For some odd reason, I had fond memories of watching this American TV series when shown on the ITV network in Britain during the spring of 1986. I have recently purchased the series on DVD but the only impressive thing was the fact that it had been restored in HD. It's odd how your perception can change over time as the revisit of this after 35 years turned out to be disappointing.
The show's main weakness seemed to be a lack of originality in the scripts. Most episodes were tiringly predictable: McAllister and his protege Keller would turn up in the nick of time to rescue a damsel in distress, and martial arts sequences were abundant throughout as the good guys did battle with the baddies and always won. I think this series could have done with a rewrite as it appeared to be no different than many of the other action series that made their appearance in the 1980s. I also thought that Van Patten didn't come across convincingly and that perhaps the show would have benefited from someone a few years older. The fact that it only ran to 13 episodes is also no big surprise. Halfway through watching the DVD box set I had the distinct impression that even if this had been allowed to go further it would have struggled for new and innovative storylines.
The show's main weakness seemed to be a lack of originality in the scripts. Most episodes were tiringly predictable: McAllister and his protege Keller would turn up in the nick of time to rescue a damsel in distress, and martial arts sequences were abundant throughout as the good guys did battle with the baddies and always won. I think this series could have done with a rewrite as it appeared to be no different than many of the other action series that made their appearance in the 1980s. I also thought that Van Patten didn't come across convincingly and that perhaps the show would have benefited from someone a few years older. The fact that it only ran to 13 episodes is also no big surprise. Halfway through watching the DVD box set I had the distinct impression that even if this had been allowed to go further it would have struggled for new and innovative storylines.