CLEOPATRA 2525 is a light-hearted action/sci-fi TV show that ran from 2000 to 2001, as half of the 'Action Pack'. Produced by Renaissance, the makers of Hercules and Xena: Warrior Princess, the Action Pack was an experiment in producing an old-fashioned 'TV block', a set of programs marketed as a single unit, much like early TV was produced, and many children's cartoon shows continue to be packaged. Paired with Bruce Campbell's Jack of All Trades, Cleopatra 2525 was the first live-action half-hour TV show produced in recent memory; coming from the successful Xena team, Cleo appealed directly to the established fanbase, with strong female heroes, stunt-laden action sequences, and lavish use of special effects that belied the relatively meagre budget behind the show.
As the title suggests, the year is 2525. For centuries humanity has lived underground, forced down by the 'Baileys', giant biomechanical sentinels who guard the surface, and destroy any humans found there. The Bailey conquest of the surface was swift and devastating, but thanks to the enigmatic 'shaft builders', the human race found refuge in a vast network of underground shafts and tunnels, protected by powerful automated defences that keep the Baileys from venturing underground themselves. In an effort to complete the extermination of the human race, the Baileys have developed 'Betrayers', Terminator-like robots modelled on captured humans, able to pass as humans, yet invulnerable to most weapons, and armed with devastating Bailey weaponry. Defending the fugitive human race against the Betrayers, and working to find a way to defeat the Baileys themselves, are the Voice Teams - elite commando cells of fighters and scientists recruited and directed by the mysterious Voice, who can be heard via the audio implants given to each Team leader, but whose location and appearance is a mystery to all.
Cleopatra (Jennifer Sky, 'Amarice' from Xena) was just an ordinary present-day girl - an exotic dancer, who took a turn for the worse while under anaesthetic during a breast enhancement. To keep her alive she was placed in cryogenic suspension, and slept through the Bailey conquest and the subsequent centuries. She wound up in an underground laboratory, where old frozen bodies were used as sources of spare parts; a Voice Team had come under fire from a Betrayer, and needed medical aid. When Cleopatra awoke the Team took her with them, rather than leave her to be sedated and killed by the doctors - she in turn proved herself to be an asset in the firefight when the Betrayer caught up to them, and was adopted into the Team. 
Cleo is frequently baffled by the futuristic world she finds herself in, but she's a quick thinker, and brave despite her inexperience with combat. In time she becomes a capable warrior, but she never loses her sense of fun, and sees it as her duty to keep her companions from taking life, and themselves, too seriously.
Her Team leader, and contact for Voice, is Hel (Gina Torres, of Firefly and Angel fame), an experienced and shrewd veteran who demands high standards of the people under her command, yet who can reveal a compassionate side to the few people she trusts and counts as friends. Hel has a personal stake in the Bailey war - her father was killed by the Baileys, and she sees it as her duty to finish the fight he began. But as she and her Team complete the missions Voice sets them, Hel begins to uncover evidence that her father's death wasn't so straight-forward as she had been led to believe - and perhaps he isn't dead at all.
Alongside her is her trusted comrade Sarge (Victoria Pratt, of Mutant X), a tough, no-nonsense soldier who solves all her problems with a blaster and never backs down from a good firefight. Sarge was born on the surface, part of a series of scattered communities that worship the Baileys, and are allowed to survive in exchange for periodic sacrifices to their 'gods'; Sarge learned the truth, and left her village in disgust. For her, the war against the Baileys is payback for the lies they forced on her and her family, and she has no tolerance for half-measures or compromise - she'll accept nothing less than the complete destruction of the Baileys.
Cleo herself completes the trio of field agents, but Hel's Team has a fourth member, Mauser (Patrick Kake), who maintains their secret hideout/laboratory and analyses the Bailey technology they capture and bring back for study. Mauser is himself a Betrayer, but his Bailey programming has been deactivated, leaving him placid and helpful, though often bemused by the complex human behaviour of Hel and her Team. Although he is no longer a fighting machine, and rarely takes part in combat, Mauser is brave and loyal to his adopted family, and committed to the cause of freeing humanity from the Bailey threat.
The majority of Cleo 2525 episodes are half-hours - the final few were produced as hour-long episodes, culminating in a finale that wraps up the running plotlines of the show, and leaves the war between the Voice Teams and the Baileys on a cliffhanger worthy of Blake's 7 (that means good, if you're too young to know about Blake's 7). With the episodes being comparatively short by action/adventure standards, the storylines rocket along at a hectic pace, with little time wasted - each story packs in humour, character development, and lavish action sequences, with little time to catch your breath. The setting of the show offers plenty of opportunity for varied storytelling - as well as the Baileys and their Betrayers, the human society in the 'shafts' underground is a strange and volatile place itself, full of warring factions, ruthless criminals and masterminds, and shady collections of renegades, mutants, and mercenaries. Over the course of the show Hel, Sarge, and Cleo encounter an Atlantis-like sunken city, pursues Betrayers into an isolationist luddite society deep beneath the shafts, dabbles in the politics of the mutant factions running the undercity, and participates in diplomatic efforts to end the infighting between the various feudal fiefdoms of the shafts, and start uniting humanity under a single government and code of laws. 
Along the way they meet recurring foes such as Raina, a former Team leader who underwent experiments to give her telepathic powers, and became dangerously unstable as a result, and Creegan, a Joker-like insane mastermind with a personal grudge against Voice.
It's not deep, introspective sci-fi - but it's not a dumb TV show. Rather, it aims to provide fast-paced, energetic, sexy entertainment, and delivers in spades. It's a combination of audacity and chemistry - the episodes are built around interesting, lively concepts, and executed with a showman's flair. Whether it's being serious, with a life-or-death struggle or difficult moral choices (despite Cleo's primary colours nature, it gets dark sometimes), or just a flambouyant bit of eye candy or a straight-up firefight featuring the kind of energetic, larger-than-life stuntwork and fight choreography featured on Xena (the gleefully heavy use of wirework is distinctive), Cleo's creators give it their best shot, and aim to entertain with every minute. And for such a relatively small-budget TV show, the scope of the stories can be quite impressive. The costuming, set design, and special effects are very much future-Xena - not exactly realistic (the visual effects often look like the product of a computer game), but always eye-catching and exciting. Even with visuals becoming cheap in the present decade, the sheer volume of effects in most episodes is actually kind of staggering for a TV show - the average firefight often features dozens of added effects, with arm-mounted lasers used with giddy abandon, and personal shields flashing on and off whenever anyone's hit - both dumped into episodes in massive amounts, despite being time-consuming effects requiring positional matching to the actor's bodies in each frame. You can't help but be impressed at the effort that's gone into making Cleo what it is. And then you get to the finale, and the last minute is full-on Star Wars prequel scale effects, with a colossal CGI sequence that's just phenomenal.
Underpinning it all, though, are the three leads. With fast-paced, witty scripts to work from, Jennifer Sky, Gina Torres and Victoria Pratt slip right into the style of the show, delivering performances with obvious glee at the amount of fun they're having. The banter between the three characters sparkles with humour and cameraderie, and when it comes time to kick ass, all three make good successors to Xena's larger-than-life heroic style. Especially pleasing (since it's often lacking in sci-fi/fantasy shows, especially ones with limited lifespans) is that all three characters get to explore a whole range of situations. Cleo is the novice, but at times she gets to lead the stories, and show the mature, aware side of herself. Sarge is the tough soldier, but we often see the lighter side of her, and sometimes even the deep emotions she keeps hidden most days. And Hel, the idealist beneath a cynical facade, has times when her belief falters, and conversely when she feels at ease enough with her friends to let them see the depth of her convictions. There's no such thing as 'just another episode' - each one gives you something you haven't seen before.
Cleopatra 2525 is available on DVD in various formats - the best value for money (locally, anyway - in other regions it may vary) are the slimline boxes containing a season each. If you like Xena, or Star Wars, or any action-packed adventure of their ilk, it's worth a look.
