Black Box - The Complete 1st Season - DVD

Film: Catherine Black (Kelly Reilly) is a successful neurosurgeon who is considered a luminary in her field. But Dr. Black has a secret: for years she has suffered from bipolar disorder. She can only keep her manic-depressive episodes under control with medication. But Catherine doesn't want to let chemicals cloud her mind. Because of her mental illness, she always manages to build up a very special relationship with her patients, to better interpret their symptoms and thus to be able to help them more quickly and effectively. Of course, a healthy private life is out of the question. When her boyfriend Will (David Ajala) proposes to her, she is forced to tell him the whole truth about her illness. Although they overcome this hurdle with some minor difficulties, the relationship is not under a particularly good star. That's because during one of her episodes, Catherine fell all over her new colleague Dr. Ian Bickman (Ditch Davey), which of course the notorious womanizer was only too happy to let happen. And now there is an enormous tension between the two, which complicates the already difficult work in the New York hospital even more. But none of this stops Catherine from doing what she does best: being a brilliant doctor...

Black Box assembles plenty of great talent not only in front of the camera, but behind it as well. With Simon Curtis (My Week with Marilyn) or actors Eric Stolz and Andrew McCarthy in the director's chair, as well as X-Men director Bryan Singer as a producer and Gary Lennon (Justified, The Shield) or Oanh Ly (Criminal Minds) series creator Amy Holden Jones was able to gather a really top-class team around her. And Oscar winner Vanessa Redgrave, Cannes winner Kelly Reilly or Terry Kinney, known from the award-winning prison series Oz, also suggest first-class TV entertainment. Plus, the concept of the series sounds like a mix of female house spiced up with a dash of Grey`s Anatomy. All very good omens.

And so it is not surprising that the series, after 13 episodes already discontinued again, has some very strong moments and highly interesting plot lines. What Black Box ultimately fails at, however, is the overly high ambitions of the creators to turn the series from conventional fare into something very special. Especially in the pilot episode the unusual soundtrack stands out, which was used completely against the common mass taste. This is commendable in principle, but the free-jazz sounds quickly gnaw at the nerves of the viewers and thus distract too much from the actual action. But that's not all: to make the show even more unwieldy, Catherine's psychic episodes are portrayed in an extreme way, for example by spontaneous dancing in the stairwell of the hospital. This is perfectly fine in small doses, especially since Kelly Reilly delivers a strong and extremely committed performance here in particular. But such scenes are used a bit too often, so that they quickly become tiring and push the entertainment value of the series down a lot.

This is a shame in that the cases the doctor faces are really extremely gripping, moving, amusing or just plain interesting in their own right. But the staging, smothered by its good intentions, unfortunately ensures that Catherine and her colleagues are not a real pleasure to watch at work. Here, a little less really would have been a lot more. However, if you don't mind the arguably intrusive jazz soundtrack, the arguably exhausting main character and the somewhat unwieldy production and struggle through the first three episodes in particular, you'll be treated to some excellently acted and more than solidly crafted TV entertainment that absolutely deserved to have developed even further, perhaps finding a tone that would have made it accessible to a wider audience. Kelly Reilly alone would have been the one to wish for that. Therefore, overall: with restrictions and reservations definitely worth seeing!

Picture + Sound: There is truly nothing to criticize about the audiovisual realization. The picture is absolutely clean, the colors atmospherically matched and the image sharpness is in most moments on a very high TV level. The audio is in a coherent Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, with voices, music and ambient sounds - complemented by occasional sound effects - forming a convincing soundscape. Good!

Extras: Unfortunately, there is no bonus material.

Conclusion: Black Box has many good ingredients, but also seems a little exhausting in places. Spontaneous dance interludes or hysterical fits of the main character and the especially in the pilot episode very intrusive jazz soundtrack make the otherwise rather conventional stories a somewhat unwieldy affair. Thus, the entertainment value of comparable hospital series like House can never be achieved despite the very committed playing Kelly Reilly. However, for those who appreciate principally non-conformist series heroes and don't mind the aspects of the series that take some getting used to, the 13 episodes of this first and only season of Black Box can certainly entertain. Recommended

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp