Kegek said:
Bob the Skutter said:
I believe it was cancelled after the first season.
Kegek will probably tell you more, he seems to be the local big Charlie Jade fan.
Bingo.
Charlie Jade has been shown since October here on UK TV on the FX channel, and I've been following it since then. A DVD release of the first half of the season in Region 2 came out in Christmas and another one is slated, IIRC, for May. The show was produced in 2005 and only one season of 21 episodes were made. I've read that scripts were written for a second season; but that never went through and the show is currently being marketed as a 'limited' TV show. I've also read that the show nonetheless has a satisfying but open-ended conclusion; but I can't tell you for sure until I've finished watching. I'm up to the seventeenth episode.
So far as I know, the show has never aired in the United States. This is definitely a shame, it's a very enjoyable show. Should it ever reach US airwaves; I'd recommend it. Opinion seems to be divided about the overall quality of the show - some say the first few episodes are poor and you should wait for it to improve - but in my opinion, most of the appealing aspects of the show are right there in the pilot: The atmosphere, the strange, elliptical plotting, and so on. Things make more sense as time goes on but the show still feels the same.
Charlie Jade is a very odd show. It has a very dense arc, in which Vexcor, a company that exists in a dystopian universe called Alphaverse; is trying to cross into universes such as Betaverse (our own) and Gammaverse (an ecological utopia). Jade, our eponymous antihero, finds himself trapped in Betaverse, and soon finds himself working with a local conspiracy theorist, Karl Lubinsky. And there's an eco-terrorist from Gammaverse named Reena, then there's the sociopathic son of Vexcor's founder, 01 Boxer; and other Vexcor characters - including Brian Boxer's mistress and the
de facto head of Vexcor, Essa Rumpkin.
It uses colour-coding as a shorthand to indicate what universe one is in - Alphaverse is shot with dark green colours; Betaverse with a cold blue; and Gammaverse with warm earth tones. Everything takes place in South Africa - of Alphaverse we only see 'Cape City'; a smog-laden alternate universe version of Cape Town in Betaverse. This gives the show a decidedly different feel from any other sci-fi show I've seen - and it sometimes interweaves South African political and ethical concerns into the show's plot.
So,
Charlie Jade consistently ambituous, weird, and entertaining. It can misfire badly and it does have serious flaws; but it also has much to commend itself. Maybe not for everyone, but I sure as well love it.