Movie Reviews
Some of my oldest memories are from the early 80’s and seeing a lot of famed shows on TV that looked cool but I had no idea what they were about. One of them I remember seeing a lot of was the series Vegas starring Robert Urich as a Sin City gumshoe named Dan Tanna. It was incredibly popular, and with Urich being one of the most handsome, charismatic leading men back then, his career could only get better.
Just a few short years after Vegas ended, Urich would go on to star in another hit series he’d always be remembered for, Spenser: For Hire, which was based on Robert B. Parker’s detective novels and went on to become another hit show for Urich that would run for three seasons with sixty-six episodes and four made-for-TV movies.
Just in time for the 40th anniversary of the show, we get the Spenser: For Hire – The Complete Series DVD set. Needless to say, I was excited to dig in and revisit the older episodes (without all the horrible commercials you’d find on syndicated versions). While all 66 episodes are here, I was disappointed there were no special features of any kind, and it’s missing all the TV films (they were produced separately by the Lifetime Network).
Still, it’s hard to argue with how fun and engaging those episodes were – and still are, for the most part – and even this barebones package makes a great introduction for those new to the series.
Like a lot of TV shows from the 80s, the plot is simple but always entertaining as we follow the adventures of Spenser (Robert Urich), a former cop in Boston blessed with all the traits of a perfect charismatic hero; good looks, being informed in culture so much he often quotes poetry in his everyday conversations, and loves to cook dishes he picks up from watching the late and always great Julia Child’s own show.
Yet when needed he’s more than ready to take out the bad guys with hand-to-hand combat and expert shooting skills. The series takes viewers inside various crimes and mysteries Spenser is (of course) hired to solve. Already a one-man army against crime, he thankfully has a partner that’s just as skilled and charismatic, Hawk (Avery Brooks), easily one of the coolest cats in TV history. He’s just as formidable as Spenser, and together the two are practically unstoppable as they take down baddies and solve crimes the police cannot, thanks to their willingness to tread a little outside of the law.
One of the best things about this series is spotting a lot of young or younger actors before they were famous, like Angela Bassett, Ruby Dee, Laurence Fishburne, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Seth Green before their fame on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I was surprised to see other famous folks like Samuel L. Jackson and William H. Macy show up as well.
The show still looks and sounds surprisingly good, even in DVD quality, and is effectively a time capsule of 1980s Boston as real locations were used when filming. Unfortunately, it was this realism that would lead to the show being canceled as it became prohibitively expensive. And it didn’t help when they had to deal with one of the city’s worst winters in the 1985 pilot episode.
Having all of the episodes in one collection is great, but it would’ve really been nice if Warner Bros. was able to work with Lifetime to include the made-for-TV movies along with them. It also would’ve been nice to have some extras such as audio commentary, behind the scenes featurettes, original commercials, or anything really. I also had a good laugh with the heavily Photoshopped cover to this release, as it rivals the Blu-ray cover to Minority Report that’s so bad you can’t really believe it’s Cruise anymore. Seriously.
Besides those issues, if you’re a fan of the show or just love watching good old-fashioned crime and mystery shows, especially ones set in the 1980s, you could do much worse than tracking down a copy of the Spenser: For Hire – The Complete Series DVD set. It showcases why Robert Urich was an ideal leading man for 70s/80s television, and introduced us the great Avery Brooks, who would survive the short-lived Spenser spin-off A Man Called Hawk and soar to greater heights as Captain Sisko on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, all while having classic 80s style and fun doing so.
Game Reviews
Tech Reviews
