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