Greatest American Hero – Season One + Hunter –
The Complete Second Season + 21 Jump Street – Season Two (Mill Creek DVD Sets)
Picture: C/C/C- Sound: C+ Extras: C+/D/D Episodes: B-/C-/B-
We
previously covered two of the three shows as follows:
Greatest American Hero – Season
One
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2176/The+Greatest+American+Hero+-+Seas
21 Jump Street – Season One
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/1692/21+Jump+Street+-+The+Complete+Fir
The Second Season of 21 Jump Street
is the one we ironically missed, but it is one where Christina Applegate and
Brad Pitt show up in shows that are bound to be curios. The show was still not bad if you did not
tune out and think it was corny. It is
certainly unique in the Cannell cannon and is sort of his answer to The Rookies or The Mod Squad.
That leaves
Hunter, which we are covering for
the first time. One of the worst TV
shows of the 1980s, the series launched in 1984 and was one of the angriest,
most violent, shallow, predictable, reactionary police shows ever made and
still is. Running seven horrific seasons
in all, it epitomizes everything wrong with 1980s (and much of 1990s) TV. Its message was that women were second rate,
even with the faux equal Detective Sgt. Dee Dee McCall (Stefanie Kramer, who
was better of on the infamous failed sitcom We Got It Made) who (surprise!) is eventually raped (very
trivially) and made out to be a major victim in condescending ways only male
writers could come up with. Fred Dryer
(one-time football player who is now the voice of the animated Sgt. Rock) is
the title detective and her partner and wow, talk about lack of chemistry.
Created
by the not-very-inspiring Frank Lupo, it has aged badly, is a time capsule of
the kind of show that killed dramatic television and makes us realize what a
wreck the 1980s could be. All 23
hour-long shows are included here.
The 1.33
X 1 image across the three sets is on the weak side with softness and aliasing
errors throughout, but Jump is especially problematic throughout with even more
of the same to the point it is almost like VHS.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 sound is simple stereo at best across the three
sets and all show their age, but are not as bad as they look. The only extra is the Cannell interview
repeated on Hero.
- Nicholas Sheffo
