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Special Features
- 21 episodes plus the 90-minute pilot on six discs
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
One of the more exciting and atmospheric TV adaptations of a popular comic book series, The Flash benefited from terrific special effects, but lasted only a single year on its network in 1990. The series stuck to the Scarlet Speedster's origins: police scientist Barry Allen (John Wesley Shipp) is struck by lightning during an experiment, and chemicals splashed on him during the accident give him the ability to move at incredible speeds (note: hardcore comic fans know that this is the origin for the '60s version of the Flash, not his WWII-era identity). The series partnered him with an attractive fellow scientist (Amanda Pays) who assists Barry in his crime-fighting pursuits. Where the show deviated from its source material was its choice of combatants for the Flash--episodes focused on decidedly human villains, like corrupt officials ("Watching the Detectives") and mobsters (Michael Nader played ex-cop turned hood Nicholas Pike in two episodes, including the pilot), and didn't pull in the comic's excellent "rogues' gallery" until the end of the season, when the Trickster (Mark Hamill, who appears in two episodes), Captain Cold (Michael Champion), Mirror Master (David Cassidy!), and a sort-of Reverse-Flash (in the episode "Twin Streaks") made appearances. Sadly, these appearances were too little, too late for the series, which struggled with a high per-episode price tag and a fluctuating time slot (as well as frequent breaking coverage of the Gulf War). But for the Flash faithful, the six-disc set compiles its entire 21-episode run, including the 90-minute pilot. Unfortunately, no extras are included. --Paul Gaita
Product Description
The Fastest Man Alive raced from the comics to the small screen in this hit TV series that aired on CBS from 1990-91. After a freak lab accident, police scientist Barry Allen is turned into the Flash, a super-speedster out to clean up the streets of Central City. John Wesley Shipp, Amanda Pays, Alex Desert star. <> Standard; Soundtrack: English Dolby Digital stereo; Subtitles: English, Spanish, French. 22 episodes on 6 discs. 18 hrs.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
256 of 267 people found the following review helpful
By Spiehler
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
One of television's overlooked gems! This show is yet another example of a network killing a promising offering by not letting it find an audience.
It was 1990. Pop culture was buzzing from the blockbuster success of Tim Burton's Batman. Star Trek: TNG was in its glory years. (X-Files and Lois and Clark were still three years off). CBS introduced this show in the fall. No problem, right? WRONG! CBS at the time had the rights to postseason baseball, and as a result, The Flash pinballed around the schedule, rarely appearing for consecutive weeks in the same time slot. It also didn't help that it was up against The Simpsons for part of its run. If they had waited until after baseball and parked this thing on a Friday night for a couple of years (ala Fox and The X-Files) it would have hit.
But alas, it was not to be. Even the head of CBS (Jeff Sagansky at the time, if memory serves) later apologized to John Wesley Shipp for mishandling the show. The viewing public mostly missed out on this top-shelf superhero adaptation which was faithful enough for the comic geeks (that'd be me), yet accessible enough for the casual viewer.
John Wesley Shipp played the character perfectly. Amanda Pays (of the also ahead-of-its-time Max Headroom) was a delight. Guests to look for: Richard Belzer, Mark Hamill, Jeri Ryan, Jeffry Combs. My favorite guest: the ever-reliable Jason Bernard as "The Nightshade." Watch his episodes, and you'll see how the creators of Batman: The Animated Series used Nightshade as an inspiration for "The Grey Ghost."
With Smallville, the Spiderman movies, and Batman Begins really showing us how a superhero might fit into the "real" world, you'll be amazed at how ahead of its time this series was. I think it's safe to say that until the debut of Smallville, The Flash was the best live-action superhero adaptation ever put on television. And if you're going to judge on faithfulness to source material, The Flash is still #1.
It was 1990. Pop culture was buzzing from the blockbuster success of Tim Burton's Batman. Star Trek: TNG was in its glory years. (X-Files and Lois and Clark were still three years off). CBS introduced this show in the fall. No problem, right? WRONG! CBS at the time had the rights to postseason baseball, and as a result, The Flash pinballed around the schedule, rarely appearing for consecutive weeks in the same time slot. It also didn't help that it was up against The Simpsons for part of its run. If they had waited until after baseball and parked this thing on a Friday night for a couple of years (ala Fox and The X-Files) it would have hit.
But alas, it was not to be. Even the head of CBS (Jeff Sagansky at the time, if memory serves) later apologized to John Wesley Shipp for mishandling the show. The viewing public mostly missed out on this top-shelf superhero adaptation which was faithful enough for the comic geeks (that'd be me), yet accessible enough for the casual viewer.
John Wesley Shipp played the character perfectly. Amanda Pays (of the also ahead-of-its-time Max Headroom) was a delight. Guests to look for: Richard Belzer, Mark Hamill, Jeri Ryan, Jeffry Combs. My favorite guest: the ever-reliable Jason Bernard as "The Nightshade." Watch his episodes, and you'll see how the creators of Batman: The Animated Series used Nightshade as an inspiration for "The Grey Ghost."
With Smallville, the Spiderman movies, and Batman Begins really showing us how a superhero might fit into the "real" world, you'll be amazed at how ahead of its time this series was. I think it's safe to say that until the debut of Smallville, The Flash was the best live-action superhero adaptation ever put on television. And if you're going to judge on faithfulness to source material, The Flash is still #1.
89 of 101 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
From the pages of DC Comics, the Scarlet Speedster dashes to the rescue in the live-action adventure series "The Flash". A freak laboratory accident gives police scientist Barry Allen (John Wesley Shipp, Dawson's Creek) the ability to move at incredible speeds. With the help of a fellow research scientist (Amanda Pays, Max Headroom), the fastest man alive known as the Flash uses his powers to clean up the streets of Central City from menacing criminals like the Trickster, Captain Cold, Mirror Master and much more. "The Flash" first aired on CBS in 1990. Due to strong network competition and constant preemptions of breaking Gulf War news coverage, the live-action series recieved weak ratings and only lasted one season. Despite its short-lived run, "The Flash" was a well produced adaptation of the popular comic book character. The series features some worthy storylines, cool visual effects and a great music score. It also includes guest stars like Richard Beltzer (Law & Order: SVU), Gloria Reuben (ER), David Cassidy (The Partridge Family), Jeri Ryan (Boston Public), Bryan Cranston (Malcolm in the Middle), Angela Bassett (The Score) and Mark Hamill (Star Wars).
Fans who have waited for the DVD release of the live-action DC Comics series will be somewhat disappointed with "The Flash: The Complete Series" 6-Disc Box Set. All 21 episodes are presented in their original full screen format. Its picture quality is simple but reasonably clear. Its 2.0 Dolby Digital sound is rather enjoyable. Unfortunately, this 6-Disc set doesn't include supplemental extras. Despite its unimpressive presentation, "The Flash" is a fine addition to any comic book fan's DVD collection and receives a "B-".
Fans who have waited for the DVD release of the live-action DC Comics series will be somewhat disappointed with "The Flash: The Complete Series" 6-Disc Box Set. All 21 episodes are presented in their original full screen format. Its picture quality is simple but reasonably clear. Its 2.0 Dolby Digital sound is rather enjoyable. Unfortunately, this 6-Disc set doesn't include supplemental extras. Despite its unimpressive presentation, "The Flash" is a fine addition to any comic book fan's DVD collection and receives a "B-".
95 of 111 people found the following review helpful
By Erik Mann
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
DO NOT BUY THIS DVD SET RIGHT NOW...the first disc in the set WILL NOT play the entire pilot episode, and even Warner Bros admits it. Read on and you'll see who I talked too at Warner Bros about this !!!
I'm a huge fan of The Flash. Thus, I pre-ordered the set back in December and got it on January 11th. Kudos to Amazon for being so quick about getting it to me. Disc # 1, at 1 hr and 31 minutes into the Pilot episode, has problems. It actually freezes and locks-up my Philips DVP-642 dvd player I got here about 2 months ago. The only disc that player has a had a problem with! I ran a check on the disc 1 of that set with one of Nero's tools (software for burning) and it says that the file "VTS_01_4.VOB" is bad and that 1.82% of the disc is unreadable. If you have disc 1 and Nero, you might want to run a "file scan" and "surface scan" too. I suspect that either the media used to create the sets is bad, or the duplication equipment to create the sets.
In any case, on Sunday January 22nd at 10PM, I went online to www.amazon.com/returns there's a "Contact" link there, that says "Call Now". I figured for grins I'd click on it, and in about 2 seconds my phone rang. I explained the issue and within 2 days I had my 2nd set (bravo to Amazon cust. svc...wow!).
Ultimately, I found that the 2nd set had the same exact error on the 1st disc. I fast forwarded to 1 hr 31 min on the disc, and it locks-up my Philips dvd player, gets the dvd drive spinning endlessly in a loop, requiring the dvd player be unpowered to stop that. I ran the Nero check again, file "VTS_01_4.VOB" on the disc comes back as "read error" and again, exactly 1.82% of the disc tests as "unreadable" with Nero.
With 2 sets of this in a row bad, and the same error at the same exact spot, one can't blame Amazon. Thus I suspected Warner Bros. might have to recall this entire series, and/or fire the company responsible for creating the sets, as I believe there to be a major quality control issue that should've been caught, before this set hit retailers shelves.
UPDATE: Every year for over 10 yrs I kept hoping this series would be released, and I've waited too long for this series to come out, to let stupid playback issues go unresolved. So I called some lame Warner Bros cust. svc. number in Tampa, FL (800-364-6928) and they didn't know what to do about this. Next, I called Warner Bros in CA. (1-818-954-6000) about the issues everyone here, including myself, has with the disks in this set. I was initially ignored, so I found a website with email addresses for all the big shots at Warner (CEO, Pres, VP's, etc). I emailed them all about the issue, pointed them to the reviews here on Amazon with complaints about dvd playback, included screenshots of my test results, and Sherri Bogard (Sherri.Bogard@warnerbros.com) who handles "Defective DVD" issues for "Warner Home Video" emailed me within (2) hours stating:
"Warner Home Video is in the process of setting up a return program for this specific title (yes, we will be fixing the disc). Right now I do not have an estimated time frame, but as soon as I do, I will let you know".
I think that's about as close too a subtle admission of "yep, it doesn't work, we screwed up, and QC should've caught it before it hit retailers shelves" as any of us can hope for ;-)
You'd think WB would have some $8-$10/hr kid who sits in a room full of various dvd players in their offices, pops in discs one after another, and does nothing but look for playback/freezing issues on stuff like this, before its released. Or at least they have some kind of software or equipment to scan the disk. I now suspect they have neither, or they would've caught this. Hint to Warner Bros...have a room full of PC's with DVD burners in them, install Nero, and use the Nero tool called "CD Check". If WB had, they would've caught this!
If you own this set and you're frustrated about the "bad media" WB allowed this to be burned too, you might want to email Sherri and put your name on what's likely to become a long list of people like myself, needing a replacement for at least Disc 1. In the meantime, I'm going to do software tests on "file" and "surface structure" of the other disks in this set.
I'm a huge fan of The Flash. Thus, I pre-ordered the set back in December and got it on January 11th. Kudos to Amazon for being so quick about getting it to me. Disc # 1, at 1 hr and 31 minutes into the Pilot episode, has problems. It actually freezes and locks-up my Philips DVP-642 dvd player I got here about 2 months ago. The only disc that player has a had a problem with! I ran a check on the disc 1 of that set with one of Nero's tools (software for burning) and it says that the file "VTS_01_4.VOB" is bad and that 1.82% of the disc is unreadable. If you have disc 1 and Nero, you might want to run a "file scan" and "surface scan" too. I suspect that either the media used to create the sets is bad, or the duplication equipment to create the sets.
In any case, on Sunday January 22nd at 10PM, I went online to www.amazon.com/returns there's a "Contact" link there, that says "Call Now". I figured for grins I'd click on it, and in about 2 seconds my phone rang. I explained the issue and within 2 days I had my 2nd set (bravo to Amazon cust. svc...wow!).
Ultimately, I found that the 2nd set had the same exact error on the 1st disc. I fast forwarded to 1 hr 31 min on the disc, and it locks-up my Philips dvd player, gets the dvd drive spinning endlessly in a loop, requiring the dvd player be unpowered to stop that. I ran the Nero check again, file "VTS_01_4.VOB" on the disc comes back as "read error" and again, exactly 1.82% of the disc tests as "unreadable" with Nero.
With 2 sets of this in a row bad, and the same error at the same exact spot, one can't blame Amazon. Thus I suspected Warner Bros. might have to recall this entire series, and/or fire the company responsible for creating the sets, as I believe there to be a major quality control issue that should've been caught, before this set hit retailers shelves.
UPDATE: Every year for over 10 yrs I kept hoping this series would be released, and I've waited too long for this series to come out, to let stupid playback issues go unresolved. So I called some lame Warner Bros cust. svc. number in Tampa, FL (800-364-6928) and they didn't know what to do about this. Next, I called Warner Bros in CA. (1-818-954-6000) about the issues everyone here, including myself, has with the disks in this set. I was initially ignored, so I found a website with email addresses for all the big shots at Warner (CEO, Pres, VP's, etc). I emailed them all about the issue, pointed them to the reviews here on Amazon with complaints about dvd playback, included screenshots of my test results, and Sherri Bogard (Sherri.Bogard@warnerbros.com) who handles "Defective DVD" issues for "Warner Home Video" emailed me within (2) hours stating:
"Warner Home Video is in the process of setting up a return program for this specific title (yes, we will be fixing the disc). Right now I do not have an estimated time frame, but as soon as I do, I will let you know".
I think that's about as close too a subtle admission of "yep, it doesn't work, we screwed up, and QC should've caught it before it hit retailers shelves" as any of us can hope for ;-)
You'd think WB would have some $8-$10/hr kid who sits in a room full of various dvd players in their offices, pops in discs one after another, and does nothing but look for playback/freezing issues on stuff like this, before its released. Or at least they have some kind of software or equipment to scan the disk. I now suspect they have neither, or they would've caught this. Hint to Warner Bros...have a room full of PC's with DVD burners in them, install Nero, and use the Nero tool called "CD Check". If WB had, they would've caught this!
If you own this set and you're frustrated about the "bad media" WB allowed this to be burned too, you might want to email Sherri and put your name on what's likely to become a long list of people like myself, needing a replacement for at least Disc 1. In the meantime, I'm going to do software tests on "file" and "surface structure" of the other disks in this set.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Flash-back
I was watching tv with my sons 12&19, and we were talking about superhero shows on tv. I told them about The Flash, and they laughed. So I bought the series on Amazon. Read more
Published 24 days ago by michael SMITH
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gone too soon.
For a made for tv super hero series that's nearly 25 years old, this actually holds up pretty well. Unfortunately, most of the bad guys are two bit thugs and crooked scientists. Read more
Published 1 month ago by J. Armstrong
4.0 out of 5 stars
Flashback
This was everything I remember and more. The show may seem a bit silly, but it plays out like a silver age comic. Could have used some special features. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Fantasy Fan
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Flash: The Complete Series
Great set! Having grown up on The Flash, Green Lantern, Batman, etc. this provides a great escape back to those times. I liked the TV series when it first came out. Read more
Published 2 months ago by WT
4.0 out of 5 stars
One of the first recent attempts at a live action superhero show
I remember the Flash being on back in 1990 a little, but it was one of those shows that ended up moving time slots and as a result became hard to follow. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Mike S.
5.0 out of 5 stars
i remember
I remember when show originally aired and was excited when I saw I could buy it. I just received it today and watched 1st disk no issues. Read more
Published 2 months ago by June_bug72
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mostly a disappointment but probably worth what I paid for the things...
Mostly a disappointment but probably worth what I paid for the things I enjoyed.
I agree with the Amazon.com Editorial Review 100%. Read more
I agree with the Amazon.com Editorial Review 100%. Read more
Published 2 months ago by R. Nogach
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excelent product. Excelente producto
This is an awesome boxset (BR), I recommend everyone to buy it... Este es un gran boxset (BR), Se lo recomiendo a todos para que lo compren.
Published 3 months ago by Héctor
3.0 out of 5 stars
Wow. The 90's were just not good, were they?
I collect "superhero" movies and shows. I needed this one as a representative of a DC comics hero on film.
Hmmm. Read more
Hmmm. Read more
Published 3 months ago by G. V. Thomas
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Live Verison Of The Flash.
As of 2/9/13 I had no problems with the DVD playback.
This show had so much great potential. It was just maybe created at the wrong place at the wrong time. Read more
This show had so much great potential. It was just maybe created at the wrong place at the wrong time. Read more
Published 3 months ago by officespace
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