Bureau of Alien Detectors

Very rarely, except perhaps in the realms of anime and the Marvel Universe, can one find such an intriguing, detailed and exciting cartoon. BAD: Bureau of Alien Detectors is about a team of heroes who track down and foil the schemes of aliens that have come to earth. The characters are actually explored in each episode - there is detail, and depth, without overdoing it the way that Marvel cartoons so often manage to. Perhaps I am overanalysing, but the themes of trust and corruption are touched on as the series unfolds. Each episode is exciting, interesting... even scary and haunting, depending on your age. The good guys have real personalities, and the alien language (shown in subtitles) is unusually interesting for a kids show - one species of alien calls each other things like "tooth for brains". It is almost difficult to take it all in! It is truly a tragedy that B.A.D. wasn't longer.

This is another edition in the "Under the Radar Video" series. This was a show that came out during the mid-point of 90's when animated shows were really hitting their peak. It never got a chance to climb up as it was mainly a victim of location hazard as it was on UPN which is the site of a lot of underrated and overlooked gems (might do a story on a lot of those other shows someday). But also, bad marketing and scheduling as I barely saw ads for this show, and it kept moving around. Don't let the initials worry or fool you, this really is a good show (in my book anyway) and unseen gem worth discovering.

The show is basically "G. I. Joe" doing "The X-Files" and it's a cool combination. It makes sense there would be a show like this as the "The X-Files" franchise was hitting its peak which also made the paranormal investigation and supernatural subgenres go on the rise. Strangely you can say this could be that 90's G. I. Joe show we should have had but didn't.

The animation presentation is very good, it's the 90's style animation which is fine by me as I wouldn't want it any other way and seeing it now makes me reminiscent and sad because it made me realize how we don't have animated shows like this anymore. I really like the use of the dark coloring giving the show a dark, creepy, and dangerous atmosphere. You really feel as though there could be something within the shadows waiting to pounce. The music score is also good, I wouldn't say the tracks are memorable, but they fit the show, it has that mysterious, dangerous, creepy vibe to it.

I really like the action, which is choreographed well, it's like the kind you would see from "G. I. Joe" with the good guys using all the nice weapons and assault vehicles. The action really goes steps further than 80's "G. I. Joe" cartoon as it's more violent as not just do bump in the night creatures die but sometimes there are some casualties and collateral damage. I like that really showing how matured animation and even TV was becoming but also helped enforce that sense of danger showing us that what these characters were doing isn't a game and there really are no second chances.

Two of the things that stand out are in its characters, they're not deep or at least not as deep as they could have been had there been another season. But there is a sense of depth to them as each of the episode's focuses on one or two of them at a time, from this we get some hints of their past and who they are from the current actions they take and their own expertise they utilize. Which all reinforced the feeling they were all people and not some archetypes.

The other thing is in well crafted stories and plotlines. It's true that the season in the show is episodic but it gives the show a bit of an unpredictability where your never sure what the next kind of threat their going to encounter is and how their going to win is the other question. But most importantly the episodes are thought provoking, other than see the characters shooting off their weapons we see them think and investigate which to me is interesting and a nice change of pace but best of all shows how it takes more than just fancy weaponry and muscle to win. We see there is some actual science and logic which are applied to the current case which give the plotline weight that there really is potential danger to be had in the current threat.

It's a real shame this didn't' go longer there was potential to go further form having not just any other alien threats to deal with but to give this show a developing plotline and we'd also see how this affects all the characters and how they develop. Oh, well only the realm of fanfiction can continue the storyline.

This unseen gem is worth looking into.

Rating: 3 stars.

This comes off very much like "X-Files: The Animated Series". The acting, sound design and general themes all owe a massive debt to that show. However, there's also a heavy emphasis on action, which is to be expected, seeing as this was a Saturday Morning Cartoon from Saban Entertainment, the creators of "Power Rangers".

My favorite aspects of B.A.D. are the soundtrack and gritty storylines. The music does the job in the scarier scenes, but also has an ethereal quality to it. The stories, while generally falling into the "monster of the week" pattern, are still far more interesting than typical Saturday Morning fare.

This likely was a victim of the crappy network it aired on (UPN). I could potentially see B.A.D. being more successful on either FOX Kids or first-run syndication. If there's any Saturday Morning Cartoon of this period that deserved another season, it was this one. Thankfully though, not long afterwards a similar animated series called "Roswell Conspiracies" came along and was sort of able to replicate what B.A.D. had done.