Tuesday, April 7, 2020

Blood & Treasure (2019)

Every now and then you hear about a new show, and you go YES!  This is for me.

Blood &Treasure was like that for me.  An Ex-FBI Agent and a thief team up to track down a terrorist selling blood antiquities.  Sounds right up my alley.

It was about a year ago I first heard this was launching in the States.  In Australia, not so soon.  In the interim, CBS (who air the show in the States) buys a big share of Network 10 in Australia.  So I figure that it should air on that Network, then they launch 10 All Access, which is the local version of CBS All Access, a pay site. If they don't air it on the free to air channels, it'll be on the paid site, I thought to myself.

So I've been keeping an eye out for Blood & Treasure on the 10 Network - nothing.  All Access (and other paysites) have an annoying thing where they won't tell you what is on them until you join.    And I'm not wasting a free trial in the hopes that it MIGHT be on the pay site.

Then in my Facebook feed - a sponsered post that was actually useful to me.  10 has put Blood & Treasure on the 10 Play site for free for 30 days.

So I fire up the internet and damn if I don't enjoy this show more than I thought.

Oded Fehr from The Mummy appears as the terrorist leader (and that's not the only Mummy connection in this show),  Mark "Human Target" Valley turns up as Danny's father in one episode and John LaRoquette from The Librarians has a recurring role as Danny's mentor J. Reece.
 The show features ex FBI Agent Danny McNamara and Egyptian thief, master thief Lexi Visiri as they tell us in an Arrow-verse like opening monologue (or rather dialogue as Lexi interupts Danny's speech)

The show opens with the discovery of the tomb of Cleopatra and Mark Anthony in the present day.  The discover the bodies of several Nazi soldiers.(Cleo's tomb was the subject of The Mummy Chronicles book The Heart of the Pharaoh by Dale Wolverton where the Nazis are searching for the tomb and Alex O'Connell has to stop them)

Turns out those darn Nazis had taken Cleopatra's Mummy before the Medjai er I mean the Brotherhood of Seraphis can stop them and they planned on weaponising Cleopatra's curse.  Kinda like how they planned on weaponising The Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail.

Of course that's not the only reference to Indiana Jones - with a Danny quoting Indy at one point, "They're digging in the wrong spot" and referencing the Indy films.

The action moves to Casablanca and if you don't know what movie gets referenced there well Bogie says it's time to do some research.  They nicely play on several scenes from Casablanca in one case completely subverting my expectation of the scene.

Each episode has a flash back to the Nazis moving the mummy and our heroes tracking the clues in the present day.  I really like the changing map and date that told us when and where we are.

The leads have a nice banter but they can't quite trust each other, it's all cliche but I at least enjoyed watching it play out.  There are several twists and turns as people aren't what they seem and apparent villians are allies and allies have alliances that make them untrustworthy.

The season ends with the discovery of Cleopatra and the capture of the terrorist (I'd call it a spoiler but really? Is this a surprise to anyone?)  and a title card that reads The adventure Continues......

I'm well on board for a second season and hope it appears soon.



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