The Fall Guy – The Complete First Season
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C Episodes: C+
I always
liked Lee Majors and he has more fans out there than you would think, from his
early days on hits like The Big Valley
(reviewed elsewhere on this site) to the huge and enduring triumph of The Six Million Dollar Man. Besides the silly TV movies revivals of that
show in the 1980s, Majors has had a good sense of humor about his Bionic
classic. Before the TV movies or fun
cameo in Richard Donner’s underrated Scrooged,
he used The Fall Guy to really show
off his comic talents and he had yet another hit on his hands.
Never a
big fan of the show I always thought was a good bit of fluff or an upscale
version of Dukes Of Hazzard, it is
easier to see the show for the silly fun romp intended over (brace yourself) a
quarter-century later. The Complete First Season offers all 22
hour-long shows on 6 DVDs for the first time and this will make fans
particularly happy.
The show
became known for its star cameos which we will not ruin, as well as its wacky
title song. Besides Majors, the show had
Heather Thomas looking great, Doug Barr playing the dorky relative and Jo Ann
Pflug in her only season as the contact that helps our title character make
bounty hunter money on the side. She
sadly disappeared after this 1981 – 1982 season, though plastering her with
makeup to make her look older than she was did not help. This may just be the best season by default,
but Majors popularity within the industry landed some top names and you would
never see that happen with any network TV series today. The
Fall Guy makes for good nostalgia for someone. Just don’t watch with high expectations.
The 1.33
X 1 image varies between episodes a bit and they can look grainy at times
outside of stock stunt footage that obviously permeates the show, but the
transfers are not bad overall. The Dolby
Digital 2.0 Mono has not been upgraded to faux stereo, but still sounds good
for its age. Stu Philips music helps
this show out more than I realized.
Extras include a brief piece on DVD 6 about the theme song and Remembering of the show featurette on
DVD 1.
- Nicholas Sheffo
