Although "The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones" stiffed on TV, the show has remained a popular program for fans of Indy. Like Spielberg's "Amazing Stories", Lucas' TV show failed to find the audience that the movies had. The TV show was very different from the movies and that probably had more to do with the lack of appeal to fans than anything else. It also didn't help that the writing was uneven at best although the best episodes were extremely good. The show focused more on historical figures, events and history that Indy might have had an impact/been involved with during his lifetime and, I suspect, that had as much to do with the failure of the show as anything else. The original films had NOTHING to do with historical events and were pure Hollywood escapist fare that imitated the adventure films and serials of the 40's and 50's. ***

The series has been on home video before in its syndicated format and that's what we get here as well; the episodes have been sliced and diced to make them into a variety of movies. Sometimes this works and sometimes it just flounders badly. Unfortunately for the third set of this series, we get the sliced and diced versions. Lucas chose to remove the prologue where an old Indy in his 90's narrates the beginning of the story giving us a context for what we're about to see. New bridging material was shot and included and we got 22 TV movies vs. the 2 seasons of episodes as originally intended. ***

For good or bad Lucas has permanently altered these TV episodes so fans are probably NOT going to be happy with these syndicated versions nor will they be happy with the HUGE price tag associated with these release. More about why the cost is so high in the extras section. Granted, they come stuffed with extras but, at some point, more IS less. ---

Image & Sound:

"Indy" looks pretty good in its DVD presentation. As with the first two sets the analog portion has been cleaned up for the Telecine transfer. Shot in 16mm (to save money for the locations and keep production values high--it's akin to shooting in digital video today), the show is presented in its original full screen aspect ratio. Colors pop and while there is an occasional issue with shimmer, the overall look of the show is top notch. ***

Audio sounds terrific as well but keep in mind this show doesn't have a 5.1 mix simply because that wasn't the standard at the time. ---

We get a huge assortment of featurettes on the historical aspect of the show. There are far too many for me to be able to do justice to in the amount of time that I was given to review the show (the discs arrived at the end of last week for review) but some of the ones that I have looked at are impressive. There's a terrific documentary on actor/singer/activist Paul Robeson and his tragic career arc. We also get a terrific documentary on John Ford who shows up in one episode entitled "Hollywood Follies". We get to hear Martin Scorsese discuss the real Ford, his career as a director in Hollywood and his impact on the history of film. The extras here run HOURS rather than minutes. That's refreshing and given the price tag, it's clear WHY this set is so expensive. Will it matter to fans? Maybe if they have an interest in the historical aspects of the series as Indiana Jones runs into famous folks throughout history. *** All of these featurettes/documentaries are well researched. We get an assortment of academics, movie folks and others discussing the real folks as they are portrayed on the show vs. how they were in real life as well as real footage of the folks that are portrayed in the shows. ---

Final Words:

Kudos to George Lucas for having his team go to the expense and effort to assemble such a strong set of extras. Heck, kudos to them for making sure that the show looks great. It's a pity that Lucas likes to practice revisionist film history by altering everything that he has had a hand in (all except the "Indiana Jones" films and I suspect that has as much to do with the period "look" of the films as well as Steven Spielberg's involvement in them as anything else). ***

Of the three DVD sets, the second is the most essential and best when it comes to the drama, this places a close second and the first set a distant third. All three have their moments but as mentioned the show could become pedantic and downright boring at times. Still, the best episodes here are very good indeed. I still don't buy that Sean Patrick Flanery despite his strong performances here turned into the Indiana Jones that Harrison Ford portrayed but that's show business. ***

The fact is that this set IS expensive but it's assembled for the collector and fan. "The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones" became a cult series and this is priced appropriately without taking the short cuts of NOT providing extras. Lucas also shrewdly releases that fans will have to have an additional incentive to pony up for these since they've been altered and many have probably purchased the previously available VHS tapes. Many probably have recorded these as well.