Reviews

This is one of the more entertaining (and yet still bonkers) Toho monster rallies and at some points you can actually feel your grip on sanity beginning to weaken. Like many Frankenstein movies you do feel a certain amount of sympathy for the monster (not Baragon though, who looks like he escaped from a toy shop) and actually wish he would deliver a massive ass-kicking to the immaculately dressed, white gloved troops who are shooting at him. Baragon spitting feathers and the pig-on-rails scenes alone are worth the admission price. The sheer lunacy of this movie even exceeds that of King Kong Lives! Sadly the best scene is missing: the one in which Nick Adams' agent persuaded him to turn up for this particular engagement.

I'm currently watching this on my DVD HD and the pitch black night scenes made me wonder if this had been shot on tape. Now I know.

The aspect ratio also looks a bit odd even though the TV is set correctly at widescreen. It seems to have been enlarged and slightly horizontally squashed just enough to be annoying.

Something similar seems to have been done to the episodes of Bonanza (along with a change of theme music) which has its own UK satellite channel.

I can see why electronic cinema never really caught on : even modern digital video efforts usually look like crap unless they're HD and lit by a genius.

Not the most original show I've seen mainly because it reminded me very much of Search Control.

Michelle Forbes is always watchable and the other, annoyingly unfamiliar, cast members make a pretty good attempt at taking it seriously. The dialogue is sharp and witty but much of the fun lies in spotting how many movies it's ripping off: Blade Runner and The Matrix to name just two.

It could have done with higher powered cast or at least some familiar faces and a longer running time: I don't recall seeing a 44 minute pilot for this sort of show for years.

All told it's entertaining fun and far worse shows have been made into a series: "Lost" anyone?

It's a pity pilots aren't all exposed to public scrutiny and put to a vote: I think this would have been in with a chance.

After Wiseguy vanished from Sky One I believe the UK rights were acquired by the Family Channel which then closed down or changed hands.

Presumably the broadcast rights are now in limbo.

I agree that the one-off TV movie was pretty dire but Steven Bauer's version was rather good and should have been allowed to develop.

Wiseguy, in either version, is one of the best crime shows ever and it's tragic that only a tiny number of people in the UK got to see it on satellite TV. This means that there may never be a region 2 DVD release