Talk:Playboy's Dark Justice

Boy, was this one obscure series. No IMDB listing and I get the impression Michael Ninn would rather not acknowledge his work on the series (Just kidding. Did he direct or just produce? I think it might have been direct.). I'm also not sure about the running time or number of episodes. One source said it was 25 (or 22?) minutes, while another said it was an hour, and one source said it was slated for 26 episodes, but other sources suggest 20 were produced. I'm hoping others can get more information about it. Andrew Y. Mousley (talk) 07:08, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

OK, it looks as if Ninn directed as well as produced and the article now reflects that. I'm pretty sure it was a 'half hour' (22 minutes), but as with the number of episodes, I left mention of it out. Thus far I know of two porn actors, Veronica Hart and Antonio Passolini doing voice work as well as producing, and Ursula Escher's bio was very informative, probably reliable enough to be a ref. for the number of episodes. Andrew Y. Mousley (talk) 08:08, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Found an episode guide! (and about availability...)

From AOL Television of all places and it's now part of the external links. If it was there at the time of article creation, I somehow missed it, though google searches have improved considerably since this article's creation. While the synopses are nothing special, they're at least there and the airdates are quite the find.

I've also been speculating about episode availability. The Internet Archive links reveal that at the time of the airing (and for how long after?), episodes were available through Playboy's Cyber Club. None of my searches could reveal whether that was still the case, so I called up a rep and asked if the episodes were still archived there. I was told a search for "Dark Justice" brought up nothing, so I guess that means they're gone from the site.

Back in 2000 and 2001 flv didn't exist, and streaming was too slow and unreliable for the content to be streamed (especially for subscribers who would demand quality.), so the video must have been downloadable in either Windows Media, QuickTime, or MPEG format. A no-longer-available trailer appears to have been in QuickTime MOV format, so I'm guessing the episodes were as well, and probably QVGA resolution (hopefully anyway). That means subscribers to the content back in 2000 and 2001 and maybe some time after may have had access to the episodes and I bet some of them might still have those old downloads...if they existed in the first place.

Despite the above speculation about episodes existing as files from the cyber club, searches for the show on file-sharing networks suggests unavailability (Though you can never trust those search results.), so neither the original downloads (if they exist) or video transferred to PC's (from VHS or DVR by Playboy TV subscribers) has been made available by fans. As for DVD, I'm quite surprised there hasn't been a release. Given how Playboy releases a lot of minor content to home video, and the expense of new programming, you'd think they'd want to push those 20 episodes out on a 2-disc collection with a few extras and cash in. Maybe the rights belong to Ninn, but then why wouldn't he want to sell DVD's? For whoever owns the program, deciding to not put this show on DVD seems irrational and a real wasted opportunity. Andrew Y. Mousley (talk) 07:17, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

2014 Update

I let this go for a few years even though I knew there was plenty more to add, as I now have. I ran into the Archive.is/Archive.today blacklist, so had to revert to another source. FYI, the first URL I tried is archive.today/tUVG, though I suspect it may not be reliable, hence the blacklist. The Wayback Machine is a real lifesaver for an article like this and for the character lists I created individual external links to JPGs of character bios and used the Wayback's earliest intact capture for each. A bit crude, but it seemed like the most effective way to get the info listed. Tons of info came up with some creative searching and some finds, like PbyAr2000.pdf are rare treasure. I'm still not entirely certain if there really were 26 episodes and only 20 were broadcast, or if only 20 were produced in total, so I'm operating on the assumption that there were 20 total with the remaining unproduced due to cancellation. My above speculation about episode availability was before I noticed the RealPlayer logo image on the archived pages. Despite the original (not archived) trailer "djtrailer.mov" being in QuickTime format, the CyberClub episodes may have only streamed in Real format and probably not been saved by anyone. But, in Juan Duque's second Spanish language post linked in the references (Thanks Google Translate!) he stated in 2005 that he had all of the episodes. They appear to have never been distributed by him (like work safe clips here: [1]) or anyone or else they'd be available somewhere, such as video sharing sites that permit that sort of content or filesharing. I think I'll e-mail Mr. Duque asking about the viability of distribution or getting him to burn a DVD for me. A tall order, but that may be what it takes to get this show. Andrew Y. Mousley (talk) 07:46, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Episodes Online!

A bit of a miracle has occurred with animator Robert C. England [2],[3] having uploaded the first two episodes to YouTube. I've updated the article to reflect this, and though the credits are mighty blurry, going through them might yield more information for the article. The episodes are quite a bit shorter (under 15 min.) than I imagined, making me think that Playboy TV had considerable amount of padding after the credits. For now I've kept the "half hour' bit, but might in time edit to give the true running time. From the sounds of things, even Mr. England can't obtain the higher quality versions of the episodes from Playboy even though he worked on the show. I hope he has more than just the first two and think I'll e-mail him and make a comment thanking him for posting on YouTube. Mr. Duque never replied to my e-mail (and inquiring about the episodes was a tall order to begin with,), so availability of the episodes might never go beyond the first couple. Andrew Y. Mousley (talk) 01:01, 3 December 2014 (UTC)