Right off the bat let me say I tried to like The Zeta Project. I really, really did. Mostly because it was in Bruce Timm’s DCAU (DC animated Universe). I consider Bruce Timm to be pretty much infallible. Especially when working in the DCAU. So I was really surprised at The Zeta Project. I felt let down.... Then I found out Bruce Timm doesn’t have anything to do with The Zeta Project. I mean it’s in the Batman Beyond universe which Bruce is associated with, but he wasn’t involved at all with Zeta. SCORE!!!! Whew. Thank God.
The Zeta Project is about Infiltration Unit Zeta, a robot made by the National Security Agency to infiltrate and eliminate threats to national security. Equipped with a variety of weapons and the ability to generate a holographic display to change his appearance Zeta has everything he needs to do his job well. The problem? Zeta develops a conscience and decides he doesn’t want to hurt anyone anymore. Convinced Zeta has been reprogrammed Agent Bennet leads the NSA task force whose mission it is to retrieve and reprogram Zeta back to his original programming. Joining Agent Bennet’s task force is Agent West, a bumbling idiot, and his foil Agent Lee. On the run, from Bennet and the boys, Zeta saves Ro Rowen a 15 year old orphan girl. Ro decides to join Zeta on his quest to prove his innocence. It is Ro Rowen’s idea to track down Zeta’s creators so that they can take a look at his programming, and then explain to Agent Bennet that he has not been reprogrammed and does in fact not want to hurt anyone. On their quest Z (Ro’s nickname for Zeta) and Ro learn of Dr. Selig (Zeta’s primary programmer), however, locating Dr. Selig is quite troublesome as he is already working on several other classified projects. Lastly we have Bucky Buenventura a child assho…. genius who gets tangled up with Zeta’s quest and occasionally aids them.
The Good:
-The best part of this series is that it ended.
-It’s in The Batman Beyond universe.
-….uggghh… that’s it.
The Bad:
-The series is really unoriginal. I mean there are sooooooo many stories of robots developing consciousness and going against there programming, and assassins who don’t want to kill, and evil government agencies etc etc etc. The show is a walking, talking cliché. It’s so over done and over used this series had a huge hurtle to overcome right out of the gate. Too bad it failed miserably. For this to work they really needed to have some good character work, and interesting twists. It didn’t.
-The show tries to dumb things down for kids and fails pretty miserably. The result is a dumb show. Kids these days are smart and really savvy to technology, especially computers. I mean come on kids these days have iPods and cell phones and PSPs and whatnot. This show is supposed to be in the future and Zeta constantly has to go to a “GroundWire” i.e. Star Bucks to get internet access. So they made a highly advanced robot for espionage and assassination, and didn’t put in an internet wi fi system?? Come on. Bad writing all around.
The Ugly:
-The show has some of the most annoying characters ever put on screen. I don’t know what it is about them that made me livid with rage. I can’t even begin to describe how bad I disliked every second they were on screen. I’m talking about Ro Rowen, Agent West, and the worst perpetrator Bucky Buenventura. One of those is a main character. So yeah this series didn’t go over well with me.
The Extras:
-The evolution of Zeta: who cares?? I guess if I gave a crap about the series it might be interesting. It’s hard to care when so little love was put into this show.
-The two Batman Beyond shows with Zeta in it were actually worth watching. They were my favorite part of this 2 disc set.
The Verdict:
-Warner Home Video’s The Zeta Project: The Complete First Edition 2 disc set is a flop. I really hate to rip a series down this bad. Usually there is something worth watching for, but in this case there really isn’t. This sucker gets a 1 of 5.