Old SF TV Show: The Greatest American Hero

[Darth Holbytlan]

Excellent show, but that was the other Steven. Steven J. Bochco, who also did L.A. Law, NYPD Blue, and the criminally-underrated City Of Angels, amongst others.

This is amusing: There's the hospital drama, City of Angels (2000) by Steven Bochco, and a '30s detective series City of Angels (1976) by Stephen Cannell. If I hadn't seen which one wrote which series, I would not have guessed which one was Bochco and which one was Cannell.

[Broomstick]

is Cannell still working or retired?!

Neither. He's deceased.

Aw, fuck... you know a lot of people I grew up with seem to be dead nowadays, it's sort of annoying. Really? Dead? :::checks wiki::: Daaaaa-um! 6 years ago now!

Robert Culp, too, but I knew about that already.

Hill Street Blues where main characters do evolve and make significant changes over time.

Excellent show, but that was the other Steven. Steven J. Bochco, who also did L.A. Law, NYPD Blue, and the criminally-underrated City Of Angels, amongst others.

Doh!

Change that to "as developed by other people in other popular series" and "isn't it wonderful how these threads are great for fact-checking and correcting memory errors?" Thanks for the updates, I stand corrected. But the point that this was a precursor to episodic TV character evolution still stands.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Cannell and Roy Huggins(of The Fugitive fame) did the series with Jake Axminster(played by Wayne Rogers). They'd also collaborated on The Rockford Files during that same decade, and Cannell would go on, two years later, to co-produce Baa Baa Black Sheeep/Black Sheep Squadron with Donald Bellisario.

But, you got me. I'd completely forgotten about the other City Of Angels, til you mentioned it just now. Apologies.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Aw, fuck... you know a lot of people I grew up with seem to be dead nowadays, it's sort of annoying. Really? Dead? :::checks wiki::: Daaaaa-um! 6 years ago now!

Six years ago, yup.

And, this series did put me a little bit in mind of a later TV series, set in Chicago, featuring another man in a red suit, and his pair of streetwise, cynical partners.

Doh!

Change that to "as developed by other people in other popular series" and "isn't it wonderful how these threads are great for fact-checking and correcting memory errors?" Thanks for the updates, I stand corrected. But the point that this was a precursor to episodic TV character evolution still stands.

It does indeed. And, it was a precursor to Cannell's later work in Wiseguy, as I've already mentioned.

[Broomstick]

And, this series did put me a little bit in mind of a later TV series, set in Chicago, featuring another man in a red suit, and his pair of streetwise, cynical partners.

Holy crap! I've never heard of Due South before* (and bless the internet for making a search on that description possible - sooooooo much easier than the old "trip to the library reference desk" technique we had to use way back when).

Must look into that one....



* I plead aviation - I had pretty much stopped watching TV by that point, being preoccupied with learning to fly for real. In an airplane, of course, never could get the cape thing to work...

[U.P. Cinnabar]

And, this series did put me a little bit in mind of a later TV series, set in Chicago, featuring another man in a red suit, and his pair of streetwise, cynical partners.

Holy crap! I've never heard of Due South before* (and bless the internet for making a search on that description possible - sooooooo much easier than the old "trip to the library reference desk" technique we had to use way back when).

Must look into that one....



* I plead aviation - I had pretty much stopped watching TV by that point, being preoccupied with learning to fly for real. In an airplane, of course, never could get the cape thing to work...

You will not be disappointed. Granted some fans didn't care for the later episodes(the ones with Kowalski*), but they hold up pretty well.

I'd caught bits and pieces of it in first run, but working nights made it impossible to sit down and watch the whole thing, til TNT re-ran the entire series from beginning to end in the early 2000s.

Aviation...you're braver than I am. You'd get B.A. Baracus on a plane, before you get me in one.

* Spoiler

Played by Callum Keith Rennie before anyone had ever even heard of GINO or LeBoen Conoy

[Elheru Aran]

...how have you not heard of Due South? It's pretty awesome.

Haven't seen anything with Kowalski. My parents didn't particularly approve of the later seasons when it got a bit raunchier (in their opinion). Of course in hindsight that stuff was probably about as raunchy as your usual 7 PM show.

[Broomstick]

...how have you not heard of Due South? It's pretty awesome.

Why watch a screen when I could FLY! For REAL! I mean, c'mon, my avatar really is me sitting in a honest-to-god biplane just before take off.

Between the aviation habit and having to work my ass off to pay for the aviation habit didn't watch much TV for a decade. This was before you could watch TV on your phone, you know.

U.P. Cinnabar, were you around here when I used to relate my flying stories? I can't remember. [/geezer]

[U.P. Cinnabar]

...how have you not heard of Due South? It's pretty awesome.

Haven't seen anything with Kowalski. My parents didn't particularly approve of the later seasons when it got a bit raunchier (in their opinion). Of course in hindsight that stuff was probably about as raunchy as your usual 7 PM show.

Raunchier?! How the fuck did it get raunchier during Kowalski's time on the show, after
Spoiler

Francesca was wearing sexy, black lingerie, and waiting for Fraiser in his apartment at the end of season 1's "Heaven and Earth," not to mention the "Victoria's Secret" two-parter and the S1 finale "Letting Go"

Then again, I forgot, you're a Georgia boy, same as me.

(unless, of course, they were alluding to the scene between Turnbull and the male Mountie cadet in "Mountie on the Bounty")

[U.P. Cinnabar]

...how have you not heard of Due South? It's pretty awesome.

Why watch a screen when I could FLY! For REAL! I mean, c'mon, my avatar really is me sitting in a honest-to-god biplane just before take off.

Between the aviation habit and having to work my ass off to pay for the aviation habit didn't watch much TV for a decade. This was before you could watch TV on your phone, you know.

U.P. Cinnabar, were you around here when I used to relate my flying stories? I can't remember. [/geezer]

Can't say that I was, no. Is that a Stearman you're sitting in?

[Broomstick]

Yes indeed. A vintage 1940's US Army Air Corps Stearman, the PT-17 trainer, likely the only Boeing product I will ever take the controls of. Here is the story of that flight. If you search non-fiction on "Airport Stories" you should get most of them.

[Enigma]

I loved Due South and saw the whole series. Then again I'm Canadian and DS is a Canadian TV series. It takes itself semi serious and loved the episodes that guest starred Leslie Nielson. I even had the DS soundtrack (until it got scratched to hell.).

[U.P. Cinnabar]

What, no B-52?!

You've seen these before, in movies, as crop dusters, at airshows...

On several episodes of JAG.

[Elheru Aran]

...how have you not heard of Due South? It's pretty awesome.

Haven't seen anything with Kowalski. My parents didn't particularly approve of the later seasons when it got a bit raunchier (in their opinion). Of course in hindsight that stuff was probably about as raunchy as your usual 7 PM show.

Raunchier?! How the fuck did it get raunchier during Kowalski's time on the show, after
Spoiler

Then again, I forgot, you're a Georgia boy, same as me.

(unless, of course, they were alluding to the scene between Turnbull and the male Mountie cadet in "Mountie on the Bounty")

Slightly belated, but back then my parents were hardcore Baptist conservatives. Thankfully they've loosened up a bit since. I think mainly what they objected to were the reruns on TNT, I don't know what season those were. The fact that we only received a few taped episodes of those reruns and one of those episodes was the one with the stripper where Ray V. and Fraiser visit a bunch of strip clubs didn't help...

My parents' idea of an exciting night of TV viewing tended to be more along the lines of Diagnosis Murder, Matlock or Doc. Yeah...

[U.P. Cinnabar]

That was the episode almost immediately following
Spoiler

"Juliet Is Bleeding," where Ray V. and Carrie Anne Moss take a tumble in the hay.

The only Matlock episode I like was the one guest-starring Claudia Christian.

[Broomstick]

Up to Season 3 in my watching.

As time goes by in-universe and more and more people are claiming to have seen a guy in a red outfit with a cape doing impossible things I'm really wondering if the program had continued if there might have eventually been a sort of Larry Walters effect once a critical mass of witnesses were achieved.

For those of you who never knew, or don't remember, Larry Walters achieved his 15 minutes of fame by strapping 45 helium-filled weather balloons to a lawn chair and launching himself into the sky. That was crazy enough but he wound up sitting in LAX's airspace at 15,000 feet of altitude.

So... you have all these commercial jets going by a guy sitting in a lawnchair at 15,000 feet. With, by the way, a gun across his knees. The pellet gun was to shoot a couple of balloons to allow him to descend.

Remarkably, Larry was sensible enough to wear a parachute for this stunt.

Anyhow, all these professional pilots are flying by a guy sitting in a lawnchair in mid-air. And not one of them is saying jack because they know that the first guy to do so is going to get grounded pending a psychological exam. Finally, a pilot does tell Air Traffic Control about the guy in the lawnchair with a gun. At 15,000 feet. Of course ATC tells him to report to the tower after landing because the ATC and FAA frown on both practical jokes and/or hallucinating pilots. Except suddenly all the other pilots confirm the siting and that yeah, there really is a guy sitting in a lawn chair thousands of feet above a major airport.

Because, at a certain point, enough people see something whacky that it can no longer be dismissed as insanity, there becomes an acknowledge that yes, something odd is going on.

And really, at some point you get a "Lawnchair Larry" effect. Enough people see Ralph in the magic suit and suddenly it has to be taken with some level of seriousness. Except that never happened in the series (it sort of happened in the failed pilot for "Greatest American Heroine").

Even better - Lawnchair Larry made his flight in 1982, which was when this show was running on TV.

[Broomstick]

Alas, I have run out of episodes to re-watch. Well, not really, I can re-watch them all again of course, but there are only so many in total.

And thus, this post, to sort of sum up the whole series. Let's do it by season:

Season 1: Ralph gets the suit, Ralph and Bill start rough but are at least somewhat tolerant of each other by the end of the series, Pam, originally conceived as a one-episode girlfriend demonstrates staying power and manages to stay out of helpless damsel territory. Stories are a mix of small-scale mundane issues and international level events ranging from local arsonists to an attempted presidential assassination, Soviet spies, and a cameo by the Lone Ranger. Ralph is awkward and clumsy in every respect with using the suit and his "mastery" of the various powers involved unreliable to the point of being a hazard at times. Bill discovers a love of Milkbone dog biscuits (they mask out or change the name on the box during the series, but they really are implying they're Milkbone brand) It ends on a high note, with Ralph and Pam getting promotions (and Pam's actually sticks - she remains a junior partner at her firm throughout the rest of the series) even if Bill is having issues.

Suit powers discovered in this series are flight (but not landing), superstrength, invulnerability, invisibility, and a form of superbreath (Ralph blows out a fire).

Season 2: This is the longest series in number of episodes and where I think the series hits its stride. Over the course of the series Ralph becomes more adept, his use of powers more reliable although of course his standard flight landing remains "crash into solid object". Storylines again range from the mundane ("Dreams") to the international in scope ("Operation Spoilsport", with meddling by "the green guys"), with occasional diversions into "magical" plots like "The Beast in Black" which is essentially a ghost story involving Bill being possessed by an evil lady spirit. Ralph's students are a part of the action in many episodes. Ralph is also getting better at both getting his clothes off in a hurry and "explaining" his ridiculous get-up. Among the explanations are "I'm the Tooth Fairy" and "The circus gave this to me for my human cannonball act (no, the circus didn't give it to him, but he did do a human cannonball act in the circus that episode)". Although there is still the traditional episodic "you can watch in any order" aspect to the show there is some series-long character development. As noted, Ralph's comfort with the suit increases and he even deals with the issues about feeling ridiculous in it ("Captain Bellybuster and the Speed Factory"). Ralph and Pam get closer and we have a visit from one set of parents (Ralph's. We met Pam's parents in the first season) and - this is subtle - in the social context of the time it would still be taboo to say that either Ralph and Pam are having sex, or essentially living together by spending a lot of time spending the night at one or another's home but the hints are there if you're savvy to the conventions of the time. Another subtle one is Ralph and Bill becoming buddies over this stretch. They still argue, have confrontations, and very different views on a lot of subjects but they are clearly starting to give a damn about each other. Pam's legal talents are mentioned/used at least occasionally and she really is part of the team and not just "the hero's girlfriend". We do get some alien involvement here, which in a show where the basic gimmick, the red suit, is of extraterrestrial origin but this actually, I think was a proper amount, it could have been easily overdone but wasn't.

New suit powers: athleticism (not just the "Two Hundred Mile An Hour Fastball" but also world-class skiing in "It's All Downhill from Here", extending into the third season with professional football in "The Price is Right"), telekinesis (which apparently includes getting through doorlocks and safes as well as just shoving things around), seeing ghosts, travel to either an alternate dimension or the afterlife depending on how you interpret it, precognition, and being able to share visions ("holograms" and future viewing). In this series the term "magic jammies" becomes very appropriate because if it's not outright magic it is definitely in the realm of magitech. We also get to see that there can be "side effects" at times, like when Ralph became a walking magnet ("The Shock Will Kill You").

Season 3: This starts with us actually getting to see the aliens, or at least one of them. For 1983 this was actually pretty well done although in many ways I preferred having them stay anonymous. This series had some significant changes from the two prior ones that I'm sure someone thought was a good idea but to my view looks like executive meddling. First of all, Ralph's students are featured far, far less and in the one episode where they are part of the plot it's the newcomer who is important and the others are clearly window-dressing. Oddly enough, they do manage to continue the mix of mundane and epic plotlines ("Desperado" involves saving mustangs and a feral stallion, other episodes feature spies, international espionage, etc.) although the last four were never actually broadcast, they were only seen in syndication and on DVD sets. Ralph and Pam's relationship continues to evolve, going from status quo to a near-breakup over the suit and how it pulls Ralph away from Pam to an actual wedding. Although principals getting married in a series can be a death-knell I think this actually worked in this series. Not the least because Pam did NOT give up her career - she continues as a junior partner lawyer. She also takes cooking classes "for the career woman" utilizing that newly common household appliance, the microwave oven which was just starting to really penetrate the American home (Really, the microwave was a godsend to working wives, which were still expected to be the primary cooks even if they had a demanding, full time career). Bill and Ralph are full on best friends, from Ralph (not wearing the suit at the time) taking a bullet meant for Bill to Bill being Ralph's best man at Ralph and Pam's wedding. Ralph is getting a LOT more comfortable with the suit, and becoming something of a deadpan snarker Bill-style at times when "explaining" it. And Bill seems to have developed a very heavy dog-biscuit habit. At times, though, this one gets a bit darker - in "Thirty Seconds Over Little Tokyo" Ralph has to kill the Big Bad instead of merely defeat him which goes against the meme the show has had up until then that Ralph might beat up the bad guys but he doesn't kill anyone, or maim them. This winds up being done indirectly, by a bounce off Ralph instead of direct action by him, but it is a change for the show. The series ends with another episode written and directed by Robert Culp which again brings back the "green guys" as part of a reveal that their meddling extends considerably further than giving Ralph a magic suit.

New suit powers: not many, really, the suite we have up until now really is quite a lot for most situations. There is the mind control thing, but that seems to be a side-effect of being exposed to heavy radiation and doesn't last that long - oh, yeah, the suit seems to be radiation proof. It also reflects particle-beams. It can also influence video games. The real change here is that Ralph is (aside from those crash landings) actually in control here. He uses powers reliably, even combining them at times (flying while invisible, for example). He also, at one point, choses to fly through steam tunnels instead of just running real fast which was either lazy writing or intended to show he's got a hell of a lot more comfortable with flying. Given how readily he takes to the air in season three I'm more inclined to think the latter. It's a natural progression in many ways, and for what we see in this series the plots carry it well but if the show had continued this might have lead to boredom in the viewership.

What might have been: If there had been additional series what might have happened? Well, I think eventually the government is going to "discover" the Suit Guy and get involved. We almost see that happen in "The Newlywed Game" (Ralph winds up having to save the world between the ceremony and the reception - two really great visuals in this whole program never mind just this episode were, first, Bill, Ralph, and Pam driving off in the "Villacana Piranha" convertible with the flame paint detailing, trailing tin cans, just married sign, Pam in a wedding dress and Ralph churning in the front passenger seat trying to swap a tux for the red suit, and second, the finale of the episode showing a combination of strewn wedding clothes and parts of the red suit trailing through the Hinkley household with a voice-over implying that Ralph is so exhausted by recent events that he fell asleep on his wedding night rather than getting jiggy with Pam) In that case, it turns out to be a rogue former member of the administration. Nonetheless, at some point The Powers That Be are going to notice and one way or another get proof of something powerful that isn't theirs and they can't control. The only way I can see that working out is the "green guys" meddling again. Another thing is that eventually there's going to be a critical mass of people who have seen The Guy in the Red Suit and his existence is going to become publicly known. Given he doesn't wear a mask, Bill and Pam use his real name constantly, and so forth he isn't going to have any kind of real secret identity. His neighbors are going to get really annoyed, not that they aren't already what with the noises like a large object crashing out of the sky into the bushes, late night noise, and the occasional shoot-out/ninja-attack (this is actually lampshaded in "It's Only Rock and Roll"). These two issues would have to be addressed in series 4 or 5 if they had had one. They could not continue to rely on witnesses not being believed, or the over-used "glasses broke, can't see shit". Personally, as someone pretty fucking blind without my glasses I got really annoyed at that one in "Space Ranger" - any guy THAT intelligent, even with the world being a complete blur, is going to notice when he's shoved out of a helicopter and falls several thousand feet, to be caught in a guy wearing a red suit, and start putting two and two together. That used that "excuse" multiple times in the third year and it got annoying fast.

If Ralph being The Guy in the Magic Red Suit does become public does that mean Ralph is going to have to wear the damn thing pretty much all the time? After all, without it he's just a regular guy who can be shot, stabbed, beat up, etc. Remove the suit he's back to mundane levels and Bill is actually more "super" in that context than Ralph just from his training and experience, being a Badass Normal (Ralph also gets closer to this without the suit over time, occasionally getting into fisticuffs as a normal human, but he's not on Bill's level). Bad guys and the government are going to use separating Raph from the suit as a means of control, or at least attempted control. Those could be scenarios quite difficult to write well.

Another issue to deal with is whether or not, once this all becomes public, Ralph would be able to continue as a school teacher. Using the suit is already interfering with his life, and his teaching career (it screws up his chance at tenure at one point). Now, his students are the ones no one cares about so the notion of parents objecting to a super powered teacher can be handwaved away, but it's going to cause complications with the other teachers and the administration. I mean, there are going to be ninja attacks not just at the Hinkley household but at the school (in fact, we already have seen one shoot-out, at a science fair, at Ralph's school although that is completely not Ralph's fault, they were after one of his students). Having to give up teaching would really, really bother Ralph and I think being a teacher is part of what keeps him grounded as a person. Still, the notion of his students asking Mr. H to do some sort of suit-related trick once in awhile might be another one of those humorous/absurd situations. Or confronting a student involved in some sort of misdemeanor - "Aww, Mr. H, that's not fair, using to suit to find me stealing hubcaps!"

And finally, having watched an interview with Stephen J. Cannell, I now know that Mr. Cannell was never a comics fan and didn't really care that much for the super-hero genre. He was asked to create a show with a super-hero in it and this is what he came up with. I think that this is a case were NOT being a fan was actually an asset. Of course, it helps that Cannell was conscientious enough to do his best to deliver quality. However, Cannell clearly did some things to make this show appealing to his own self, like emphasize some of the absurdity of the situations, the interpersonal relationships between the principals, and deconstructing the genre. It's part of what made this show refreshingly different from the typical superhero fare and why it was popular outside the narrow world of fandom. It showed that the genre, if done well, could appeal to a broader audience and did much to increase the popularity of the superhero/SF genre in television. In some respects, I think maybe shows like Lois and Clark and Alien Nation owed some of their success (or even getting on TV in the first place) to this show. Lois and Clark in particular relied on the absurd at times, wasn't afraid to mock itself from time to time (especially the ones with Tempus in them), and dealt heavily with the people and not just the stunts and effects.

So I enjoyed the show and I enjoyed watching it again. Yes, I actually liked seeing it again so much I'm adding it to my video library. I think partly I'm enjoying it because it's not grimdark, as so many shows seem to be now. I mean, I enjoyed the Netflix Daredevil and I've been watching Breaking Bad, which are good shows, but they are soooo dark. Sometimes, I need happy endings and a little humor. Or at least happy endings. Especially when my life is stressful or I'm working through some form of suck.

[Broomstick]

My copy of the series on DVD arrived in the mail today. Gotta say, I love the 21st Century - back when this show was on the air it was impossible to own a copy of a TV series unless you set up a film camera in front of your TV set, and having seen the results of that sort of thing, it was shit. (Some of us hardcore fans would make an audio recording of our favorite shows - I used to have a set for Star Trek TOS - and in some cases, such as early Doctor Who, fan-made recordings of that sort helped with reconstructing certain episodes.)

It is so nice to have a copy in excellent condition, not chopped up for time on syndicated TV or someone else slicing out scenes they think were boring or whatever, with the best resolution available that I can watch when I want to on whatever sort of media player I choose.

So... my current collection of complete TV series:

Logan's Run
Alien Nation (including the made-for-TV movies and the original feature-length film)
Firefly (including Serenity)
The Greatest American Hero
Forever (on streaming, which isn't really a format I'm thrilled with. It was a combination of it being unavailable otherwise and experimenting on my part)

I'm considering adding Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. Certain other shows, like the multitude of Star Trek series and Fringe are so readily accessible on services I currently subscribe to I don't feel a need to purchase them (and in the case of Star Trek and Doctor Who buying ALL of them would be cost prohibitive for me). I thought about The Six Million Dollar Man but. again, that's still enjoying a healthy after-life in syndication. My collecting is focusing series that I like enough to own but aren't being shown much, if at all, these days. Given that my local library seems to have every Doctor Who printed to DVD and the complete run of Lois and Clark I have pretty easy access to them as well, even if I don't own them.

So - here comes the audience participation part: what TV series would you like to own that you don't currently own?

[U.P. Cinnabar]

My copy of the series on DVD arrived in the mail today. Gotta say, I love the 21st Century - back when this show was on the air it was impossible to own a copy of a TV series unless you set up a film camera in front of your TV set, and having seen the results of that sort of thing, it was shit. (Some of us hardcore fans would make an audio recording of our favorite shows - I used to have a set for Star Trek TOS - and in some cases, such as early Doctor Who, fan-made recordings of that sort helped with reconstructing certain episodes.)

It is so nice to have a copy in excellent condition, not chopped up for time on syndicated TV or someone else slicing out scenes they think were boring or whatever, with the best resolution available that I can watch when I want to on whatever sort of media player I choose.

So... my current collection of complete TV series:

Logan's Run
Alien Nation (including the made-for-TV movies and the original feature-length film)
Firefly (including Serenity)
The Greatest American Hero
Forever (on streaming, which isn't really a format I'm thrilled with. It was a combination of it being unavailable otherwise and experimenting on my part)

I'm considering adding Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. Certain other shows, like the multitude of Star Trek series and Fringe are so readily accessible on services I currently subscribe to I don't feel a need to purchase them (and in the case of Star Trek and Doctor Who buying ALL of them would be cost prohibitive for me). I thought about The Six Million Dollar Man but. again, that's still enjoying a healthy after-life in syndication. My collecting is focusing series that I like enough to own but aren't being shown much, if at all, these days. Given that my local library seems to have every Doctor Who printed to DVD and the complete run of Lois and Clark I have pretty easy access to them as well, even if I don't own them.

So - here comes the audience participation part: what TV series would you like to own that you don't currently own?

Due South: I own all of season 1 and some of season 2, but finances and shit.

Babylon 5: I own all of seasons 3 and 4, but, again, finances and shit.

Hill Street Blues: I haven't any of these at all, but would love to own the entire series.

Tour Of Duty: Yes, even the shitty third season, where the series well and truly jumped the shark.

Some could argue that began in season two, when they started straying from the straight Combat!-style format, and on to special missions and the like, but it was otherwise still watchable.

The Equalizer: Even the ones where McCall was unable to put in an appearance, due to Edward Woodward's declining health are still great.

Warship: One of the classic BBC shows, accurately portraying life on a Royal Navy vessel. I would kill to find even one complete series on DVD.

And, speaking of Combat!: It's true Saunders, Haney and the squad stayed longer in France than the Allies did IRL, but this is one hell of a series, the hoary old granddad of Tour of Duty, and while they didn't always get the gear right, they got the portrayal of what war does to men down pat. A special treat was seeing Saunders(played by the late Vic Morrow, WWII vet and avowed pacifist)develop over the course of the show's five-season run, and a personal favorite was the two-parter "Hills Are For Heros," which Morrow directed and Gene L. Coon wrote and produced.

The episodes are, for now, available on YouTube, but you know how YouTubers are about pulling the copyright strike trigger on everything they see, and I'd much rather have the complete series on DVD.

[Broomstick]

I am reminded I own Red Dwarf series three through six - again, the rest are on Netflix (or were, last I checked ) so less incentive to buy the rest of them.