Profiler – Season Four
Picture: B- Sound: B- Extras: C+
Episodes: B
Well, Dr.
Samantha Waters has been captured again by another psychopath with a grudge,
meaning that even one of TV’s most empowered women can keep getting
captured. Well, that was one time too
many, making Profiler – Season Four the last of the hit NBC show. It is apparent watching that this was not
the intent and that the hiring of unknown-but-veteran actress Jamie Luner as a
new female lead and the outright star of the show. Though they cleverly shook up the relationship between the leads
and Miss Luner gave it her all, it was not different enough.
This was an interesting idea with Ally Walker leaving
(killed or retired) and the show retained Robert Davi and Roma Maffia as
regulars, but there was a sense that the show had hinged on Walker thanks to
the way it was promoted. Between the
shows having a too-small-but-loyal audience and NBC deciding to go for dreaded
reality TV, the show ended. The final
shows, all an hour each in their original order are:
1)
Reunion (Two-part show)
2)
Blind Eye
3)
Old Ghosts
4)
Infidelity (Directed by Anson Williams)
5)
To Serve & Protect
6)
Original Sin
7)
Train Man
8)
Quid Pro Quo
9)
Clean Sweep
10)
Random Act
11)
Besieged
12)
Proteus
13)
Paradise
Lost
14)
The Long
Way Home
15)
House Of
Cards
16)
Mea Culpa
(Directed by Anson Williams)
17)
Pianissimo
18)
Tsuris
19)
On Your
Marks
When Lunar’s character goes psychic, it looks like a bad
digital video trick, not the Seven-style editing Miss Walker was given,
though that may have been a relief to viewers who were sick of that look. With that said, early scripts sometime feel
like they were just changed-over to the new character at the last minute, as
unfair as that may seem. The series was
still hanging in there and the change in some ways may have been more for the
better than anyone realized at the time.
Maybe the introduction of a series of characters would have helped the
show expand, but now you can judge for yourself with all four seasons out on
DVD, all reviewed elsewhere on this site.
The 1.33
X 1 full frame image is as good as it is going to get, with the same analog
clarity as Sets Two & Three. This
was all shot by cinematographer Jonathan West, A.S.C., and looks about the same
as the previous seasons. The Dolby
Digital 2.0 Stereo has Pro Logic surrounds like the last two sets and they are
just fine, so the presentation is equal to the last box, and a bit better than
the first one. DVD 5 offers the usual
cast biographies, plus series consultant Howard Tenet does an interview that
reminds one of similar featurettes on the two Millennium DVD sets
(reviewed elsewhere on this site) and executive producer Clifton Campbell
contributes a commentary track for the On Your Marks episode that wraps
up the series. Having now watched it
all in the sequenced order intended, the creators did a better job than I had
originally given them credit for, though a few missed opportunities shortened
the series before it met its full potential.
As compared to most shows of the time, it fares especially well. If they had better luck, NBC would have
continued it and it would have lasted as long as X-Files, which ran too
long at nine seasons and one unnecessary theatrical feature film. A cycle of television had ended.
- Nicholas Sheffo
