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
