Search - 21 Jump Street - The Complete First Season on DVD

Thank God for the truth and Amazon's reviews

DocSmithers | los altos, ca USA | 12/01/2004

(1 out of 5 stars)

"21 Jump Street was and remains a wonderful series. I remember as a young boy gleefully watching almost ever one of these episodes on the Fox network. This show and the Simpsons made me fall in love with the Fox network, at the time, the joke of the network community. 21 Jump Street's actors are all still around today, a testament to how well the acting was. The mature material made me feel like I was watching an important show, rather than mindless dribble. Few are more dissapointed with the problems with this DVD than I.
Unfortunately, the music has been changed due to licensing roadblocks. As far as I am concerned, this is a dealbreaker plain and simple. Then there is the talk of the pilot being the wrong one. Why? It makes you realize that whoever was in charge of this DVD release at Anchor Bay wasn't a true 21 Jump Street Fan. Too bad.
The rumors are going around that Miami Vice has succumbed to the same music licensing problems, another dealbreaker.
I'm so glad we can all report the truth about these DVD screw ups here at Amazon.com. I'd give it zero stars if I could, as we are not getting the original material. Maybe Anchor Bay should have spent the money to get this right, b/c in the end, less people will buy this DVD as a result."

WARNING! Great stories ... terrible music

B. Doyle | Portland, OR | 02/25/2005

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I was very excited that they released 21 Jump Street on DVD. It was a launching point for many careers and provided entertaining moral lessons. So I go to play the first show and within the first 15-20 minutes I notice something. They redid the music. Maybe it was just a couple of songs. Nope, it was pretty much all of them. And it was done in such a way that it was obnoxious and often detracted from the stories. I had a VERY hard time watching the remainder of the season because the the remastering was done so poorly.

21 Jump Street was that really cool hip show that had some of the latest music of the time. And whether it was record companies wanting to charge for using their music or someone deciding that the music needed to be less "dated" ... whatever the reason, they made a bad choice.

I highly recommend that people rent this DVD before they buy it to make sure they are okay with it. I am not and will not purchase any more seasons until they put the original music/soundtracks back in.

Later Gators!"

Requesting Anchor Bay remove head from butt

Shamanie K. Peters | las vegas, nevada United States | 02/08/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"A fantastic TV series should be:

1. Groundbreaking - There is no show like this on television. It is not some clammy rehash of a rehash like, for instance, "The OC".

2. Has a sense of gritty realism - Watching a kid do a speed ball, or watching a kid fleeing from the police, crash, seemingly not on purpose.(I'm saying to myself, someone got hurt doing that stunt.)

3. Advances on its own terms - 21 Jump Street doesn't succumb to political correct speak around. A pleasant surprise upon viewing will be how people talk to one another. The first episode displays this when a kid refers to another kid as a "Homo". What show in recent memory has that type of dialogue? I can't think of any that are geared toward the age group that are viewing 21 Jump Street. And not to say that it's good or bad either way, but at least the show allows you to make up your mind about what you are viewing. Most will buckle and just take a phrase like that out for fear of reprisal.


4. Acting sincerity - I can't stand people who can't act and or get miscast. They can ruin an otherwise decent film/tv show, see Rhada Mitchel in "Man on Fire". The acting in this show is superb. Everyone flows together seemlessly and no one actor feels out of place, with the exception of the Capt. Richard Jenko, played by Frederik Forrest; Who is a very good actor, whom I felt was miscast in the part, and mightily replaced(was this the case?) by Steven Williams.

My girlfriend had never even heard of this show when I told her about it and upon viewing the first 1/2 of the pilot episode insisted we finish it that night.

Unfortunately I cannot recommend the company that put this to DVD. They did an abismal job. The picture looks grainy, I noticed some serious dubbing over the word "Ass"(throws shoulders in air? Who cares!) and like all of the others, the music. If you can't release it in the shows original form, don't release it.

The show gets 5 stars and the release gets 2. 1 for releasing it period, and another for decent packaging.

Let's hope the second season is original."

Jump!

D. Reyes | 10/15/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"21 Jump Street launched two careers: one, most notably that of Johnny Depp and the other would be that of the young upstart TV network called Fox. It premiered in 1987 and was, in a way, a 1980's version of the mod squad. But it was original in storylines and ahead of its time in storylines as well. The storylines were dark and gritty as was the subject matter that fueld the episodes back then. There were topical issues touched upon on this series such as AIDS, death, rape, even incest and abuse. But despite those subject matters the series had many great comical aspects to it as well due to the fact that the cast through seasons 1-4 had great chemistry. Two people on the series that had the best chemistry were probably Johnny Depp and Peter DeLuise and that shown through when their characters "Hanson" and "Penhall" donned the alias' of "The McQuaid Brothers" in episodes where their characters had to go undercover in high schools.

The series ran strong for 4 seasons as a first run show, but during his last season (season 4) it was well known that Johnny Depp wanted out of his contract to move on to bigger and better things, and he also disliked the concept of cops going undercover in high schools and had some sort of moral objections. Season 5 is easily forgettable as Johnny Depp and Dustin Nguyen had left the show and the ratings dropped drastically so the show was put into syndication. So that was pretty much the death of the show as it became a shell of its former self.

Another thing about this series, though it was a show about young officers that looked young and were able to go undercover in high schools, in actuality a lot of the episodes didn't even revolve around that type of scenerio. As the series progressed and characters had developed personalities a lot of episodes revolved around their own struggles on the show most notably the episode about the death of Johnny Depp's character's girlfriend and his character's struggles with the death, and also Peter Deluise's character's struggles in the later seasons involving his wife in El Salvador.

It's great to see this series finally be put out on DVD and despite being a show from the late 80's the only thing dated about the show would just be the fashion of the time. The episodes and topic matter still hold up I believe. One other thing about the show was it's choice of great late 80's music, as REM and U2 songs were featured in episodes along with a handful of other songs from hit bands of the time, hopefully the songs featured in episodes will be kept on the DVDs as they are released. One also has to wonder if season 5 will even be released.. Time will tell. And though shows like Married with Children and The Simpsons helped Fox become a major player, this show did help a lot as well by drawing in a young teenage demographic and helped shape Fox into a "hip" and "edgy" network."