My candidate is China Beach. This was a superlative show and I am stunned it has not been released on DVD much less BLUE RAY.
On from 1988-91, this show portrayed military medical personnel on China Beach during the War in Vietnam. Dana Delaney has never found a better part. I doubt there was ever a TV show that made me cry more than this one.
Why the wait? Has the war in Vietnam become a hot potato once again?
Funny how shows like FATHER KNOWS BEST are available on DVD but not this one.
For more forgotten movies or TV shows, visit Todd Mason.
46 comments:
What happened to that Obama musical that you posted earlier?
I thought CHINA BEACH was very good. Dana and Marg Helgenberger were standouts in a strong cast.
I'd like to see HEC RAMSEY starring Richard Boone on DVD.
Great choice, Patti. Like you I'm shocked it's not on DVD. When the new Dana Delany show came on I immediately thought of it. McMurphy was one of the great characters ever.
I'd guess it has something to do with the rights rather than Vietnam.
Jeff M.
I might just be my own impression, but Vietnam seems to have been buried by the four wars since.
Jeff hits the button...another example of the producers not securing home video rights to the period music that saturated that often-brilliant series, and so the studio and the record label rights-holders out-greeding each other in holding up any consumer release, one refusing to pay, the other to bargain. Hell, the third season of ONCE AND AGAIN is still unavailable, since Disney can't be bothered.
It seems a shame that music can stand in the way, but music was key to the show. They need to work this out.
Since reporters have had so little access to subsequent wars, they will never be as available cinematically, I think.
Batman TV series (1960s)
Whoa! Did NOT know Marg Helgenberger was in China Beach.
Like most TV shows, I never saw it. I'd like to see Bourbon Street Beat and Surfside Six on DVD.
I remember watching Tour of Duty on CBS in the late 1980s. It was released on DVD a few years ago, but they changed all the music. It was originally Rolling Stones, Hendrix, all music from the Vietnam era. Now it is just bland recreations that try to sound like those bands, but don't come close. So, technically it is on DVD, but not in its original version. The rights to those songs are probably too expensive. Still, I'd love to watch the series again as it was originally broadcast.
I did watch this some. THought it was pretty good. Really thought Dana Delaney was hot.
I think that only the first season of St. Elsewhere is on DVD, and the rest really need to be out there. I would also say that the second season of Ned and Stacy, and the early 90s show Homefront should also be on DVD.
She played a prostitute, Scott. And she was HOT too.
St. E. was terrific until the last ep.
Changing the music is so wrong.
The music rights thing is a problem. That's why PBS never reruns its massive history of Rock that played in the mid 90s.
I've caught a few reruns of WKRP in the middle of the night over the last year and the majority of the music is gone and replaced by instrumental crap (I watched the show in endless reruns through the 80s and can remember a lot of the music).
The irony is that the aging DJ Johnny Fever, who hates all things new and defends all things from the 50s, is now playing muzak.
I've been watching Dana Delaney's new crime show, BODY OF PROOF. It's another CSI clone, but Dana still has the charisma that made CHINA BEACH must-see TV.
I have given it some consideration but boy, those formulas written in stone get to me. And it's hard to get Phil off of DINERS, DRIVE-INS and MAN V. MEAT.
Actually, PBS has all kinds of rights problems, which is why all sorts of good to brilliant material languishes unseen, until someone makes some effort to revive it (watch for the original UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS to come back to broadcast, as it has been on home video, given the smashing ratings results of the revival).
Among the unmentioned series we could use on home video:
TRYING TIMES (PBS)
such items as I've highlighted in the Tuesday roundelay as SEEING THINGS (CBC) and RELATIVITY (ABC)
FRANK'S PLACE (CBS)--like WKRP and CHINA BEACH, a music victim
JOURNEYMAN (NBC)
HE AND SHE (CBS)
the non-cinematic-releases of AMERICAN PLAYHOUSE (PBS), such as "City News" and "The End of a Sentence"
The last episode of ST. ELSEWHERE was too flip, but was a decent "button" (as comedians like to call a wrapping-up joke); NEWSRADIO had a fine season finale parody of that final scene.
Even Dana Delany couldn't get me to watch DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES. But there was no blatant weakness in CHINA BEACH, from writing to cast to production, and Lifetime cable had the good sense to rerun it for at least a couple of years, rather better treatment than they gave HOMICIDE (which they soon buried in the dead of night). The burnt-out, bitter McMurphy of the post-war era was one of the most startling and believable transformations of any tv series character.
And Delany was the sexiest of Lois Lanes, though alas we only heard her voice in the role.
Didn't the history channel run it too?
Loved HE AND SHE.
Last good episodes are rare-best IMHO was Newhart. Or at least most clever.
Maximum Bob and Karen Sisco, two Elmore Leonard shows that didn't get a chance to find an audience. I've managed to watch Sisco thanks to some nefarious torrents but Maximum Bob has completely eluded me.
ABC really has been the most profligate in tossing away good series in the last decade or so (both the Leonard series thus).
Of course, NEWHART was such a letdown, despite some bright aspects, after THE BOB NEWHART SHOW that that final episode/scene was almost a requirement.
Good series-enders:
Well, THE FUGITIVE, of course.
THE PRISONER, at least half-good.
JOURNEYMAN
CHINA BEACH
KIDNAPPED (Delany again)
M*A*S*H might've been, if Hawkeye's therapy hadn't been so easy...and they hadn't pretended he was the one suffering most in the incident that caused his breakdown.
The Dakotas - Western series from the early 60s that only ran for 17 episode. Great hardboiled western about four US marshals patrolling the Dakota territory before statehood. Larry Ward plays tough as nails Marshal Frank Regan. His deputies include a young Chad Everett and Jack Elam as a not quite reformed gunfighter.
History Channel might've run it. Someone else did.
Yes, Newhart was a tedious show. No writing and subpar supporting cast.
Karen Sisco was a real mistake.
Dakotas, huh? I only remember Everett from his doctoring days. The Fugitive had to end well. But did RUN FOR YOUR LIFE. Can't remember.
Not forgotten but when will HARRY O get to (legal) DVD?
Forgotten TV shows not on DVD (that I know of):
BOOMTOWN Season Two
DANTE
DAYS AND NIGHTS OF MOLLY DODD
DEAR DETECTIVE
DEPARTMENT S
FOUL PLAY
GOOD TIME HARRY
MURPHY"S LAW (ABC, 1988)
OPEN ALL NIGHT
THE PRACTICE (with Danny Thomas)
Q.E.D.
TOMA
I'll stop at a dozen but I could go on.
Oooh, I had to pose another comment. My word verification is "ratings". How perfect is that for this discussion?
Loved especially BOOMTOWN AND MOLLY DODD. Now it can't be music that kept these out of our hands. I think one season shows lose out for sure.
NEWHART was tedious but I watched it for Larry & his brothers. Of course the ending was, as Patti said, Best. Ending. Ever.
ST. ELSEWHERE was running on one of the cable channels for a long time and we watched it for a while. It's still one of my favorites. The MTM/"Sue Ann Nivens" crossover was a hoot.
Jeff M.
Too bad they didn't spin them off although we got to see more of Larry on Deadwood.
The only suspense was in what goofy sweater Joanne would wear next. There is such a thing as too laidback and I think Newhart found it in Vermont.
Well, it was entirely too much in the mode of GREEN ACRES and NORTHERN EXPOSURE...the crazy locals do everything ass-backwards and drive the supposedly urbane outsider up a wall, particularly when everything the locals do works out fine. VERY tiresome even when there's a script (as in the first season--only--of NORTHERN), and condescending all around.
Well, I would put NORTHERN a bit above GREEN ACRES although eventually it did want to make everyone cute or addled.
Ah, well...where ACRES insulted my mother and her home-state/area, and NEWHART my father's, NORTHERN insulted mine. And it started on a somewhat higher plane, which it then nosedived into the ground, while it continued being overpraised to the skies.
However, the Brand and Falsey partnership also were responsible for the creation, and weak first season, of ST. ELSEWHERE, and finally got it mostly right with I'LL FLY AWAY (NBC, then PBS), which also should be on DVD.
Just watching the credit sequence is enough to remind me what a great, great show this was. And is MAX HEADROOM available yet? Or PROFIT? Or MAXIMUM BOB?
I''ll FLY AWAY was pure joy.
Somehow I missed MAXIMUM BOB. Where was I? MAX HEADROOM was so clever and I bet it would have a bigger audience now.
Beau Bridges had about as much fun with MAX BOB as Carla Gugino had with SISCO...and ABC pulled it in less than two months, as I recall. You, Patti, were probably in Europe.
MAX HEADROOM the dramatic series has indeed been boxed for home consumption...as has been, very expensively, the amusingly creepy PROFIT.
Checked out Max Bob on Wikipedia and I do remember it. Alas, where do they go and why?
Disney's ABC has a very itchy trigger finger. Others can be as capricious, but aren't as consistently bloodthirsty (Fox has its moments).
@Todd--Thanks for the info. I have already put Max Headroom on my wish list.
@Patti I've seen the pilot recently and it completely holds up. And it's nice to see Matt Frewer playing the hero and not the creepy guy.
Who was it that mentioned HARRY O? that was a great one also.
Todd is right, after the first season NORTHERN EXPOSURE bit it. I'LL FLY AWAY was excellent. I think MAXIMUM BOB came and went while we were away; I know we missed it.
Jeff M.
To each his own. Northern Exposure may be my favourite show. It's on five nights a week on our Canadian Aboriginal (APTN) network and I usually check to see which episode is being shown. IMO the show didn't jump the shark until Dr. Joel left fot the bush. I suspect the people who didn't like it never experienced living in a small remote community. I picked up a DVD of Boomtown for $9.99 a few months and have enjoyed the episodes I've watched. I didn't realize it had made it to
season 2. As for Dana Delaney, does anyone remember her as Magnum's girl friend on Magnum PI?
@Kent Morgan--speaking of Canada--Why can't you get the full run of DA VINCI'S INQUEST? I think the first two seasons are on DVD, and Netflix might have had one more, but the rest just isn't out there except on the bit torrent. That show was riveting from the pilot on. Dark, character-driven, emotionally brutal at times but so well acted.
Wow, I didn't think she was old enough to be on Magnum PI. Maybe it was toward the end of the run.
I think O'Nan also did a book about a circus fire, but I didn't read that one either.
Dana Delany (you guys keep misspelling her name) was born in '56, so a decade and change younger than Selleck (hey, almost a decade older than I, and I wouldn't say no). I think I missed her two episodes of MAGNUM, but they did come in the late, dull seasons of the series.
Well, I have both lived in and since visited Alaska (albeit mostly in and around the cities) as well as other remote, more rural places, Kent...and, no. The dynamic still rubs me the wrong way.
That O'Nan was opaquely entitled THE CIRCUS FIRE. My list of reliable writers is too damned long, probably a lot longer than the unreliable ones who are still worth gambling on.
I like DA VINCI'S INQUEST (and don't much like how the US distributor loved to run them randomly out of order), too...preferred the Hulu feeds of them uncensored.
Someone mentioned one I had in mind. Harry O. The other is The Outsider with Darren McGavin. I don't think it's available9could be wrong).
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