Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.0

Bitten: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie Review

No one's very "twice shy" in this series.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 14, 2014

Frankenstein had his Bride and Dracula had his daughter (more or less), but what about poor old Larry Talbot, otherwise known as the somewhat hirsute The Wolf Man? While female werewolves are certainly nothing new in the annals of entertainment, as everything from 1944’s Cry of the Werewolf to 1981’s The Howling to 2005’s Cursed to the recently canceled Being Human proves, Bitten is promoting itself as something new under the sun (and/or moon, considering the lunar influence on lycanthropy). Though based on a series of books called Women of the Otherworld by one Kelley Armstrong, Bitten seems to have been cut from much the same cloth as another Syfy entry, Haven (another show with supposed literary antecedents which itself seems somewhat derivative of efforts like The X Files). In both of the Syfy offerings, an improbably gorgeous blonde with a mysterious past attempts to make a go of it in a new setting while ping ponging between two equally improbably hunky males. Perhaps most oddly, though attributable to the source novels, is the fact that the werewolves in this series hail from an estate known as Stonehaven. Even one of the commentaries included on this Blu-ray mentions Haven since both shows are Canadian productions and evidently at least some personnel have matriculated between the two. Some would probably argue these are mere surface similarities, but a lot of television is not exactly known for its innovative tendencies, and whether or not there's any salient comparison to Haven, Bitten often feels like a pretty lame rehashing of a variety of tropes, not necessarily only those dealing with the werewolf canon.

There’s little doubt about Bitten’s often florid approach to its subject when the first time we meet heroine Elena Michaels (Laura Vandervoort), she’s happily ensconced on her boyfriend Philip McAdams (Paul Greene), doing the nasty in a fairly graphic (for basic cable) way. Unfortunately, Elena’s wolf blood is calling to her and she leaves Philip in the lurch in order to transform into her alter ego in private. Here Bitten also offers the first of what turns out to be a recurrent bit of quasi-naughtiness—Elena stripping down bare naked so that she doesn’t foul any of her designer duds when she goes all canine. The show is actually kind of fitfully comedic in how concerned the characters are to remove their clothing before they morph into their wolf figures. In Elena’s case at least, it’s understandable, as this is one extremely well appointed woman.

In a neat bit of editing, we’re led to believe that Elena in wolf form may have had a close encounter of the mauling kind with a bar hopping girl that another character simply labels a “slut” at their first meeting (Bitten doesn’t just push the envelope with its sex scenes). That turns out to be a bit of misdirection, and once the corpse of the hapless girl is found, it turns out to be at the edge of Stonehaven, far away from where Elena is attempting to live a normal human life in Toronto. Unfortunately, Elena’s past is intimately tied in with Stonehaven, and her unusual ability to hunt and track prey makes her the ideal candidate to find out what wolf did assault the woman.

Part of Bitten’s subtext is that Elena is obviously not that thrilled to be a werewolf, let alone the only female werewolf in the world, and she’s trying to escape her fate through a variety of remedial behaviors (like stuffing down every last ounce of undercooked meat she can in order to quell her wolfen desires for flesh). That only goes so far, and she repeatedly has to give in to her animal instincts. Animal instincts are of course another none too subtle subtext of the show, especially in its unusually provocative depictions of sex. Part of the problem, though, is that the show sets Elena up as a werewolf revolutionary, discarding the pack and going out there in the werewolf version of Mary Richards in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, knowing she’s “gonna make it on her own”.

That conceit ignores the fact that several other werewolf characters seem to be doing fine in the big city themselves, including Elena’s therapist and her ex-boyfriend Clayton Danvers (Greyston Holt), a man we meet in his guise as a university professor, the kind the college girls bat their eyes at while giggling appreciatively at his philosophical ruminations. Professor Danvers gives the girls a rudimentary introduction to Jung and the concepts of anima, animus and persona, because heaven knows some people will be watching Bitten for the television equivalent of reading Playboy’s articles.

Without giving away too much of the byzantine plot of Bitten, Elena needs to return to Stonehaven to help track a so-called “mutt”, a rogue werewolf who is targeting the locals and who seems to have some kind of vendetta against the Stonehaven pack. Elena’s tempestuous relationship with Clay provides most of the melodrama for the series’ middle pack (sorry) of episodes. There’s a flashback episode detailing their history, but unfortunately no similar background detailing of her relationship with current boyfriend Phillip. (Elena is actually shown sleeping around with several guys, so maybe that “slut” verbiage is just part of the general ambience of Bitten.)

A fairly predictable “good wolf” vs. “bad wolf” storyline eventually develops, with a villain who’s easy to spot from the get go. Bitten is often slightly laughable, with wooden, overheated dialogue and a tendency for the actors to play to the second balcony even when they’re in extreme close-up. Things aren’t helped by fairly ridiculous looking CGI. For a werewolf show to really fuel some adrenaline rushes, the wolves need to be believable, and unfortunately here they look like they’re 3D renderings from some long forgotten shelved animation production.

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

Bitten is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Entertainment One with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. The series is sometimes just slightly soft looking for a contemporary digitally shot outing. This doesn't necessarily equate with a loss of detail or even fine detail. Take a look at Paul Greene's back in screenshot 4 or the flyaway hairs on Vandervoort's head in screenshot 1 for good examples of the nice detail available throughout the series. Some of the CGI is rather soft and pretty minimal looking. Colors are generally accurate and decently saturated, though aside from some of the shocking scenes of carnage after a wolf attack, the series has a surprisingly subdued palette. There's a recurrent use of "wolf vision" point of view shots (see screenshot 3), which oddly filter and warp the image. There are no problematic artifacts to report on this release.

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

Bitten's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix has good attention to detail, with nicely placed ambient environmental effects that are quite vivid in some of the wolf attack scenes. Dialogue is very cleanly presented. The Music Supervisor on this show should be awarded some kind of overworked trophy, for the show is stuffed to the gills with source cues, all of which sound fine.

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

• Audio Commentaries on "Summons" (the pilot episode), "Bitten", and "Ready" (the season finale) feature J.B. Sugar (Executive Producer), Daegan Fryklind (Executive Producer/Writer) and star Laura Vandervoort, who plays Elena.


• Behind the Scenes (1080p; 8:42) has some decent candid shots, as well as a brief look at the rendering process for the CGI wolves.


• VFX - Behind the Wolf (1080p; 4:26) is a somewhat more in depth look at the visual effects.


• Deleted/Alternate Scenes (1080p; 16:36)


• Stunt Choreography (1080p; 8:40) is an interesting PiP supplement that shows raw footage of rehearsals and takes as well as the final versions of various sequences.

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

Bitten has all the trappings of a guilty pleasure, at least for those who don't mind a generous helping of salacious content mixed in with werewolves and a not very surprising us vs. them plotline. That said, the show's emphasis on the supposed innovation of a lone female werewolf is undercut by Bitten's very rote and predictable presentation. Technical merits here are quite strong for fans of the series considering a purchase.