"Crime Story", "Hardcastle" Holding Up Well
Last year around this time, I conducted my "Battle of the 80's Crimefighters" and expressed regret that I was nearly two decades removed from having watched two of my favorites, "Crime Story" and "Hardcastle and McCormick". I added that I was only months away from purchasing both series on DVD. It ended up being slightly longer than that, but I nonetheless got both seasons of "Crime Story" last Christmas and ordered all three seasons of "Hardcastle and McCormick" from their Canadian DVD distributor back in February.
I finished off "Crime Story" with most of my original feelings of the series remaining intact, even though some of my original memories of how the series unfolded didn't mesh. I remembered the first season being vastly superior to the second, but after a stunning two-hour premiere, the series took some time to find its footing (and the original ratings back in 1986 took a beating for it as well) but the grudge match with Ray Luca really took center stage by about the eighth or ninth episode and the series really hit its stride late in the season when the action moved from Chicago to Las Vegas. I didn't get to see most of the second season in its original airing, but actually found that to be just about as good as season one upon reviewing it. It was somewhat inconsistent, but had more action than season one and no extended period of slow-motion dramatic exposition like the first season had. The closing of the second season, set in Mexico, was perhaps the best stretch of episodes of the entire series. Sure, a great deal of the storytelling was dated to 80's era TV which made for some entirely too predictable car bombing, would-be surprise attacks, and campy dialogue, but for the most part, the series was exactly the kind of hard-edged gangster epic I remembered it being.
"Hardcastle and McCormick" is also proving to be an exciting trip down memory lane, as the buddy chemistry between the two characters is exactly as amusing as I remembered it being. Few 1980's action series had capable acting and consistently intelligent dialogue, and the fact that this series did helps it shine like a diamond among its contemporaries. Brian Keith and Daniel Hugh-Kelly are both very good actors and had a handle on their respective characters right from the get-go. I'm exactly halfway through the three seasons as of this writing, 11 episodes into the second season, and thus far, the chronology of the series is holding up as I remembered it, with season 1 being fairly routine and conventional action show content, and season 2 delving into some more outside-the-box story ideas. Both seasons have been good in their own way, and I look forward to the rest of season 2 as well as season 3, which had a number of well-executed episodes I still remember vividly from 22 years ago, and may have been the best season of the three.
With these series under my belt in DVD purchases, I'm struggling to come up with new DVD sets of classic shows that I expect to enjoy as much as these two. "Wiseguy" is on my short list, but I just can't bring myself to pay the outrageous prices that the "Wiseguy" DVD sets run for.
I finished off "Crime Story" with most of my original feelings of the series remaining intact, even though some of my original memories of how the series unfolded didn't mesh. I remembered the first season being vastly superior to the second, but after a stunning two-hour premiere, the series took some time to find its footing (and the original ratings back in 1986 took a beating for it as well) but the grudge match with Ray Luca really took center stage by about the eighth or ninth episode and the series really hit its stride late in the season when the action moved from Chicago to Las Vegas. I didn't get to see most of the second season in its original airing, but actually found that to be just about as good as season one upon reviewing it. It was somewhat inconsistent, but had more action than season one and no extended period of slow-motion dramatic exposition like the first season had. The closing of the second season, set in Mexico, was perhaps the best stretch of episodes of the entire series. Sure, a great deal of the storytelling was dated to 80's era TV which made for some entirely too predictable car bombing, would-be surprise attacks, and campy dialogue, but for the most part, the series was exactly the kind of hard-edged gangster epic I remembered it being.
"Hardcastle and McCormick" is also proving to be an exciting trip down memory lane, as the buddy chemistry between the two characters is exactly as amusing as I remembered it being. Few 1980's action series had capable acting and consistently intelligent dialogue, and the fact that this series did helps it shine like a diamond among its contemporaries. Brian Keith and Daniel Hugh-Kelly are both very good actors and had a handle on their respective characters right from the get-go. I'm exactly halfway through the three seasons as of this writing, 11 episodes into the second season, and thus far, the chronology of the series is holding up as I remembered it, with season 1 being fairly routine and conventional action show content, and season 2 delving into some more outside-the-box story ideas. Both seasons have been good in their own way, and I look forward to the rest of season 2 as well as season 3, which had a number of well-executed episodes I still remember vividly from 22 years ago, and may have been the best season of the three.
With these series under my belt in DVD purchases, I'm struggling to come up with new DVD sets of classic shows that I expect to enjoy as much as these two. "Wiseguy" is on my short list, but I just can't bring myself to pay the outrageous prices that the "Wiseguy" DVD sets run for.
posted by Mark at 11:55 AM
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