Blue Thunder: The Complete Series

You know what they say, they can’t all be Airwolf… hell, even Airwolf couldn’t be Airwolf for more than a couple of seasons - but that didn’t stop Blue Thunder from giving it a go! Rolling our story back a tad, imagine it’s the 1980s, and the salivating demand for military action shows was at a peak. This was a time when Stallone was blowing up the commies in 1985’s Rambo: First Blood Part II and Schwarzenegger was laying waste to a nondescript Central American army single-handed in Commando, and the kids were getting their fix with G.I. Joe - television needed more red-blooded action attractions if it was going to capture the adult male audience. 

Following on the heels of shows like The A-Team, Blue Thunder aimed for aerial dominance for primetime television the same way its cinematic counterpart took over theater screens to box office success. The problem is, there’s only so much room for helicopter action entertainment, and ultimately, Blue Thunder was shot down before it could refuel and rearm for a second season. It’s not that the show was bad necessarily; it’s actually quite entertaining, but even for its era, the show's structure was highly derivative. 

Trade the A-Team van for a super-duper advanced helicopter, swap the cast, and add some stock footage from the excellent 1983 film, and you’ve got a classic repackaged film title ready for primetime television. Replacing the grit of Roy Scheider is the amiable James Farentino. Swapping out the elongated presence of Daniel Stern is the wise-cracking pre-Garth Dana Carvey. And for some ground-support muscle, we get NFL legends, Bubba Smith and Dick Butkus. Together, they work for the LAPD and shadow government agency APEX, taking out the bad guys who threaten the lives and liberties of all Americans. 

Watching through the series, I would not have blamed Sony for packaging these discs with a grill, charcoal, a sixer, and a coupon for Omaha Steaks. Blue Thunder is the kind of show where, if you’re eating dinner while watching it, there shouldn’t be a vegetable anywhere in sight. Heavy on action shenanigans, the series leans into its better assets of bullets, explosions, and humor, but never rises above the basics. 

Now, to be fair, the 1983 film (which we do hope to review on 4K here at some point) isn’t the greatest ever, but it was clever, original, and had a tight sense of pace and tension that this one-hour primetime show just couldn’t match. Scope certainly is an issue; one can’t expect a cinema-grade budget for each episode, but the problems our crackshot team faces are pretty low-rent. Coupled with that is the paint-by-numbers casting. Farantino is the affably rogueish team leader, Carvey is the tech nerd, and Butkus and Smith play support and comedy relief with some seriously inside-ball jokes about their respective NFL careers with the Bears and Colts. 

I’d gone through the series ages back when I caught reruns on cable (I believe it was on TV Land, but don’t quote me there), and it was a fun run. It was the kind of diverting entertainment I’d pop on to unwind late at night in college after crashing through homework. To that, I haven’t really watched it again in the 20-some years since. Watching Blue Thunder: The Complete Series today was just good, diverting fun. I don’t have a nostalgic love for the series, but it’s wild to see what the series could have been had it been a bit more ambitious with its premise. Shows based on popular films certainly wasn’t a new idea, but between the competition from Airwolf (the shows premiered practically right on top of each other) and the derivative setup, the odds were stacked against this series from ever really taking flight. 

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray 
Thanks to Sony, Blue Thunder: The Complete Series fires away in 1080p with a three-disc Blu-ray set. Pressed on three Region A BD50 discs, the discs are housed in a standard multi-disc Blu-ray case with individual trays for each. Each disc loads to a basic static-image main menu with simple navigation options. You can play all episodes on the disc, or you can choose your favorite. The set is so basic and barebones that the episode list and descriptions are on the back artwork.

Have you seen a 1980s television series come to disc with a no-frills Blu-ray release before? Well, then you have an idea of what to expect for Blue Thunder. Securing a 1080p 1.33:1 transfer for each episode, I’d say the series looks quite good while not necessarily blowing my hair back either. For a series with some cult appeal that only lasted 11 episodes, details are sharp and clean with a natural feeling for film grain without looking like it’d been DNR’d to death, nor does it look like the bitrate has been modulated into oblivion. I was a tad worried about compression since two of the discs host four 48-minute episodes. If there are any serious compression issues, I didn’t spot them. The worst thing I saw was a little slight aliasing around some tight houndstooth clothing patterns here and there, and some of the optical effects are a tad iffy, but these issues are so mild and brief they're barely worth mentioning. Stock footage is also obviously of a lower quality, but that's part and parcel for a series of this vintage. Colors are robust and lively, and black levels were certainly decent for a well-produced show, giving it a nice sense of depth. I never owned or looked at the DVDs, so I can't compare there, but as a 1080p offering, it's pretty good! 

On the audio side, each episode scores a strong DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono track. In recent years, I've become a bit 50/50 with the 2.0 mono experience over just a straight 1.0 track, but overall, this is quite good. While the soundscape may be limited, the big action sequences have plenty of bang and maintain a lively presence. Explosions, bullets, screeching car tires, the whole gamut of Hollywood’s best canned sound effects are represented well. Music cues are right on point, and dialogue is clean and clear through each episode.

There aren’t any. Granted ¾ of the key cast are dead, so we’re not going to get any kind of deep-dive retrospective material, but considering how entertaining his podcast is with David Spade, I would have loved to hear from Carvey on what it was like working on this show. He has so many great anecdotes about his early career (his bit about working with Kurt Douglas and Burt Lancaster practically gave me an aneurysm from laughing), I’m sure he’d have some stories about this show. Oh well… 

In the annals of television history, Blue Thunder: The Complete Series certainly isn’t the best, but it’s far from the worst thing out there. Especially in the case of “Based on a film” series, this one is pretty good on its own terms. I mean, it’s no Stargate or MASH, but it’s also thankfully not Ferris Bueller’s Day Off bad. Lasting only 11 episodes, I have a bet that if the show had tried to work a more original structure than a run-of-the-mill A-Team/Knight Rider knockoff, it could have been something more than what it was. As is, the series enjoys something of a cult fan following, and this Blu-ray release is for them. The 1080p transfers for each episode are solid, and the audio package is strong enough to lend some sonic impact. But the movie is certainly much better, and interested folks should add it to their collections before considering this series on Blu-ray. For Fans Only.  

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