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Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > Snipers > Police Procedural > Mystery > Action > Detective > TV > Flashpoint: The Fourth Season (2011/CBS DVD Set)/S.W.A.T.: The Final Season (Season Two/1975 – 1976/Shout! Factory DVD)/Vega$: The Third Season, Volume One (1980 – 1981/CBS DVD Set)

Flashpoint: The Fourth Season (2011/CBS DVD Set)/S.W.A.T.: The Final Season (Season Two/1975 – 1976/Shout! Factory DVD)/Vega$: The Third Season, Volume One (1980 – 1981/CBS DVD Set)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: C-/D/C-     Episodes: C-/B-/C+

 

 

Next up are the last installments of three crime dramas you are likely to have heard of and maybe seen, including two with Robert Urich.

 

 

The newest series here is Flashpoint: The Fourth Season (2011) which is a current group police drama with a modern S.W.A.T. team, here an S.R.U. (Strategic Response Unit) dealing with impossible, intense situations.  We covered the debut season at this link:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/9323/Flashpoint+%E2%80%93+The+First+S

 

Not having seen the show for a while, I can see how the weekly TV grind and being pushed into a police procedural corner has affected this show for the worse.  They can certainly show and do more on TV shows today than back in the 1970s or even 1980s, but that is not necessarily a good thing when those freedoms become clichéd filler.  The unknown cast (most of whom are from the debut season) do their best, but even with only 13 hour-long shows (here on 3 DVDs), there is not too many places for the show to go, but it has hung onto enough ratings to last this long, but I was just bored.  I wonder how much longer they’ll last.

 

Extras include three featurettes: The Music Of Flashpoint, On The Set Of Flashpoint and Sgt. Gregory Parker: A Character Study, which features the role played by Enrico Colantoni, which has validity, but begs the question of how much time is his character able to get in a quickly edited, flashy show like this.

 

 

After and unfortunate feature film revival that was a dud and even a sequel to that sent straight to video that was less fortunate, we are now getting S.W.A.T.: The Final Season a few years later.  As much of a hit and success as the show (including toy tie-ins) and its #1 hit instrumental theme song were at the time, this 1975 – 1976 Season was actually only Season Two!

 

That’s rare a show so short is remembered so well, though the big shock to many is that Robert Urich was one of the co-stars and the show was still cancelled.  Most forget this as much as forgetting he was only on the first season of the classic Soap (reviewed elsewhere on this site), but this early Leonard Goldberg/Aaron Spelling hit was (along with The Rookies) the kind of series that reached a new younger audience for TV.  Steve Forrest (the action series The Baron (reviewed elsewhere on this site), The Longest Day, Mommie Dearest) was the older head of the squad, but the scripts gave plenty of time for the characters to joke and interact.

 

That may seem unrealistic and maybe too humorous for some, but I thought it gave the show breathing room that so many similar later shows lack, resulting in a world with natural space for the intense situations to happen in instead of just being wound-up off the bat with repetitive results.  Turns out the violence that was here is reportedly the reason this show was cancelled at a time when Mannix was a huge hit and also faced the same criticism.  Guess some people thought this went too far, but I would guess it is because we had never seen an armed force this powerful (guns and in legality) outside of the spy genre in action before.

 

The show also had some great guest stars and this final season, they included Christopher George, Leslie Ann Warren, Phil Silvers, Susan Dey, Sal Mineo, Craig R. Baxley, Don Stroud, Diana Hyland, John Vernon, Heather Menzies, Aldo Ray, Susan Sullivan, Carl Weathers, Harris Yulin, Jimmy McNichol, Elisha Cook Jr., Brad Dexter, Joe Turkel, Deidre Hall, Frank Gorshin, Richard Davalos, The Swinger, Ed Gilbert, Diana Muldaur, Murray Matheson, Anne Francis, Alan Oppenheimer, Frank Campenella, Rose Marie, James Darren, Stuart Whitman, Donna Mills, Leslie Nielsen, Bruce Glover, Forrest Tucker, Linda Marsh, James Hong, Virginia Gregg, Tom Skerritt, Robert Loggia, Bert Remsen, Charles Aidman, Ji-Tu Cumbuka, Lynne Moody, Andrew Robinson and Ivor Francis.  That’s a nice line up to go out with.

 

Sadly, there are no extras, though there ought to be. The collectible tie-ins are harder to find and nicer than you might think.

 

 

Of course, Urich kept showing up on TV and hit it bigger with the Goldberg/Spelling production team as Vega$: The Third Season, Volume One shows with the show high in the ratings by its 1980 – 1981 Season.  However, even with Tony Curtis as his occasional boss, the show was also starting to wear thin over these 13 hour long shows and though Urich was still in character and Greg Morris, Phyllis Davis and Bart Braverman continued to be the familiar supporting cast, the show was finding itself in a formulaic corner.

 

Still, money was being out into the show and some solid talent signed on for the first half of this final season including Lorne Greene, John Saxon, Barbara Parkins, Dian Parkinson, Pernell Roberts, Victor Buono, Joe E. Tata, Erin Gray, Jill St. John, Gary Lockwood, Vito Scotti, Stephanie Kramer, Ruta Lee, Dick Sargent, Skip Homeier, Priscilla Barnes, Patti Davis, Jason Evers, Bubba Smith, Eleanor Parker, John Vernon, Cassie Yates, John Larch, Jill; Whelan, Melinda O. Fee, June Lockhart, Joe Penny, Hermione Baddeley, Edie Adams, Cesare Danova, Noah Berry Jr., Julie Adams, Patrick Macnee, Dolores Mann, Morgan Woodward, Clive Revill and Lonny Chapman.

 

At least the old Thunderbird was still there.  Episode Promos are the only extras.

 

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Flashpoint is softer than it should be, has motion blur and is an HD shoot, no better than three seasons ago.  The 1.33 X 1 image transfer on the other shows look at least as good, were shot all the way on 35mm film and hold up well.  All could look better in HD, so we’ll see which shows make it there.  The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Flashpoint is slightly better than the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo choice also included, but not as much as it should be, while the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on the other shows sound good for their age with limited compression and only minor flaws.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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