Customer Reviews

Emergency: The Final Rescues

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Warning: some possible spoilers in this review.

After Emergency! finished its 6 year TV episode run, the show then had 6 "made for TV" movies that were released in 1978 (the year following the last season of Emergency!) and 1979. So, technically, this is not "Season 7", although there is about 12 hrs. worth of programming on this set. It would be cool if they released the Emergency +4 cartoons with this final movie set - but I seriously doubt that will happen.

These movies included:

"Survival on Charter 220" - where a small plane collides mid air with a larger passenger jet. They land in a neighbor and the havoc ensues. If I'm not mistaken, Squad 51 is crushed by a part of a plane and Johnny and Roy are trapped inside a house. (2 hr. movie)

"The Steele Inferno" - basically a high rise building fire stretched into a 2 hr. movie.

"What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing?" - Johnny and Roy travel to San Francisco. (2 hr. movie)

"Greatest Rescues of Emergency" - Johnny and Roy are promoted to Captain and reminisce about their days on the squad. The movie is made up mostly of flashback scenes from the TV series, but it is still nice to see Johnny and Roy promoted to Captain (2 hr. movie)

"Most Deadly Passage" - Johnny and Roy travel to Seattle (2 hr. movie)

"The Convention" - Johnny and Roy return to San Francisco (2 hr. movie)

For those who have never seen these two hr. movies, be forewarned that you don't see A LOT of Johnny and Roy in most of these movies (with the exception of "Greatest Rescues of Emergency" - where you see A LOT of Johnny and Roy - but this "movie" consists mostly flashbacks). In fact, there are a number of very long segments in the other movies with no Johnny and Roy. Some of the movies almost come across like they were trying to create a spin off series - because so LITTLE time is spent with Johnny and Roy and so much time is spent with new characters. Further, you won't be seeing any of the other fireman from the series on these TV movies - so no Chet, no Cap, no Marco. You do get to see the Rampart medical staff a bit.

Personally, I am not very fond of these TV movies (with the exception of "Greatest Rescues"). Remember, when I say this, I am a HUGE Emergency! fan. I grew up watching the TV show. I owned a Squad 51 helmet, an Emergency! Jigsaw puzzle, etc. and soon all of the TV seasons on DVD (as soon as Season 6 comes out). I personally met Randolph Mantooth in 2001 (along with other crew members from the show) when Code 3 Collectibles was dedicating their new Emergency! toys at Station 127 in Carson (the station used for the TV series) - got to sit in the refurbished squad. I have visited the station 3 times in the last several years. This is my favorite show of all time (along with the Saint and Mission Impossible) - but these TV movies, honestly, put me to sleep. In my opinion, they are slow moving and have too little of our favorite cast from the series. I will probably buy this set to complete the series, but IMHO, you aren't missing much if you don't own them - but perhaps some of you enjoyed these movies.

While these final movies haven't been released yet, don't expect much in the video quality if the last few seasons are any indication.

Hope this "preview" or review helps. But, remember, at the time I am writing this review, the set has not been released yet.

This will complete the collection. I will pre-order this.

I purchased "Greatest Rescues of Emergency!" on VHS when JEMS carried it. You really see how Johnny and Roy worked together as partners, and after going through their adventures for six years, the bonding that took place. They looked out for each other, and worked as a team. My favorite line is, "Were going to be staying in touch with one another. Right, it's not like we are moving out of town or anything. We are still here, still in the same department, still friends." I was a little kid when I saw this episode on December 31, 1978, and nearly cried that Johnny and Roy were departing ways.

About six years ago, a local independent showed re-runs, and I purposely stayed up late the week the movies were shown. I felt OLD seeing the San Francisco EMS ambulances, because the manufacturer no longer makes those "converted Winnebago ambulances", and San Francisco EMS no longer exists - it merged into the San Francisco FD sometime in the 1990's. Another part that made me laugh really hard was when the Haz-Mat unit showed up at the chemical explosion - that Hazardous Materials gear looked useless.

I read that the idea was for R.A. Cinader to resurrect "Emergency!" at a different location, and the San Francisco movies were intended as pilots for a spin-off (unfortunately, NBC didn't pick it up). The format of San Francisco seemed like a good place to do this, where the filming crew could spend a third of the time on Rescue (at the fire station), a third of the time at the hospital (note that John De Lancie from Star Trek played a doctor), and the rest on the ambulance. I remember the discussion of navigating San Francisco streets, which are narrow and hilly. I would think a medium duty truck size ambulance body (International or Freightliner) today would have a hard time, but a Ford E450 Type III would probably be OK.

The Seattle movie was good too, although I felt OLD at the King Dome rescue - since the King Dome was imploded sometime in the 1990's. This was also before Starbucks and Microsoft took off in Seattle too - 500,000 population in 1978. I was also glad to see that Harborview was mentioned , since Seattle got the Medic One program up and running in 1969. During that episode, I appreciated the discussion on the "tiered system", when Rocky and Swede explained to Johnny and Roy the difference between the Aid Units (BLS) and the Medic Units (ALS). Rocky and Swede served on a Medic Unit, and this discussion was probably intended to explain the "tiered system" to the audience, since different cities do different things. My current city runs fire department ALS ambulances (paramedic engine companies are around too - most cities in the past 20 years have implemented them), and the paramedic program didn't start here until circa 1974. Several cities (like Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, and Boston) currently run third service EMS transport, much like San Francisco did until 1997.

The Journal of Emergency Medical Services (JEMS) has a DVD titled The History of Modern EMS: Making a Difference 2.0 that can be found for purchase. The impact of the Emergency! TV series is mentioned in here.

I can not remember the exact episodes of this season but as a young child of 10 I very much enjoyed every show that came of on Saturday night at 8 p.m. If you like watching how our medical history came about. You will enjoy how it was that we now have parametics and how hard it was for they to start out in Ca. I still enjoy watchen this show and I will alway will enjoy sitting down to watch Emergency after a long day. I will never out grow the show that turned me towards the medical field and I have never looked back. I am very much waiting for season 6 and I can hardly wait for Season 7 and all the 2 hour movies that were made after the series ended. Enjoy like I have.

Like some of the other reviewers, I too was a big fan of Emergency! when it was on in the 70s. If you want to reminisce about your fond childhood memories of Johnny, Roy, and the rest of station 51's crew, then don't buy this dvd set. Instead buy one of the others dvd sets from season 1-6. These movies were quite boring. While Johnny and Roy were in them, they mostly played small roles. The music was different too. There were no Chet, Marco, Mike, or Captain Stanley. There was no Station 51. The movies had very little action in them, and it seemed like the two set in San Francisco were perhaps trying to be a pilot for a new series.
Don't waste your money on this dvd.

How does a weekly TV series morph into a handful of TV movies? There were three things going on at once here.

First, after six seasons what sort of rescue hadn't these guys done? That episode in season six where the guys play basketball for about twenty minutes was the shark-jumper. I imagine the cast and crew were up for trying something new at that point.

Second, in the mid-seventies cable TV hadn't taken off yet, so the networks were not only competing with each other, but also with movie theaters, especially on the weekends. Their biggest weapon in this battle was the TV movie, which was usually mediocre, but had the virtue of being free.

And in the mid-seventies TV nearly did kill off cinemas in the US. Westerns were dead and during the VietNam era war movies were out of fashion. This left Hollywood macho with few options, thus the disaster movie was born. It started with "Airport" in 1970, which divided like a bacteria to produce Airport '75, Airport '77, and Airport '79. One of the biggest disaster flicks was "The Towering Inferno" in 1974.

These disaster movies were very formulaic. You spend an hour getting to know (and either love or hate) the innocent bystanders, then - WHAM! Disaster strikes, and for the rest of the film the audience plays "Guess Who Croaks." You can see why Star Wars was such a big deal.

Anyway, "The Steel Inferno" and "Survival on Charter 220" clearly follow the disaster film plan. Roy and Johnny have to take a back seat so the victims' characters can be developed. This is disappointing, but the emergency response action scenes are as good as ever.

As an Emergency! fan, this is the last of the DVD sets I would buy.

I can hardly wait for this to be released! True, it is the movies that followed the series, but that just means I have another hour to watch my two favorite paramedics!

In all honesty, I've only watched 2 of the movies in this set so far... Greatest Rescues and Survival on Charter 220. Sadly, they were both disappointing and I'm not sure I'm going to watch the rest. The Greatest Rescues were anything but. I think they picked the most boring out of the 6 seasons, and there were a lot to pick from. I also agree with another review I read elsewhere...why not have some commentary by the stars themselves on this episode? What a missed opportunity. Universal really dropped the ball on that. Three cast members are already gone and who among us isn't getting older...? I'm a huge E! fan so for me to say what I've seen so far is lame is difficult, but I was sorely disappointed.

So this is it, the final rescues have arrived, and like season six, beautifully restored and the way it was originally aired in its full two hours and no syndicated opening titles. Unfortuantly I can't say much greatness for every episode, the two San Francisco episodes did not impress me at all and it seemed like they didn't have a lot of great acting on it, my favorite besides "grestest rescues..." will have to be "survival on charter 220" but yet the downfall of this episode is the very minimal appearence of Gage and Desoto, and that Robert Fuller decided not to continue to do any more of these movies after "Steel Inferno" and that the engine 51 crew were nt in the two LA episodes that were made, (due to them being written off after Tim Donelly ( Chet Kelly ) refused to do them when he was told he would not be paid because he was paid retro for episodes on season six that were not not filmed ). I did think the Seattle episode "Most deadly passage" was a well written and well done epeisode, and although " Steel Inferno" had some great guest stars , like Linda Gray ,and the very attractive Anne Lockhart, I felt this movie seemed to drag on a bit on the action, and seemed a bit repititious. But now I can say it's great to finally have the whole series now on dvd,but now Universal has to go back and restore seasons 3, 4 and 5, before they decide to hopfully surprise us with possible blu ray releases.

Although there is a lot of good information about the movies provided here, a few things do need to be clarified:

A. Greatest Rescues did not run midway through Season 6. It ran in the fall of 1978, after the first three movies had aired in the previous season and before the two San Francisco movies ran in 1979. What the reviewer is thinking of is a two-part episode in Season 6 in which the series pilot was recut with scenes of Johnny and Roy recalling the pilot as the past.

It is true that none of the other Station 51 firefighters are in the movies, and that Johnny and Roy have a small part in Survival on Charter No. 220, but they are prominently featured in all the other movies, although other paramedics are also featured because the movies were serving as pilots to relaunch Emergency with a new cast.

While I agree that Survival on Charter No. 220 is pretty bad, and may be the worst Emergency! ever made, the other films are decent quality episodes. The Steel Inferno was jarring because the gang from Engine 51 was not there, but if you watch it knowing that is the case, it is a decent quality episode. The Seattle movie is one of the best Emergency! episodes ever and many fans put it in their Top 10. The San Francisco movies are decent, although not as strong as the Seattle movie.

It would have been neat if Universal had put the Sierra episode featuring Johnny and Roy on here because it is the missing episode for true fans. Now we will have to lobby universal to release the Sierra season in order to get the last Johnny and Roy adventure.

I received this as a gift (Which I did appreciate as it rounded out my collection), but as I remember from seeing them the first time around; it is not what you expect "Emergency" to be. They lack the overall quality of the original show - the way the people interact with each other - the drama, mixed at times with humor.
More like just another "Movie of the Week".
In two of the movies you see only a few of the original hospital staff & their roles are very limited. Even Roy and John are not in the action the way you expect them to be.
I won't go into too much detail for those who have not seen it.
Also, don't expect to see Station 51 or it's crew.
These are not bad movies. Just nothing to write home about!