Disc Reviews

Wings was one of those unusual sitcoms that depended more on the characters than the situations they were in. While the setting was a small Nantucket airline owned by two brothers, most of the episodes had very little to do with flying. Rather, the writers populated this small airline with very distinctive personalities and let these interactions be fodder for the funny. The characters were played by more than competent actors, many of whom have proven themselves beyond this quaint sitcom. Timothy Daly played Joe Hackett, the older, more responsible brother who was often the show’s straight man. His rather adolescent sibling Brian was played by Steven Weber. I wouldn’t exactly say this was Oscar Madison and Felix Unger, but their conflicts over maturity fueled the characters. The airline’s love interest was Helen Chappel, played by Crystal Bernard. She was an aspiring symphony cellist who worked the airport’s lunch counter. For much of the show’s run she had an on-again-off-again romance with Joe. By far the most animated character was mechanic Lowell Mather, played by Thomas Haden Church. It’s still amazing to me that this rather unintelligent character was played by the same guy who brought us Sandman in the latest Spider-Man film. Finally there was cabbie Antonio Scarpacci, played by the current Adrian Monk, Tony Shalhoub. Antonio is an Italian immigrant who has trouble understanding things most of the time, leading to some of the better moments in the series. Fay, played by Rebecca Shull, is the mothering member of the cast. And Roy Biggins (Schram) runs the rival airline and is often engaged in one underhanded scheme or another.

Tony Shalhoub would eventually find a resurgence in his career as the off-kilter detective Monk, and Tim Daly would go on in such shows as The Fugitive new series and finally Private Practice. Alas, most of the other characters and actors would not be heard of much over the next decade or so. Steven Weber would pop up from time to time as well. It’s always a bit of fun to revisit actors and characters after a few years have gone by.

"Everybody has a story to tell about their lives. My story begins the day I died."

It also seems that everybody has a tale of ancient fighters and heroes to tell. With the popularity of television shows like The Vikings and Game Of Thrones, there appears to be a considerable demand for this kind of film. Zack Snyder added his own graphic- novel style to 300, and it's been repeated to the point where the style itself has become a sub-genre of its own. The Spartacus series took that style, noted for the animated cartoonish blood in plentiful supply, and made it into a common event. The natural continuation of these elements is the low budget and direct to video film Vikingdom.

On October 9^th 1986 the network television landscape did something that hadn’t been done successfully in its 40-year history. A fourth network broke on the airwaves. It was called FOX and wasn’t even going to broadcast seven days a week. Most pundits in the television industry never gave it a chance. Most of the channels were in the double-digit UHF range. This had long been considered the independent station area, and a lot of televisions didn’t pick up this band as well as the established VHF band. And for a while it looked like the network was going to disappear almost as quickly as it appeared. But by 1987, the network suddenly had two big hits on its hands. The first was a silly cartoon, originally aired as a throwaway segment on a variety show. The cartoon featured the most unlikely of television families, The Simpsons. That show is still with us nearly 25 years later. The second hit was a live-action series, also based on a very unlikely and this time seemingly unlovable family, the Bundys. Right from the start there was criticism that the name itself was a death knell. At the time America was still dealing with the pending execution of a far more infamous Bundy. Married With Children, however, would become an almost instant breakout hit.

Al Bundy (O’Neill) was a working stiff. He had seen his high school glory years evaporate into the rearview mirror of his ancient Dodge when he married his childhood sweetheart (no, I did not misspell), Peggy (Segal). The red-headed woman would soon become his curse. She was lazy. Peggy wouldn’t know what a stove looked like if it fell on her. She was content to sit around all day while Al worked for minimum wage at a mall shoe store. Tying Al to his meager existence were two children. Bud (Faustino) was a frustrated teen who couldn’t seem to find his cool. Girls scorned him, and he appeared to be headed to the life of his father. Daughter Kelly (Applegate) was a teen slut. She slept around and used her looks to make her way in life, which was likely good, because she was dumber than rocks. Al was also plagued by neighbor Marcy (Bearse) who was a feminist and usually a thorn in Al’s behind. Most of the material involved Al’s suffering and the apathy of his family to his lowly station in life.

In 1999 I remember standing in line at the Tampa Theatre waiting to see The Blair Witch Project; the line wrapped around the corner.  All of us were anxious to see this film that was cloaked in so much mystery with an internet marketing campaign that manipulated so many to believe that the film we were all about to watch was in fact all true and was all found footage being released onto the big screen.  The Blair Witch Project wasn’t just a success, it was a smash hit, and it changed the way we view cinema, where we all saw that all you needed was a camcorder and a clever hook, and any regular Joe could create a hit film.  Now the found-footage genre is in fact its own genre at this point, and many young up and coming filmmakers are plundering the genre for all it is worth.

It’s been 15 years since The Blair Witch Project was released, and keeping the genre alive, we get Black Water Vampire released onto DVD.  The film is set up nicely as an officer talks about a crime scene he is at and goes into great detail concerning the victim, found dead and naked in the snow, drained of all her blood.  She has a wound that leads the officer to believe she was bitten by some animal, but is it the cause of death?

Steven Bochco is no stranger to innovative television. Hill Street Blues is arguably the best cop show ever made. Even his failures are praised for their innovativeness and freshness. Remember Cop Rock? NYPD Blue didn’t just push the prime time envelope. It tore the envelope to pieces and blew it away with hurricane-force winds. George Carlin made a career out of his “Seven words you can’t say on television”. Along comes NYPD Blue and Carlin just might have needed a new act. Language and nudity made this the first R-rated prime-time program. The pilot arrived with a flutter of controversy. Morality groups were vocal, and sponsors were scarce. Twenty percent of ABC’s affiliates refused to show the pilot at all. When you watch these DVDs, it’s hard to understand what all the noise was about. Today this stuff is the tame and more like the norm, and once again Bochco changed TV forever.

When the fourth season of NYPD Blue arrived on DVD it was June of 2006. There had already been over a year since the previous season was released. Suddenly the releases stopped, and fans were left scratching their heads to figure out why. I would field question after question from fans asking what had happened. Answers were as scarce as the DVDs themselves. It wasn't just NYPD Blue. It appears that all of Steven Bochco's shows have been held up in home video limbo. Hill Street Blues stopped after two seasons, and LA Law never saw the light of day at all. You can likely forget about Cop Rock or Bay City Blues.