Profiler – Season Three

 

Picture: B-     Sound: B-     Extras: C     Episodes: B-

 

 

When we left Dr. Sam Waters at the end of Season Two, she was in jeopardy and it was because of a serial killer who may have been stalking her for years.  Well, you know she survived somehow, or we would not have the 6 DVD set for Profiler – Season Three to look at.  Odder is the fact that the show got brighter all the sudden and sudden decided to abandon the aesthetic made popular by David Fincher’s Seven.  It is amazing what happens when you catch serial killers and pay your light bill.

 

The 21 shows in this set are as follows:

 

Coronation

Cravings

Do The Right Thing

The Sum Of Her Parts

The Monster Within

Perfect Helen

Home For The Homicide

All In The Family

Ceremony Of Innocence

Where Or When

Inheritance

Heads, You Lose

Otis, California

Spree Of Love

Burnt Offerings

Three Carat Crisis

Seduction

Grand Master (guest stars Michael T. Weiss from The Pretender)

What’s Love Got To Do With It

Las Brisas (two-part season wrap-up)

 

Gambling on Ally Walkers’ star appeal, the show got brighter and kept her character in pursuit of undetectable killers.  The Grand Master cross-over with The Pretender series is a classic attempt to gain audiences for both shows.  It always worked for The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, but as network TV went into decline, we got wacky pairings like Magnum, P.I. and Murder, She Wrote (which was a temporary fix for the soon-to-be cancelled Magnum, P.I.).  Weiss and Walker have some chemistry, but the show does not do enough with it.  Once again, as soon as an interesting man comes into Ally’s life, the producers get her away from him.  This would not have hurt her, though I am not suggesting their two shows merge.  It is an interesting throwback to the old days, but does not go too far.

 

The rest of the shows follow the formula the previous seasons established, i.e. Sam can see the truth beyond her psychic abilities even that obvious answers to who a killer may be are not right.  Forget anti-Semite skinheads, organized crime figures, and regular serial killers, the answer turns out to be always sicker and stranger.  Too bad it is not more imaginative in most cases, but NBC backed the show and it continued on for enough of an audience, even if it did not always work.

 

The full frame image is not bad again, with the same limited clarity as the previous boxed set.  We have had a few titles as clear if not clearer and with better color, a point more relevant as the show lightened up, so it no longer has an excuse for dull color.  Anyone spending the money for this set will be pleased that it looks this good.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has Pro Logic surrounds like the last set and they are just fine, so the presentation is equal to the last box, and a bit better than the first one.  Besides the usual cast biographies, Roma Maffia does a good commentary track on the episode Heads, You Lose, but that’s all we get.

 

However, fans will be thrilled with the nice slender cases for the DVDs and they had better be fans to want all these shows.  The rest might want to start with the earlier seasons to see if they can get into the show or not.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo