The Greatest American Hero – Season Three

 

Picture: C     Sound: C+     Extras: D     Episodes: C+

 

 

The Greatest American Hero - Season Three set rounds out the complete release of the hit series, but it looks like this was one season too many.  The error of adding supposed hit records and soundtrack-driven elements go badly wrong, which amounted to even further breaks in the already fragmented teleplay narratives of each show.  Adding up to 43 hour-long shows for the entire series, the episodes in this third and last season set are:

 

1)     The Price Is Right (with Bob Hastings)

2)     30 Seconds Into Little Tokyo

3)     Divorce Venusian Style

4)     Live At Eleven

5)     The Resurrection Of Carlini

6)     Wizards & Warlocks (with David Paymer and Bob Saget)

7)     Heaven Is In Your Genes (with André The Giant)

8)     This Is The One The Suit Was Meant For

9)     The Newlywed Game (with Alice Backes)

10)  Desperado

11)  Space Ranger

12)  It’s Only Rock N Roll (with Rick Dees)

13)  Vanity, Say The Preacher

 

 

Ralph and Pam getting married was admittance that the show should have stopped before the vows were spoken.  Instead, the show just totally lost all sense of place and humor.  The actors even look bored.  Like Mork & Mindy (reviewed elsewhere on this site), ABC learned and saw how quickly a high concept that was on the weak side to begin with and not as funny as it was sold to be could burn out very quickly.  Disney wanted to do a feature film of this show in 2002 and thankfully abandoned the idea.  It was time to close the book on this show and producer Stephen J. Cannell’s lack of interest in superheroes finally came home to roost.

 

The full frame 1.33 X 1 image still shows its age, with color that is still not always great, and image definition that was typical of too many TV productions of the time.  Sadly, these are the poorest-looking shows of the three sets.  Also, the visual effects of the flying are bad, and with the flying always a joke, this made it more ridiculous, looking like they were on analog videotaped, then transferred to film.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is again a simple, smart boosting of the original TV monophonic sound, though the famed theme song is not as clean and clear as the stereo hit record version of the theme.  There are no extras this time around, which goes to show you that maybe all involved agree it was time to pull the plug.  Now you can see for yourself.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo