“Science. That’s why we’re here. So, conjecture about Paxton’s guilt or innocence is irrelevant. The science was inconclusive. And that’s what we’re here for, to provide the science. That’s all that matters.” – Tom Conti as Joe Donovan
DNA: Complete Series One and Two DVD Review
By L.B. Bryant
Set in Manchester, England, DNA introduces us to Joe Donovan (Tom Conti). Donovan is a retired forenic scientist who now makes his living writing books about the cases that he investigated while in the field. Now his life is filled with touring the world with his beautiful wife (Samantha Bond) and raising their teenage son, Seth (Ryan Cartwright), while promoting his books.
When a case appears that seems to mimic the case that drove Donovan into retirement seven years earlier, he’s called in to help with the investigation. Over the course of two episodes, Donovan must unravel the mystery surrounding the deaths while dealing with a mysterious illness that causes him to blackout. Simultaneously, he must also prevent his family from dissolving before his very eyes.
The first season of this series has many good things going for it. While initially the series seems to present itself as CSI with British accents, the plot twists of the first season very quickly take the audience on a ride filled with twists and turns.
Always obsessed with work, Donovan is presented as someone addicted to finding the truth behind the mystery no matter what. This obsession leads to a troubled home life. The unapologetic nature of Donovan regarding his commitment to work rather than to his wife and son robs him of our sympathy.
Compounding the issue is the lack of any real challenge for Donovan within the first season. Over the two episodes, Conti is chasing a criminal but his plans and methods end up being so methodical and precise that it makes the villain seem inept, an issue that would follow Donovan into the second season of the series.
In the second season of DNA, the series becomes completely reorganized and restructured in almost every aspect. This is most immediately noticeable is in the writing and storytelling. Donovan has become the head of the Forensics Investigation Unit (FIU) and leads a team of three other scientists through three separate cases: protecting a young girl from a crooked loan collector gone on a killing spree, solving the murder of a wealthy man who appears to have been shot by an “investment advisor” to whom he owed money, and finally investigating an air force base where the crew of a cargo plane have all come down with a mysterious illness.
A primary issue that the first season of this series suffered from was terribly slow pacing. No scientific evidence is too small to discuss and it’s this attention to detail that makes it feel like you’ve watched an entire twelve episode British season in a matter of only a couple of hours.
Gone however from the series by the second season is anything else that made the series even remotely entertaining. With Donovan taking on the lead of an investigation unit in the second season, the series moves from the formula of solving one large case and instead opts to tell episodic stories removing much of the drama and suspense that kept the first season from putting audience members to sleep.
Also removed from the series is Donovan’s attention to detail while working cases. One thing that, while annoyingly well detailed, is enjoyable about the first season of this series is the very methodical nature of forensic science. In the first season, the team that Donovan works with is absolutely anal about cleanliness (as they should be). In the very first case of the second season however, audiences watch as Donovan and his team stroll through crime scenes without even appearing to think about pulling up their hoods and putting on their face masks while investigating crime scenes. To be honest, it seemed surprising at that point they even bothered to put on gloves and a protective suit if they were going to be that lax about their work.
The series does attempt to maintain some of the drama of the previous season. While the drama of Joe’s family life during the first season was gripping (albeit trickled to the audience), the second season delivers dramatic writing so cliché and performances so wooden that they appear to be stolen from a soap opera.
The two who suffer from this the most would be Conti and Bond as they attempt to work through their marriage issues. With Conti portraying Donovan as aloof and Bond portraying his wife as torn between her passions and her love, the whole storyline becomes a mess. While the scenes involving Donovan and his wife fighting about their marriage were performed well, the emotion comes a little too late with audiences long having run out of reasons to care.
DNA: Complete First and Second Series is divided onto two discs: the two episodes that make up season one are on disc one and the three episodes that make up season two are on disc two. The discs are housed in two standard DVD cases and slide into a cardboard box that bears the image of Conti as Donovan on the cover.
