Street Hawk - The Complete Series [DVD] [1984]

The 80's were a great time to watch television. There was such a great diversity which has carried on or varied in the present.
As a teenager, there were so many shows to view, one would never claim that there was never anything to watch.
Just a quick trip down memory lane for some of us: we had The A-Team, Stingray, The Greatest American Hero, Wiseguy, Knight Rider, Airwolf, Street Hawk, Remington Steele, Hillstreet Blues, St. Elsewhere, Automan. I should stop here because I will just go on & on!!
Nonethless, tv was never boring. We had a talking Trans Am, an attack helicopter, a motorcycle with immense firepower & capable of speeds in excess of 300 miles an hour! I would love to see all of this in actuality today!
This series, even though short-lived, was quite enjoyable back in the day.
It was only available by those sites who claimed to have "public domain" to release them on DVD-R at outrageous prices!
I waited patiently over the years that someone would release this officially! & here we are, the complete series with a few extras to help us re-kindle the memories of this series. Great stuff!

I was really disappointed when this series ended on ITV but I'm glad it's being released on DVD.

When the last episode of Street Hawk was broadcast it ended with "...and that was the last in the current series of Street Hawk" from the voice that used to introduce the next programme, I was expecting it to return for a new series but it never did. That was one of the worst things to be told after watching your favourite tv show week after week, because you didn't want it to end but you knew in the back of your mind that it was only a matter of time.

I used to be baffled by how it was possible to predict the road conditions ahead and each time he accelerated through the streets I wondered if he'd need to jump over a car that was being driven erratically by a drunk driver.

I thought his shiny black reflective crash helmet made it look very futuristic and reminded me of Darth Vader.

...and the Tangerine Dream theme, which was a perfect match for the tv show with the brief intro narrated by a voice that seemed to start off at normal speed and then speed up with each sentence as if to emulate the speed of the motorbike...or was that just my old VHS recording where the tape was starting to wear out?

Strange how many of the tv shows in the 80s had very good theme tunes (like Knight Rider, Airwolf, A-Team, etc) unlike today's tv series.

Finally, that awesome show that clashed with BBC's Top of the Pops every Thursday night has arrived on DVD, and - even after twenty-five years - it's still far more entertaining than Peter Powell or Dave Lee Travis!

Street Hawk followed the exploits of Jesse Mach, an ex-motorcycle cop injured not in the line of duty (as the dramatic voice over would announce in the opening reel of each episode), but in a chance encounter with a drug dealer, with a penchant for hit-and-run assassination, whilst on a two-week suspension from the force. Subsequently relegated to a desk job, poor Jesse emerges from the attack a broken man, his passion for fighting crime on two wheels now nothing more than a distant memory.

Enter Norman Tuttle, a geeky Federal agent with a knack for designing high-tech motorcycles and having damaged policemen patched up with a revolutionary "new prosthesis", making Jesse an offer he can't refuse.

Cancelled after only thirteen episodes due to lacklustre Nielson ratings in the US (a direct result of it's graveyard spot in the Stateside TV schedule), the show went on to win itself a healthy audience in the UK, and throughout much of Europe, resulting in both a Street Hawk annual and four tie-in novels - how's THAT for heady success!

The announcement of this long overdue release will, I'm sure, make many nostalgists as happy as I was when I first got wind of this box set - It's always fun to satisfy one's nostalgic cravings with a dive into the comfort viewing of yesteryear, and - when all is said and done - the show holds up very well indeed! Granted, the cheese factor occasionally spikes off the scale, the hardware doesn't look as hard as it used to, and George Clooney (appearing in the second episode) delivers one of the most excruciating performances of the decade, but it's all delivered with a naïve sense of fun, and accompanied by a dazzling score from the legendary Tangerine Dream, which, even today, makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention.

My only criticism regarding this release is its NTSC mastering. In an attempt to lower production costs, it would seem that the distributor has exactly duplicated its American release for all territories around the world, resulting in a slightly disappointing product for us Brits, who are more accustomed to the far smoother and more accurately coloured 25fps PAL standard. Fabulous Films, hang your cheap-skate heads in shame. Oh, actually I do have one more gripe - the pointless 8 page collector's booklet, which presents no insight into the conception, design or history of the show. What it does offer is a criminally underwritten episode guide and a pointless centre spread, featuring a badly cropped section of Universal's blueprint for the bike. It would seem that the booklet's only purpose is to fool the DVD buying public into thinking they're getting more bang for their buck when they read of its existence in the special features list on the case. All is not lost, however, since the uncropped blueprint appears in the stills gallery on the fourth disc, along with some rather amusing publicity shots and a number of great US newspaper ads.

The documentary is fun too, with three of the show's key players - Rex Smith, Joe Regalbuto and Jeannie Wilson - waxing lyrical about their time on the project, and hinting that there may yet be more to come! Looking at how little they've aged over the past quarter of a century (Has it really been that long?), the idea doesn't seem as ridiculous as one might imagine, and it would be great to see the Hawk in action one last time!

So, overall, not a perfect package, but an acceptable release for the price. Maybe they'll get it right on Blu ray!