Emergency!: Season Two DVD Review
By Jude Clement
Imagine if Third Watch and ER met, got married, and had a baby. That kid would probably look a lot like Emergency!, the 1972-77 NBC series from producer Jack Webb (Dragnet) that follows both the paramedics of the Los Angeles County Fire Department Rescue Squad 51 as they rescue Angelenos from a variety of predicaments and the staff of Rampart Emergency Hospital as they patch up those same accident victims. Paramedic John Gage (Randolph Mantooth, General Hospital) is a bachelor with a roaming eye. His happily married partner, Roy DeSoto (Kevin Tighe, Murder One), is the more even keeled of the two. The two fearlessly help victims of accidents and mishaps while remaining in constant contact with Rampart Emergency. Dixie McCall (Julie London, a chanteuse famous for "Cry Me a River") is Rampart's no-nonsense head nurse. Dr. Kelly Brackett (Robert Fuller, Wagon Train) is the serious, dedicated doctor who handles most of the incoming emergency cases. Dr. Joe Early (Bobby Troup, composer/singer of "Get Your Kicks on Route 66") is his bemused, equally dedicated colleague. Joining the cast in season two is Boots, the squad's Benji-esque canine mascot.
Emergency! shares the same low key "just the facts, ma'am" storytelling techniques as Dragnet. The characters are so blasé that a woman who is told she has gangrene reacts as if the doctor informed her that she has lint on her shoulder. Children stoically receive injections without even flinching. This staidness often makes the episodes feel slow and drawn out. It is hard to get excited by a series when no one on screen seems excited.
Emergency! does feature some imaginatively designed set pieces at its accident sites. A petty thief becomes pinned high above the ground between the arm of a crane and a building. A man gets pinned under a house while shoring up its support beams. Two boys get lost in the city's drainage system as a massive rainstorm approaches. A woman finds her sports car wedged beneath a tanker truck filled with gasoline. A construction worker gets trapped beneath a collapsing building. Admittedly, these scenes sometimes lack suspense, but they are well-filmed.
Much of the series' budget must have been dedicated to these stunt sequences, forcing the creative team to scrimp and save on other scenes. In "Problem," the rampaging bull is quite obviously tied down so as to avoid a real-life rampage. The series also uses cheats and shortcuts. In "Saddled," how will the squad get an injured nun onto a stretcher and out of an overturned bus? We'll never know - they just skip ahead to when she's out.
With its emphasis on action its short attention span, Emergency! seems to be mostly aimed at kids. The series jumps from rescue to rescue with very little connective tissue. Often there isn't even any follow up - patients are admitted to Rampart never to be heard from again. Children also figure into many of the series' plotlines. One boy gets his head stuck in a vent. Another gnaws on a lead paint-coated windowsill (his mom says he's teething). A third blows up his garage with a chemistry set. Other geniuses become trapped in burning buildings after returning for a dog, fall down post holes, and get trapped headfirst in the hollow portion of a dead tree. Girls fare a little better. One gets her arm stuck in a pool drain.while simultaneously having an asthma attack. Mostly, though, they tend to O.D. on "street reds."
Here's a fun drinking game for you and your friends: each time Dr. Brackett appears onscreen with too much kohl eyeliner and purple eye shadow, take a drink. You should be sloshed before the opening credits. For some reason, the show's makeup artists have chosen to tart him up with more eye makeup than any self-respecting hooker would wear.
Many consumers have complained about quality control issues with various Universal double-sided TV DVD releases. For this review, three quarters of the season's twenty-one episodes were watched - random episodes from each side of each disc. Of these, at least one - "Boot" on disc 1, side A - was problematic, freezing in the middle of a scene approximately twenty minutes into the episode.
Be on the lookout for appearances by Kevin Dobson (Kojak), Lloyd Bochner (Dynasty), John Travolta (Welcome Back, Kotter), Richard Jaeckel (Baywatch), Henry Jones (Phyllis), Cathy Lee Crosby (That's Incredible!), Larry Storch (F-Troop), Barbara Bosson (Hill Street Blues), J. Pat O'Malley (Maude), Sharon Gless (Cagney & Lacey), Jackie Coogan (The Addams Family), Randall Carver (Taxi), Ann Morgan Guilbert (The Dick Van Dyke Show), Dick Van Patten (Eight is Enough), Laurette Spang (Battlestar Galactica), Melissa Gilbert (Little House on the Prairie), Alice Nunn (Tony Orlando & Dawn), Kathleen Lloyd (Equal Justice), Jamie Farr (M*A*S*H), Joan Pringle (That's My Mama), Dub Taylor, Arnold Stang (Top Cat), Jack Carter, Robert Alda (Supertrain), Michael Lerner (Clueless), Jock Mahoney (Yancy Derringer), Vic Tayback (Alice), and Diedre Hall (Days of Our Lives).
The twenty-one episodes that make up the second season are divided onto three double-sided discs. The discs are housed in three slim, clear keepcases. The front covers feature a composite photo of the main cast members above a picture of the squad leaving its home base. The back covers include episode titles and plot synopses. The double-sided coversheets show through to the insides of the cases, but the interiors are undecorated. The three keepcases slide into a cardboard sleeve which features the same images found on the keepcases.
The menus are easy to navigate. From the static main menu, viewers can play all of the disc's episodes, visit the episode index, or navigate to the languages menu. The episode index menus contain stills from the episodes along with the episode titles. Upon choosing an individual episode, viewers are taken to a screen that includes an episode summary and the original airdate. The entire episode can be played, or viewers may jump to a specific scene.
