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Welcome to a history lesson. the XandPro reviews began their life on a Virtual Series specific message board where I finally started to read episodes of a series that I should've read a year before. But now I did - and I posted topics based on each episode and I gave the review. The series, if you haven't clicked at the moment, was Seers. And in a strange homage to tradition - Seers first season will also house Xandmatt Productions' first ever VDVD Boxset review.

SERIES NAME: Seers
Created By: Matt Cannon
Initial Air-Date: November 2003
Episodes: 22
V-Discs: 4

For those not in the know - Seers is created by Matt Cannon, who is going to be bringing you the series Strawberry Fields Forever next March, and follows the exploits of renegade paranormals avoiding capture. Think similar lines of X-Men, Mutant X, Dark Angel and even the up and coming Heroes to get a feel of the show. Anyway, leading the show is psychic and telekinesis-prone young boy Roman Young who's thrown into the IPSU (International Paranormal Sustainment Unit), and with the help of a pyrokinetic girl called Terri - end up escaping into the home of more renegade mutants Cliff, Brady, Juliet, Eileen and Carlos. As they deal with anti-human mutants and evade Hembree, operative of the IPSU, they begin to find themselves caught in a strange world of mysterious adventures.

21st November 2003 the first episode aired - and I remember seeing that it was placed on a Friday next to Ravenshill on Phoenix Virtual Television, replacing Hogwarts I.R.T...

Seers came along before there was a lot of scripted series you see today on MZP. While not the first, there wasn't a lot on the net - apart from some transcript based ones - surrounded by a lot of prose series. helped by a nice web-site - there was a small fan base that began to grow...

The episodes themselves in the season cover all parts of the quality spectrum, with some amazing episodes and some...sub-standard episodes. And on the whole this effects the overall consistency of the season, with arc plots and character development all over the place at times. It's not until the last five episodes where things really begin to come together and characters get more to do; but over the season there's just a lot of good points and striking bad points.

Biggest example is the character of Brady, who aside from being the source of income - has absolutely nothing to do until the season finale where he gets the most exciting bit. Some characters take forever to develop their own characteristics, Eileen for a while seems to be token gay character and a female Carlos - and Juliet gets stuff to do...but just seems completely boring.

However, you'll find that with this series - huge gaping flaws have some excellent counters to them. The character of Hembree, the 'villain', is the best character in the series. In fact - he's the Sam Gerard (The Fugitive) school of villainy - i.e. he's not one. He's doing his job. Think Sheriff Valenti in Roswell as well and you'll get there. Some of the good guys do develop into interesting people - with laid back slob Carlos proving to be a lose cannon and slightly unpredictable, Cliff proving to be a great leader, Terri - while held back, does show signs of being completely dangerous and Roman simmers on the back-burner at times but comes out to have some great episodes and moments.

Episodes wise, there's some absolute corkers here that you must read. The two-part story Desperation and Plague of Figments (A:7/8) begins to show the series at it's strong points, with genuine interaction not feeling like act padding and an overall sense of a greater plan beginning to play out. Carlos was once second on XP's top 20 character list, and Without Invitation (A:11) will show you why that is. The amazingly creepy and Noir-esque Boo-Town (A:18) does the unthinkable of tidying up the mess of an earlier episode - and it helps that writer Cannon has a huge love and respect for the Noir genre. The two part finale Slipping and Underdogs (A:21/22) showcase some of the best the series has. They both aren't exactly perfect, but several moments at the end of the finale will leave you shaking in shock and it contains some confrontations you've been waiting all season for.

However, as mentioned before, Seers always polarises itself. So with some great episodes, you get some really awful ones. Blind Followers (A:17) and Tick Tock (A:6) are slightly dull, underdeveloped average stories - the latter being confusing beyond belief (thanks to the character of Stephanie Creed). Then you've got the below average episode Recovery (A:9) that continues the Stephanie angle and it's still confusing, and suddenly drops her in a complicated serious relationship with Eileen far too quickly. But Seers first season also pays host to the only episode I've ever given a 1 rating to in Bloodthirst (A:12) - in which everyone's out of character, the story is incomprehensible, characters change in every line of dialogue, the use of vampires is just...yeah. This is the episode that Boo-Town follows on from, and the difference is staggering. The only saving grace of the episode is that you have to read it to get the most out of Boo-Town.

Besides from that, the episodes are enjoyable and can hook you in on some elements. Each episode is shown in .pdf format however, and while that will be an improvement in some areas, some readers might like the option of having a .html version.

The extras seem quite sparse when you look at the them. There's not that much there. But when you dig deeper, you get some very interesting tidbits of information. Phase One reveals that Seers has something in common with Ravenshill - they both started as novels. Things like this are interesting, and Cannon comments on staff changes - but doesn't go into detail on some members or talk about individual episodes - he brings up the vampires and Roman's own Dawn Summers...but not much else.

Of the other extras, Live at the Headrush is just a list of songs that you can find to make your own soundtrack for the series that's more reference than anything and Hunters is a pilot featuring characters from the vampire episodes. It's an interesting premise and builds on the more sci-fi origins from Boo-Town, but there could've been some commentary in the background of the episode. The discussion of a spin-off. How the idea came around despite the effort required for the first season to finish? What was planned? Why didn't it develop further? Stuff like that.

Scribblings and Doodles is the highlight of the extras however, with doodles and scans from all eras of development...it's amazing to see ideas about things and how much ideas have developed. print outs of scripts and stories with notations on show the amount of effort that's been put in the series...and the doodles of characters do raise a smile.

"At a time when scripted virtual series were few and far between, Seers paved its own way. While it’s not the most radical idea, I think we broke some new ground. And most of all, I think we entertained people."

Seers first season can be classed as Virtual Series History. Not the best. Not the worst - but definitely something capable of having a Gods like fanbase - boosted by the interesting extras...