Adam-12 Season Four (1971 72) + Sports
Night The Complete First Season (1998 99/Shout! Factory DVD Sets)
Picture:
C Sound: C+ Extras: D/C+ Episodes: B-
To see
how much TV has changed, while still retaining ideas of quality programming,
you do not need to look much further than police drama spin-off Adam-12 with its unintentional comedy
and the underrated Sports Night, a
comedy with an edge about a cable news program devoted to professional
athletics. If you are unfamiliar with
either show, try the following links for our previous DVD coverage:
Adam-12 Season Two
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7553/Adam-12+%E2%80%93+Season+Two
Sports Night The Complete Series
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7653/Sports+Night:+The+Complete+Series
As Adam-12 progressed, it found more of an
intended sense of humor and the interesting ways it treats realism is confined
to the producers approach and standards & practices, yet Mannix was a much grittier show in the
same period. To break the formula it was
in, the show allowed the lead cops to be more developed and that makes it as
good a season as any to break from the weekly grind that could have ruined the
show and almost did. It is also easy to
forget this was a half-hour show.
Stars
this season include Lindsay Wagner, Ed Begley Jr., Robert Conrad, Willie Aames,
Ozzie Nelson, Don Pedro Colley, Jordan Rhodes, Vincent Van Patten, Pedro
Gonzalez Gonzalez, J. Pat OMalley, Angela Cartwright, Brian Tochi, Barbara
Hale, Rose Marie, Larry Linville, Carmen Zapata, Trini Lopez, Jackie Coogan,
Heather North, Kaz Garas, Maidie Norman, Keye Luke, Foster Brooks, Jo Anne
Worley, Dick Clark, Frank DeVol, Joe E. Tata, Kathleen Lloyd and Jason
Wingreen.
We will
not divulge the unintentional hilarity of some of the plots, but Steven J.
Cannel was working on the show decades before his exploitation cycle of police
dramas and some of that is likely his doing.
Sports Night was issued by Disney/ABC years
ago, but those copies were succeeded by the whole series being reissued by
Shout! Factory and now, they are issuing the shows season by season. Before dud Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, West
Wing co-creators Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme did a better job than
many may remember making this behind-the-scenes comedy about producing a hit TV
show the smartest of its kind since the original Mary Tyler Moore Show. Witty
dialogue that actually worked for a change, interesting situations and a really
good cast (Josh Charles, Peter Krause, Felicity Huffman, Sabrina Lloyd, Joshua
Malina and Robert Guillaume in yet another hit TV series) made this flow better
than most such attempts of a series of its kind.
I admit I
did not watch it much at all when it arrived and am impressed in how good it is
now. Still, it has some of that it is
better while you watch than not thing going for it, but I understand its
success better and believe it could become a show that is rediscovered in a new
way down the line that will bring it a new set of fans. After being so great as Benson on the
brilliant Soap and the Benson spin-off (both reviewed elsewhere
on this site), Guillaume showed what a great actor he was once again by playing
another exceptionally smart character that was so different from Benson, yet so
likable. This is one of those rare hit
shows that should have hit bigger. Only
issue: the laugh track can seem awkward and awkwardly placed. This show is better than that and too bad
they do not offer sound without the laughs like the M*A*S*H DVD sets did.
The 1.33
X 1 image on Adam is still a little
softer throughout than its previous season releases, but at least this time, the
bright daylight looks a little overcast when it should not in so many
episodes. If it were not for the
softness and better detail was visible, this could have been easily the best
set yet. Sports Night has aliasing errors all over the place, which is a
shame because the show is well shot, but it is watchable and was finished on
professional analog videotape. They
should be redone for High Definition sometime down the line. Both offer Dolby Digital 2.0 sound, with the
monophonic sound on Adam not bad for
its age and stereo on Sports Night
not being as expansive as it could be for a more recent recording.
Adam has no extras, but Sports Night comes with a cast/crew
interviews featurette simply called The
Show, a comparison to the fictional show on the series to its real-life
counterpart on the ESPN Network, cast/crew commentaries on five of the episodes
and a Season One Gag Reel.
- Nicholas Sheffo
