http://hkfilmnews.blogspot.com/2007/10/god...r-ironside.htmlI've never seen the show so I'm looking forward to checking it out. Raymond Burr is always a lot of fun to watch and I always liked 70s cop shows. Any other fans?
I had picked up Season 1 in a fit of nostalgia for 60s/70s cop shows, and I was kind of disappointed. While Burr is great, the supporting cast just never seemed to register as individuals. Maybe this was something they licked in future seasons?
Also not helping matters was that the show debuted just at the end of the period where movies and TV shows about the police could just make stuff up. Growing up in the 70s, I could recite the Miranda card right along with whatever show I was watching, because shows finally began to make an effort to portray at least a semi-realistic idea of police work. After a couple of hours of Ironside, you’ll be longing for the hard-edged realism of CHiPs.
The other thing that really bugged me was the way it dealt with its location. I had never realized until I started watching the 1st Season DVDs that the show wasn’t set in Los Angeles. Supposedly taking place in San Francisco, the only location shooting consists of second unit shots of the Ironside-equipped van tooling around major landmarks – and they probably could get a whole season worth of those in 2 days. The Streets of San Francisco isn’t any better written, but the location shooting makes the show 10 times as memorable. Ditto Hawaii Five-O.
Another recent DVD release, The Rookies Season 1, had nearly the exact same problems.