The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne is a Canadian science fiction television series that aired on CBC in Canada from June to December 2000, lasting for one season. The show is a fictionalized telling of the life of French author Jules Verne, placing him into the settings of the stories he wrote such as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas and Around the World in Eighty Days. In the United States, the show aired on the Sci-Fi Channel, premiering in early 2001. The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne was the first television series to be filmed in high-definition video, which made the series expensive to produce.
Plot
The show features a fictionalized portrayal of French author Jules Verne (Chris Demetral), along with portrayals of the characters Jean Passepartout (Michel Courtemanche) and Phileas Fogg (Michael Praed), both originating from Verne's 1873 work Around the World in Eighty Days. Publicity for the show described its imagery as being steampunk. specifically, it used the HDCAM, a digital camera manufactured by Sony.
Broadcast
The show first aired on CBC in Canada in 2000. It was then broadcast in the United States on the Sci-Fi Channel, premiering in early 2001. Tom Shales of The Washington Post was less favorable, describing the show's premise as "silly" while also criticizing the directing, script, and characterization of Verne.
Soundtrack
The series' main theme and incidental music was composed by Nick Glennie-Smith. In April 2011, Perseverance Records released a 2-CD soundtrack of the series' music. The soundtrack included the main theme, closing theme, "bumpers" (played at commercial breaks), and suites from every episode of the series apart from "The Book of Knowledge", for which the composer and the recording studio were unable to locate the original tapes.
{| class="wikitable"
! CD 1
|-
! No. !! Title !! Length
|-
| 1 || Opening Titles || 0:53
|-
| 2 || In the Beginning || 2:34
|-
| 3 || Queen Victoria and the Giant Mole || 13:25
|-
| 4 || Bumper #1 || 0:09
|-
| 5 || Rockets of the Dead || 11:31
|-
| 6 || The Cardinal's Design || 2:04
|-
| 7 || The Cardinal's Revenge || 2:33
|-
| 8 || The Eyes of Lazarus || 2:00
|-
| 9 || Bumper #2 || 0:11
|-
| 10 || Lord of Air and Darkness || 1:56
|-
| 11 || Southern Comfort || 19:05
|-
| 12 || Let There Be Light || 7:56
|-
| 13 || The Ballad of Steeley Joe || 6:51
|-
| 14 || Bumper #3 || 0:09
|-
! CD 2
|-
! No. !! Title !! Length
|-
| 1 || Bumper #4 || 0:09
|-
| 2 || The Black Glove of Melchizedek || 9:02
|-
| 3 || Dust to Dust || 6:17
|-
| 4 || The Golem || 3:51
|-
| 5 || Crusader in the Crypt || 1:53
|-
| 6 || The Strange Death of Professor Marechal || 4:32
|-
| 7 || The Rocket's Red Glare || 5:53
|-
| 8 || Rocket to the Moon || 3:55
|-
| 9 || Bumper #5 || 0:09
|-
| 10 || The Inquisitor || 5:25
|-
| 11 || Royalty || 12:38
|-
| 12 || Secret of the Realm || 6:00
|-
| 13 || The Victorian Candidate || 7:27
|-
| 14 || End Credits || 0:42
|}