Customer Reviews

21 Jump Street - The Complete First Season

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

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!

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.

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.

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.

I just got the DVD for Christmas and just got done watching the first episode and it seemed like something was amiss (besides the music). The last scene is missing the beginning AND the end. I have them all on tape off of syndication no less and the DVD version has been cut even more. I don't understand this at all. It's worth owning the DVD if you don't have the shows on tape but if you have the tapes already, don't waste your money, and don't throw the tapes away!!! 5 stars for the show itself and 0 stars for the repackaging!

Paul R. McCarthy's review is ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. All the original songs in the episodes have been removed due to liscensing problems. He was NOT referring to the theme song.
Also, the pilot episode was shot and originally aired as a two-hour movie. The version on the DVD is the edited-for-syndication version which is missing at least one scene from the original.
Still great to have it on DVD, but there should have been some indication on the packaging as to the changes that were made.

21 Jump Street on DVD, like so many DVD releases of classic TV, gets a big FAT F FOR FAILURE. Like many fans, I settled down to watch this with some excitement and a sense of nostalgia. Instead of enjoying it, bit by bit, things started to bug me. Imagine my horror when I discovered that the pilot ISN"T the original version but rather an edited version and the ORIGINAL MUSIC HAS BEEN REPLACED ON ALL THE EPISODES. And not so much as a disclaimer to be found anywhere on the packaging to acknowledge that fact! BUYER BEWARE.

This is sooooo not what i thought it was. I thought this was gonna be exactly like i saw it on tv so many years ago. I was watching this show since i was 10 yrs old and now im 28. This show made me want to become a narc. lol. and now Nothing is even near how it was on tv. So many scenes were cut out. All the music is gone and replaced with nonsense. The music is what makes the show along with the stories and the actors. Im hearing all this stuff about music licensing. What gives?!! If your a die hard fan like i am DO NOT BUY THIS. I had vhs tapes of all these episodes and when i saw the dvd was out i threw them all way. WHAT THE HECK DID I DO ??!! I wish i never threw them away. My tapes were the real deal. I wasted so much money on the first 3 seasons only to be disgusted. Save your money.

I lOVED this show as a teenager when it was first on. I think I missed this first season with Capt. Jenko - so I was excited to see how it all started. I rented this series to see it and decide whether to buy it.

I'm embarrassed to admit that the show did have an effect on me -- we would talk about the show the next morning at school. The show was probably one of the first things I saw countering the general homophobic attitudes of the times.

I'm quite saddened to see that's it been (POORLY) dubbed (mouths moving -different words) - why can't we see the original?
I was thinking of buying the discs after watching them - but not if they're edited!
I wish companies would stop rushing to put out cheap edited copies of shows (see 3rd Rock) thinking we'll buy whatever they put out!

And now in reading the other reviews, if the original music is gone as others have said... I will definitely NOT buy this series - the show was about introducing artists- it's how I found REM and Sonic Youth ... there's one episode I barely remember but I remember the music from it more than anything else. The music often influenced me as much as the topics they covered. It would not be the same show without that.

My long-awaited set of 21 Jump Street DVDs finally came in the mail, and I just watched the 2-hour pilot episode. And although the show lost a bit of the magic it had when I was a giddy teenager, it still shone as a gritty, realistic cop show from the late 80's.

I too, was surprised and disappointed at the lack of the original soundtrack which included 80's songs from REM and Steve Winwood, among others. I don't know what tone-deaf imbecile chose the awful soundtrack for the DVD version, but it's more than a little perturbing to me. Background music makes a huge impact on any show, and it's a darn shame that the episodes could not be released in their original versions.

I was also somewhat disenchanted by the quality of the audio for the dialogue. It appears that there was a straight analog transfer from tape to DVD, and that there was no digital remastering whatsoever. Don't get me wrong, the sound is loud and clear, just not the audio I was expecting for a DVD. There are also some choppy edits during the program, which makes this DVD look more home-made than professional.

But all my gripes don't amount to anything to surpass the quality of this top-notch show. 21 Jump Street is by far my favorite show of all time, and I eagerly anticipate the remainder of the seasons on DVD (except for the season with that Depp-wannabee replacement). 17 years was just too long to wait for this...