B.L. Stryker – The Complete First Season (Hart Sharp/Arts Alliance America DVD)
Picture:
C- Sound: C- Extras: D Episodes: C
After a
hugely successful big screen feature film career, Burt Reynolds tried one of
his TV comebacks with B.L. Stryker, now
on DVD from the company that was Hart Sharp and is now Arts Alliance America. I did not have the highest of expectations,
braved it out though and made it through the whole hour and a half long pilot
episode, somehow managing to withstand trips to give my buddy Johnny Porcelain
a big hug. Stryker is a private eye
series in the way of Miami Vice. The only problem with that is that it was
made five years after the kings of eighties cop shows began (the same year as
its last season because shockingly enough, it too had become incredibly
dated). What unfolds was painful to
watch. It carried the stench of the
early-eighties cop show, but lacked any sense of charm or decency that would
make this series enjoyable.
Burt
Reynolds plays the title character, a middle aged private dick that drives a
classic car. Think of every stereotype a
private eye in late-80s Florida could adopt and it’s there – he sits home alone
at night on his house boat drinking beer and watching football, he talks to his
personal tape recorder, he plays with his gun at night contemplating his dark
and mysterious past that took him out of his glory days. While all of this goes on, there’s a ballet
dancing ninja sex criminal traveling around performing bondage rituals and
killing them.
This guy
is Buffalo Bill (from The Silence of the Lambs) meets Snake Eyes (from the
1980s revival of G.I. Joe and not to be confused with the Brian De Palma
thriller) but lacking any decent character elements, instead looking all too
silly to be taken seriously. The
supporting cast should help this show out, with names in the cast like Ossie
Davis, Abe Vigoda, and Kristy Swanson, but really, they’re mostly meaningless
filler. I’ve seen worse shows than this,
but it could have definitely used some improvements. Tom Selleck produced the show long after Magnum, P.I. (reviewed elsewhere on
this site) died, but this does not even try to be that show at its best.
The
picture and sound on this DVD date it back to 1989. The quality is
grainy, the light and dark balance is consistently off, casting dark shadows in
scenes needing some light. Every now and
then, there is a big pop in the film stock and it’s noticeable within the
scene. Additionally, Reynolds’ face
looks purple in parts. The show is
presented in a full frame, 1.33:1 aspect ratio, preserving its original
broadcast ratio. The scene cuts
involving music, particularly the ones at the beginning of the episode, are
sloppy and sound disjoined and off beat presented here in Dolby Digital 2.0
sound. The extras on this disc are
measly, presenting 3 PDF script files when you place the DVD in a DVD-ROM
drive.
Overall,
this show fails in the way it dates itself, the way its script is lacking, and
the way that Burt Reynolds is as a human being. If you were a fan of the
show when it premiered almost twenty years ago, pick this up for some
nostalgia, but if you’ve never encountered B.L.
Stryker before, there’s good reason for it.
- Jordan Paley
