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It's weird. When I'm watching this series, I'm not filled with giant amounts of squee, but when I finish a set, I find myself missing the characters daily until the new set comes out.
The second half of season one is more of a police procedural than the first half. I'm kind of enjoying watching cops have to do actual legwork and use their smarty brains and knowledge of people to solve cases, instead of relying on DNA evidence for everything. There's less banter between Mike and Steve in this half of the season, but what is there is pure gold. Karl Malden and Michael Douglas have great chemistry together despite the age difference between them. There's also a slight increase in whumping, but Karl Malden was the big name draw in season one (Michael Douglas was still a largely unknown up-and-comer), so the episodes tend to focus on his character, Lt. Mike Stone.
Secondary characters continue to be very well drawn and sometimes get more screen time than the main characters. The extra ten minutes per episode due to fewer commercials in the 1970s really shows in that the episodes cover a lot of ground without feeling rushed to cram everything in. Guest characters include a host of '70s names, including Jamie Farr, Belinda Montgomery, Joe Don Baker, Dick Sargent, John Saxon, and Claudine Longet. Darlene Carr also makes her first appearance as Mike Stone's daughter, Jeannie.
There are no extras on this set, which is disappointing but not surprising. I doubt many of the cast or crew involved in the production would have very vivid memories of work they did 35 years ago so the lack of commentary tracks is understandable, but I wish there were some behind-the-scenes footage or outtakes or interviews or something. The picture quality continues to be much brighter and clearer than the murky prints I'm used to seeing in syndication, although the DVDs haven't been digitally remastered. For the first time ever, I was able to clearly see what was going on in the nighttime scenes.
I continue to be pleasantly surprised by how much more I like this series now, even though I enjoyed it when I was in my teens and twenties, and I'm looking forward to the remaining DVD sets.
The second half of season one is more of a police procedural than the first half. I'm kind of enjoying watching cops have to do actual legwork and use their smarty brains and knowledge of people to solve cases, instead of relying on DNA evidence for everything. There's less banter between Mike and Steve in this half of the season, but what is there is pure gold. Karl Malden and Michael Douglas have great chemistry together despite the age difference between them. There's also a slight increase in whumping, but Karl Malden was the big name draw in season one (Michael Douglas was still a largely unknown up-and-comer), so the episodes tend to focus on his character, Lt. Mike Stone.
Secondary characters continue to be very well drawn and sometimes get more screen time than the main characters. The extra ten minutes per episode due to fewer commercials in the 1970s really shows in that the episodes cover a lot of ground without feeling rushed to cram everything in. Guest characters include a host of '70s names, including Jamie Farr, Belinda Montgomery, Joe Don Baker, Dick Sargent, John Saxon, and Claudine Longet. Darlene Carr also makes her first appearance as Mike Stone's daughter, Jeannie.
There are no extras on this set, which is disappointing but not surprising. I doubt many of the cast or crew involved in the production would have very vivid memories of work they did 35 years ago so the lack of commentary tracks is understandable, but I wish there were some behind-the-scenes footage or outtakes or interviews or something. The picture quality continues to be much brighter and clearer than the murky prints I'm used to seeing in syndication, although the DVDs haven't been digitally remastered. For the first time ever, I was able to clearly see what was going on in the nighttime scenes.
I continue to be pleasantly surprised by how much more I like this series now, even though I enjoyed it when I was in my teens and twenties, and I'm looking forward to the remaining DVD sets.
