Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Aquarius: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie Review

Portrait of a killer. Kinda.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman September 18, 2015

Sex, drugs, and Rock 'N' Roll. Free love, man! Sounds like a good time, but it's not when the manipulative future famed killer Charles Manson is the center of attention. Aquarius is the fictionalized telling of Manson's story, the cops on his trail, the women under his spell, the man in his sights, and the world as it evolves around him. The show, from Creator John McNamara (who is Executive Producing the upcoming SyFy program The Magicians), concocts an odd blend of police procedural, deeply fictionalized character study, cultural commentary, and human interest drama with one of the most notorious names in the middle of it all. Manson -- bits and pieces of the real figure and plenty of made-up parts -- is integral to the story, but Aquarius might have been smart to shed that baggage and effort to make it on its own, to fashion a new centerpiece villain rather than try to blend true life, revisionist history, and out-and-out fiction in order to squeeze some name recognition out of what is otherwise a fairly pedestrian program.

Manson

The year is 1967. Sixteen-year-old Emma Karn (Emma Dumont), daughter of the influential Kenny Karn (Brían F. O'Byrne) and his wife Grace (Michaela McManus), has disappeared. She's hasn't been seen in the four days since attending a party with her "boyfriend" Rick (Beau Mirchoff). Kenny is looking to keep the search hush-hush, and Grace calls the only man she can trust, an old boyfriend named Sam Hodiak (David Duchovny), now a Los Angeles detective. Hodiak, along with the help of an undercover cop named Brian Shafe (Grey Damon), quickly determines that Emma may be with a young, aspiring musician named Charles Manson (Gethin Anthony) whose easy charms and effortless ways with women has made him something of an underground cult figure who, on the outside, is suave and easy on the eyes but who is, deeper, a deeply disturbed and violent individual whose growth leads him down a dark path.

Hollywood has a very long, and fairly rich, history of peddling revisionist history, of taking a real subject or event and reworking it into whatever filmmakers and entertainers see fit for it to become, to mold it into an entertaining venture rather than a blow-by-blow recap of a life or major event. But that remodeling is often done on the sly, cemented with and built on a cornerstone of truth and thereupon modeled however one wishes on the surface. It's nothing new, it's not necessarily a bad thing (so long as audiences understand the distinction), and it's something Aquarius acknowledges up front, before there's even a flicker of an image on the screen. Plus one for honesty and guiding the viewer to search for that demarcation between truth and fiction, but the real question is whether that blending was, here, necessary. Aquarius' single draw, beyond Duchovny's third major TV venture following The X-Files and Californication, is Manson. But with such a heavy rework the show feels almost inhibited by the name, necessarily playing catch-up rather than blazing its own path and building its own character that would have allowed it limitless freedom while still maintaining the core support pieces along the way.

That's not to say that Aquarius is bad for its choice. On the contrary, it's more than a serviceable TV outing. It shows a fair bit of potential early on and builds on that promise as it progresses throughout the season. The established tone is strong, and the one thing that Manson does bring to the show is a sense of dread, a foreboding, an opening for the audience to seek out those triggers, pick through that brain, come to understand how a man who thrives on manipulating women and who dreams of becoming a music sensation can evolve into the monster people know today. But that draw is, again, hindered by the series' admitted fast and loose and sometimes, it seems, "in name only" look at the man. The preconceived notions of who Manson is today, mixed with the dramatic reworking of his life, handicaps what should have been the series' top draw as a detailed psychological horror show that opens up the mind of a notorious killer. Instead, and again, it comes back to being a dramatic crutch. It's enough to prop up interest but it's ultimately far less fulfilling than it should have been as either a straighter true-life exploration or a completely fictionalized tale of a burgeoning madman.

Aquarius does benefit from a chilling Manson portrayal courtesy of Gethin Anthony (Copenhagen) who is superb in crafting a figure who is, culturally, larger-than-life but here more intimately detailed and, an many ways, then, more frightening. He uses the show's weakness to his advantage, taking those bits and pieces of truth and fiction and working them into a character who is doubly monstrous, on one hand playing the angle of familiarity and on the other the unexpected and the slow growth towards the Manson audiences know. He and the show both build Manson as a figure who is in no way sympathetic -- at best he's a major creep and at worst he's, well...Charles Manson -- but who is both glorified and despised throughout the season by the characters that surround him. In other words, Aquarius makes the spells and illusions under which he operates believably thorough while still allowing the monster to shine through. David Duchovny is an odd choice for Hodiak, a strong-arm cop who does show a tender side when he slows down and opens up. But he cannot shake that Fox Mulder persona, even many years removed, partly because that role is too iconic to brush aside and partly because his Hodiak isn't an interesting enough figure to fully invest the audience in his story.

Aquarius: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Aquarius: The Complete First Season's 1080p transfer isn't much of a looker, but it appears to be a solid enough reproduction of the filmmakers' vision for the show. Aquarius is often a rather dreary affair, visually, with dulled primaries and a bland, very mildly bronzed appearance. Brighter daytime shots manage to squeeze out a little more brilliance, but the reserved, toned-down palette certainly gives it a bleaker look that sometimes even inches towards monochromatic. Details, unsurprisingly, are a little bland, not soft or fuzzy but not jump-out-and-sing strong. General clarity and definition suffice, and again in the most brightly lit shots viewers will find adequately resolved skin pores, stubble, and clothing lines. Black levels are adequately deep and flesh tones satisfying within the image's general parameters. Mild to moderate banding sometimes appears slathered across backgrounds, and some viewers might pick up on a bit of noise, but overall the image plays well enough within reason of the show's intended appearance.

Aquarius: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Aquarius: The Complete First Season arrives on Blu-ray with a rich, detailed, and exciting Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Music is the true highlight here, with the era-specifc songs in particular really dazzling. Instrumental and vocal clarity are superb, with the former effortlessly spread across the stage -- including a light-to-moderate surround support element -- and the latter firmly entrenched in the middle. Score is likewise healthy in clarity and spacing, and LFE support of music is consistently balanced in weight and depth. The track often springs to life with rich little bits of ambience, whether background sounds at a party, rowdy protests, chatter and clanking typewriter keys in the police headquarters, or light natural exterior details that all help pull the listener into the show's late 1960s world. Action effects are precise and often enjoy nice, distinct separation and around-the-stage placement for a more accurate imaging of the on-screen action. Dialogue is center focused and nicely balanced with a quality sense of reverberation around the stage when the location demands.

Aquarius: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Aquarius: The Complete First Season contains several Webisodes and a brief featurette, all on disc four.

• Webisode 1 (1080p, 2:52): Manson and Mary Brunner make love but she must run off to work afterward. Katrina Cznyk declares her affection for Manson.
• Webisode 2 (1080p, 3:24): Susan Atkins approaches Manson and opens up to him. Mary interrupts and they drop acid. An uncomfortable night ensues.
• Webisode 3 (1080p, 2:48): The women discuss Martin, a musician, who befalls Manson's wrath.
• Webisode 4 (1080p, 1:56): Mary challenges Manson's aspirations. Big mistake.
• First Look: Aquarius (1080p, 3:32): A basic overview that covers core story and character elements.

Aquarius: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

That Aquarius isn't based on the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth isn't a problem, per se, but the show feels like it's always struggling to be something greater that it cannot achieve. Making Manson the villain feels like a combination of interesting premise ripe for the picking meets a fruitless harvest of generic television and character procedure. Without Manson, it's nothing. With Manson, it's nothing but potential that's never fully realized because the character, at least through season one, can't muster that same sense of dread, anger, all those negative emotions the name elicits in 2015. It's as if the creators decided that the core story couldn't stand apart, never mind on its own, without something to prop it up and increase awareness and public interest. And that something is Charles Manson, a name the entire world knows but who here feels more like a sales bullet point and less an integral part of the story. Maybe it would have worked better had the show went entirely fictitious and molded the character after Manson rather than try and mold him into Manson. Still, it's a good show, but one that carries a little more expectational baggage than it can lift. Anchor Bay's Blu-ray release of Aquarius: The Complete First Season delivers satisfactory video, excellent audio, and a few minor extras. Cautiously recommended.