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DVD TV Show Reviews

Third Watch - The Complete First Season

Third Watch - The Complete First Season by Suzanne 2/5/08

Third Watch is a show that I always wanted to watch because it looked interesting and had one of my favorite actors, Eddie Cibrian. However, I never watched it, and I think it's because it was on during some other shows I already watched, way before there were DVR's.

Having watched some of the episodes on this DVD set, I have to say it was my loss because this is a very good show. It may not have writing that's quite as good as NYPD Blue or ER, but it's still very good. The acting is just as good as on those shows, and like those shows, it tries to be very realistic in many ways.

If you were around in the 70's, you may remember a show named "Emergency!". This was a show from Jack Webb, who also did "Dragnet" and "Adam-12", two popular cop shows that tried to be realistic about life as cops in Los Angeles at that time. Emergency was about firefighters and paramedics working together, and sometimes they crossed over to Adam-12 as well.

Third Watch is "Emergency!" crossed with "Adam-12", but updated for the current era, and set in New York City. It has a large cast that play cops, firefighters, paramedics, and various hospital personnel. It has a very realistic setting in that they shot it all right in the city, and instead of using sets, they used real buildings. They also had real people sometimes crossing behind them during the shooting. I'm sure that the writing tried to be as realistic as possible insofar as they tried to be accurate. However, unlike the old shows Emergency or Adam-12, it is more like hyper-realism, the type you'd find in ER, with a little bit of that show's soap opera thrown in. In other words, making the stories exciting is more important than being real. The characters are still supposed to be "regular guys", but of course they have far more actual shootings, fires, etc. than the real life versions have. They want us to be grabbed by what happens, and how it affects people emotionally.

Anyway, it's a good show with a great cast and interesting stories. What more can you really ask? So if like me, you missed the show, watch it now.

The DVD set only has two extras. One is a look back at the show, featuring the cast and crew, and that is where I learned about how they used real buildings and all that. The other extra is a gag reel. Neither is very long, unfortunately! I wish they had more extras, and I wish they had gotten more of the cast members to speak on the retrospective.

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