Witchblade, on TNT
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Caution: potential spoilers.

The first season ran from June 12 to August 21, 2001. The second ran from June 16 to August 26, 2002.

First of all, I want to say there are a lot of different categories I could have put this review in. The show is based on a comic book, so I could sort of consider it a "superhero show," but I don't really think of the main character that way. She's basically just a cop... so I could have put it under "legal dramas." Or "action/adventure." Originally, I had it under "supernatural & paranormal," because of the Witchblade itself, a rather fantastical object, which I'll be explaining a bit, forthwith. It definitely is supernatural in nature, but it feels more like "fantasy," to me. I could also call the show "mysterious," considering how many mysteries surround the history of the Witchblade, and its wielders throughout the centuries. But for now, I'm going with "weird." Um... I should also mention I've never actually read any of the comics, so I can't compare the show to them. But there's also an anime series based on the comics, which I definitely would like to check out, someday.

Anyway, the series actually started with a TV movie. I couldn't possibly tell you now exactly which of the following details happened in the movie and which didn't happen until the series. But Yancy Butler played a New York City police detective named Sara 'Pez' Pezzini. She had a partner named Danny Woo (Will Yun Lee), who was killed by the mob. And um... Pez got ahold of this thing called the Witchblade (which has many other names in other languages and stuff), and she wears it like a bracelet, but it expands to become a gauntlet or a full suit of armor, and also a sword. It's some ancient mystical thing which apparently... is part of her destiny, and it seems like she's reincarnated and has almost always had this thing through the ages. There's this rich guy named Kenneth Irons who is very interested in it, and in her because of her history with it, which he knows a lot about (but Pez knows nothing about it). And there's this guy Ian Nottingham, who works for Irons, and he was like part of some military experiment to create super-soldiers.

Anyway, after Danny's death, Pez gets a new parter, Jake McCartey. But now that she has the Witchblade, she can have conversations with dead people, such as Danny. And um... it's all very confusing, especially for Pez. Also her father... or adoptive father, whatever... was killed because of his investigations of a group of corrupt cops, led by a guy named Dante, and now Pez is investigating them, and they invite Jake to join them. And, um... you know, there are still normal police investigations for them to work on, but sometimes it seems to turn out to involve the Witchblade. And um... y'know, other stuff happens. It's complicated. Oh, also, there was this guy named Gabriel who dealt in rare items, often very old, sometimes mystical, like the Witchblade. He'd sometimes provide info for Pez.

Anyway, at the end of the first season, pretty much everyone Pez cared about was killed, and she used the power of the Witchblade to turn back time or something, though it may have been more like travelling into an alternate timeline. In any event, the second season was about the year playing over, and some things went differently, in part because Pez occasionally had flashes of how things had gone the first time, even though she didn't really remember it. Also, Danny was alive and remained her partner this time, though he began to get suspicious of her because she kept things from him concerning the Witchblade (of course he didn't remember being dead, or have any knowledge she'd shared with him the first time around). Then the series didn't get renewed, which really bugged me. It definitely should have lasted longer. While I don't remember a lot of specifics about the storylines, I always thought it was a really good show, and I'd definitely love to watch it again sometime.