he seems to have some special powers. What exactly those powers are and how they can help remains to be seen. Paul is still suffering from bad dreams full of apocalyptic visions and Neil doesn't exactly settle his fears. Neil believes that the fades are assuming corporeality for a reason and Paul's dreams, which Sarah also experienced, are portents of the doom to come.

     When the darkness arrives it is in the form of John (Ian Hanmore/Joe Dempsie) who has spent 70 years in agony as a trapped fade only to emerge butterfly like as the handsome but deadly John after discovering that human blood and flesh are the key to rebirth. Can Paul save the world or even save his friends and family including his newly experienced first girlfriend Jay (Sophie Wu) or will the apocalypse come?

     The Fades is a supernatural drama created by Jack Thorne, who worked on Skins and This Is England 88. He earned a BAFTA for his work on the show and This Is England. The award was well deserved. Pitched at the upper teen market this is a series that can be enjoyed by anyone who doesn't mind a bit of blood and guts mixed in with their teen romance and humour. The series consists of six episodes each just under an hour.

     Fans of Game of Thrones will appreciate the scenes involving Sarah and John who play Margaery Tyrell and Gendry on that show. The acting is pretty decent and the action ramps up in the second half.

     There is only one big disappointment. Without giving anything away the series ends in a matter ripe for a sequel. There will be no sequel. Just over a month after the show was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Drama Series the producers announced on their Facebook page that the show would not be returning for another season. It is a great disappointment as the show was good enough and had enough potential to justify more seasons However according to writer Jack Thorne the BBC budget extended to only one show and Being Human, another great show, was chosen instead.

    A pity…

Video

     The Fades comes to DVD in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio consistent with the original widescreen television release. It is 16×9 enhanced.

     The six episodes are spread evenly over two DVDs, shared with extra materials. That still amounts to over three hours of content on each disk, however the quality of the DVD presentation is good throughout with little evidence of compression and other technical defects, perhaps due to the small size of the audio track.

     Having said that it would have been nice to have the opportunity, as in the UK, to see this series on Blu-ray. In any event, the digital image is crisp and clear throughout. The flesh tones and other colours are bright when they need to be although it must be said that much of the show is shot either in the dark or in muted and overcast conditions appropriate to the troubling subject matter.

    There are subtitles in English.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     The Fades is presented on DVD with a Dolby Digital 2.0 track running at a pretty measly 192 Kb/s.

    I have noticed that the Blu-ray of this title comes with a 2.0 track so it is not like the DVD has been short changed on surround effects. Still, it is always scarier in surround!

     The dialogue can generally be heard well although it must be said that Mac often speaks very quickly and with a strong English accent which can make it a little bit difficult to pick up what he is saying.

     The music is pretty good throughout. The opening theme has a combination of dub step rhythms and a sense of approaching horror and the series music is an excellent underpinning of the scares and horror.

    There are no technical problems with the sound.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

     There are a host of extras included with the DVD although it must be said that most of them are fairly brief. The extras are split across two DVDs but fall into the following categories.

Extra Scenes

     There is an extra scene for every episode. They simply consist of Mac and Paul at a milk bar with Mac, as usual, coming up with some theories about nerdy subjects. They don't add anything in particular to the show but are worth a watch, particularly the one where Mac explains how The Jungle Book is the most frightening examination of mental illness, with a boy so disturbed by his abandonment in the jungle that he actually believes animals can sing!

Deleted Scenes

     One deleted scene is included for all the episodes bar the final episode. They are introduced by either producer Carolyn Skinner or director Tom Shankland. The scenes are fairly meaty and up to a few minutes long. As usual, time and repetition were the reasons they were deleted.

Mac Explains

     In short segments, done it in his inimitable style, Mac tells us: What is a Fade?(0.43), What is Ascension (1.25) What is an Angelic? (1.13), How Is Everyone Connected? (0.56), Why is Paul Special (0.50) and What is a Reborn? (1.26), also including the questions - How did the Fades get Trapped and What Else Can They Do? as well.

Interview with Johnny Harris (1.51)

     The actor talks about his involvement with the show and his take on the character of Neil.

Interview with Natalie Dormer (1.54)

     As above the actress talks about the script and the challenges of the very physical production.

Behind-The-Scenes

     This is a series of six short Making of featurettes which take us behind-the-scenes of the production:

• Apocalypses (3.10)
• Polus Revealed (2.54)
• The Chosen One (3.26)
• The Fades Are Here (2.52)
• The Real Neil (3.20)
• Writing the Fades (2.44)

     All aspects of the production are considered here including the original development and script writing by Jack Thorne, the performances of the actors and the technical challenges in putting the production together including - special effects on a limited budget, the challenges of make up for the fades as well as the costuming. An interesting series of shorts.

     This is identical to the version in other Regions. Buy local.

     It is a great pity that The Fades was not continued for a second season. Perhaps that might happen in the future. This is an enjoyable supernatural horror series.

     The DVD is of fine quality both in sound and vision terms and the extras are interesting.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall