Emergency!: Season Five – DVD Review

DVD Reviews, Reviews

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People often talk about a TV show being influential, but mostly thats a reference to inspiring clones and spin-offs. Emergency! changed how Americas viewed the role of first responders. Before this series, people viewed an ambulance as “the meatwagon.” The drivers had little medical training. Their job was to toss you in the back and rush you to the hospital. It was not a pretty thing to experience. When Emergency! hit the airwaves, it allowed communities across this country to get an idea why it was important to have Emergency Medical Technicians that arrived at the scene of an accident to treat the injured before transporting them to the hospital. Emergency!: Season Five continues to mix medical training with entertaining storylines.

Paramedics Johnny Gage (Randolph Mantooth) and Roy DeSoto (Kevin Tighe) are assigned to firefighting Station 51 in Los Angeles. They constantly race around the area getting people out of fixes and into the hospital. They dont work alone. They use mobile communications to link up to Dr. Kelly Bracket (Robert Fuller), Nurse Dixie McCall (Julie London) and Dr. Joe Early (Bobby Troup). They show how a patient receives care in the emergency room when necessary. Its a medical version of Law & Order. Jack Webb produced the show and like Dragnet and Adam-12, he attempted to convey real experiences into scripts. The one thing thats important to know is that this is a medical show made for the squeamish. No matter how gruesome an accident; the blood spraying is kept to an extreme minimum. This isnt Greys Anatomy with organs and torsos being exposed every five minutes.

“The Stewardess” reminds us of a time when people could smoke on an airplane. Gage and DeSoto are flirting with the stewardesses when a passenger goes into cardiac arrest. They work on the guy thousands of feet in the air. EMTs never take a day off. They even have to get into the cargo hold to retrieve their gear. “The Old Engine Cram” has a fireman get messed up during a practice drill. Its an intense emergency in a fake disaster. The episode lightens up when Gage and DeSoto sell their vintage fire engine only to discover the initial buyer is another fire department pulling a gag. They have too much fun when a second buyer (Bewitcheds Bernard Fox) breaks out a checkbook.

“The Indirect Method” has the guys get shocked when a new trainee turns out to be a woman. Elaine Heilveil plays an emergency room nurse that wants to branch out. The guys have to accept that a woman can work within their fire station. She quickly proves her worth in the field when she talks a shotgun totting wife into letting her husband be transported to the hospital. However things go bad when she cant handle the pressure in the field on a simple call. Its up to Julie London to save her spirits. She cant let a sister down. “The Tycoons” have the firefighters considering buying a hot dog stand. Even though the place is a firetrap, the hotdogs are amazing and the stand pulls a good crowd. Are they ready to give up being EMTs to cook up a heartattack inducing lunch?

Emergency!: Season Five is the penultimate season for the regular episodes. The episodes this season arent overly dramatic. They are like training films with more of an emphasis on entertainment than complete explanation. You cant completely mock Gage and DeSotos adventures like Jon and Ponch on CHiPs. The EMT duo reminded us that their core work was very important. If you want to feel the impact of Emergency!, ask any middle aged EMT what they thought about the series. Odds are theyll admit that they were inspired by the series to enter the field.

The Episodes

“The Stewardess,” “The Old Engine Cram,” “Election,” “Equipment,” “The Inspection,” “The Indirect Method,” “Pressure 165,” “One of Those Days,” “The Lighter-Than-Air Man,” “Simple Adjustment,” “Tee Vee,” “On Camera,” “Communications,” “To Buy or Not To Buy,” “Right at Home,” “The Girl on the Balance Beam,” “Involvement,” “Above and Beyond … Nearly,” “Grateful,” “The Great Crash Diet,” “The Tycoons” and “The Nuisance.”

The video is 1.33:1 full frame. The image transfer is pathetic compared to other TV shows brought to DVD. Its quite obvious that instead of going back to the film masters to strike Hi-Def masters, they merely snagged old broadcast videotapes. The colors bleed and the image isnt sharp. It almost looks like it was a video made from a 16mm print. Video glitches abound. “The Nuisance” suffers the worst fate with the final minutes marred by a roll. It looks like a bad EP VHS tape. Were the better video masters destroyed by the studio vault fire? Its just a shame that quality control dropped the ball. The audio is Dolby Digital Mono 2.0. It sounds better than it looks. The subtitles are in English.

“Lost and Found” from Adam-12 (24:30) is a season five crossover episode. Gage and DeSoto hang around the emergency room while the most famous two patrolmen deliver an injured suspect.

Emergency!: Season Five takes us back to a time when EMTs were establishing their credentials as rescuers. As lightweight as the series seems, it gains weight from its noble mission.

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Universal Studios Home Entertainment presents Emergency!: Season Five. Starring Randolph Mantooth, Kevin Tighe, Julie London, Bobby Troup, Robert Fuller and Tim Donnelly. Boxset Contents: 22 Episodes on 5 DVDs. Released on DVD: January 20, 2009. Available at Amazon.

Joe Corey is the writer and director of "Danger! Health Films" currently streaming on Night Flight and Amazon Prime. He's the author of "The Seven Secrets of Great Walmart People Greeters." This is the last how to get a job book you'll ever need. He was Associate Producer of the documentary "Moving Midway." He's worked as local crew on several reality shows including Candid Camera, American's Most Wanted, Extreme Makeover Home Edition and ESPN's Gaters. He's been featured on The Today Show and CBS's 48 Hours. Dom DeLuise once said, "Joe, you look like an axe murderer." He was in charge of research and programming at the Moving Image Archive.