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Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > Detective > Mystery > Diagnosis Murder – The Complete First Season

Diagnosis Murder – The Complete First Season

 

Picture: C     Sound: C+     Extras: C-     Episodes: C

 

 

Dick Van Dyke has been looking for another hit TV show since the one in his name became an all-time classic in the 1960s.  They usually had his name on them, but he had better success on the big screen in some interesting and sometimes hit projects.  It took a guest appearance on the infamous fuddy-duddy pseudo-detective show Jake & The Fatman to lead to that hit three decades later.  Now, we have Diagnosis Murder – The Complete First Season with Van Dyke as doctor and detective Mark Sloan.

 

The show was produced by Fred Silverman, whose Matlock took fuddy-duddy hour-long shows to new heights and was behind Jake & The Fatman.  He brought CBS and ABC to perk glory they had not seen before or since, then went to NBC and nearly imploded them.  He came back as a sort of independent producer and the common denominator of TV had fallen so low that he had hits like this.  Van Dyke’s son plays his son and the cast also features Scott Baio as a younger doctor who sometimes helps Dr. Sloan.  Instead of being outright bad, this is outright cornball and that it ever got made and was enough of a hit to last is one of the craziest things to happen in bad 1990s TV.  All 19 wacky episodes from the 1993 – 1994 season are here, though after going through these, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang seemed like Singin’ In The Rain.  At least Van Dyke always gave his best at whatever he did, which is the only reason anyone would watch this.

 

The 1.33 X 1 image is softer than a recent show should be, partly since credits were rendered on analog video.  The show has the usual flat TV lighting as its predecessors had.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound is simple at best and nothing to write home about.  The only extra is The Jake & The Fatman episode Van Dyke’s character debuted on.  I guess that means a Jake & The Fatman box set cannot be far away.  This set is for diehard fans only.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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