MovieChat Forums > Emergency! (1972) Discussion > The Emergency movies--thoughts?

The Emergency movies--thoughts?

posted 10 years ago by charcas67
100 replies | jump to latest

Since old threads were cleaned out, I'm going to start a new one on the 6 Emergency movies, now that I've seen all of them (except Greatest Rescues).

These movies are certainly anti-climatic. Not enough Johnny and Roy. Rampart is barely featured in two of them, and in one of them, Brackett is missing. I really miss the Station 51 crew. The first two movies, Steel Inferno and Charter #220, are pretty much rip offs of the highly successful 70s disaster movies Towering Inferno and Airport 1975.

Of the Disaster movie Emergency movies, I prefer Steel Inferno: some of the soap opera subplots weren't too bad; Johnny and Roy had some serious work to do in the rescues; and everyone from Rampart was there.

Charter #220 was my least favorite of the five movies. Very little Johnny and Roy. And all the soap opera plots of the victims/participants of the big crash and its aftermath were rather dull and uninvolving, especially the long drawn out scene of the kids playing sandlot baseball. And I didn't like the Squad getting destroyed, nor seeing none of the familiar Station 51 crew on the STation 51 set.

Setting the next 3 in Seattle and San Francisco was a better idea in one way--change of scenery. And it made me miss Rampart and the Station 51 crew less as they wouldn't have gone to those cities with Johnny and Roy. But because they were there to observe or attend a paramedics convention, they couldn't play too large a role in the rescues.

I prefer the Seattle movie to the two SF movies. I like how all the characters ended up on the ferry. And the story about the captain retiring and taking his wife on his last ride was pretty moving. And I enjoyed the mix up of where Johnny and Roy would lodge with Roy hanging out with a single guy with Johnny stuck helping the family man, wife and kid help their horse give birth.

For the SF movies, I did like the Sniper subplot and what they had to do rescue the victims and take him out. I enjoy Patty McCormack as the paramedic married to the clueless professor...she's a lively performer. I didn't like the other woman paramedic--something about her turned me off, she seemed rather cold and distant, especially next to Mantooth, Tigher and McCormack. And her boyfriend was rather charmless as was the doctor hitting on her all the time at the hospital. Also enjoyed the Polish art film bit with Desoto and Gage. I think we learned more about Desoto in Convention than we did in 6 seasons of Emergency. However the party scene in Convention went on too long. Still both SF episodes have too much time devoted to the SF firefighers and paramedics and they just were not interesting enough. No shock that NBC didn't pick up Emergency San Francisco as a new series as I understand these two movies were intended in part as a try out for a SF based Emergency show.

Still I enjoyed watching the teamwork in all of the climactic emergency/rescues. And Randy and Kevin are always enjoyable to watch interacting with each other, when we got the chance to watch them.

[–] slackersmom 10 years ago

I agree w/ you on just about every single thing you point out. In the Charter 220 movie I remember rolling my eyes because in the 2 minutes Johnny & Roy were on screen, Johnny got hurt, lol. But after they got out of that house, Roy said something like "let's go find the aid station," and they disappeared!! At the time I said "Where's the aid station--Nevada??"

I totally agree that Roy & Johnny's presence was all but wasted in the Seattle and SF movies because they couldn't actually DO anything. Would have loved to see them face a truly dire life-or-death situation and mutually decide to chuck the rules and jump in to help. If nothing else it would've given Johnny a chance to swear mildly (as in "the hell with the rules").

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] slackersmom 10 years ago

Well, MeTV has once again come to the end of the six seasons of Emergency! Based on their schedule for the remainder of this month, it doesn't look like they're going to air the movies this time around. (I know, we're all devastated, right?? ) Instead, once the final regular episode airs on 9/24, MeTV will start again with season 1. (But not with Mascot... for some reason, they don't usually show that one, so they'll begin with Botulism. Interestingly, Netflix doesn't have Mascot either, altho both Hulu and NBC Classics do. Wonder why??)

[–] belaglik 9 years ago

This year (2015), MeTV is airing the movies by splitting them in two parts and running them as back-to-back episodes. I watched "The Steel Inferno" yesterday and "Charter #220" today.

The plane crash scenes in "Charter" are horrible and completely unbelievable. It's pretty obvious they were attempting to copy the disaster movies of the 70s in these movies, which is not a good thing at all. Serious shark jumping! Wait, does someone get eaten by a shark in one of these? Never mind. I'm not sure I want to know.

Of course, the main problem as noted in other posts are that the original core characters are treated as secondary. I guess they figure we already knew everything there is to know about the crews at Station 51 and Rampart General. In the original shows, there was almost no backstory of the victims/patients, which was fine. We didn't get to meet them until John and Roy did and we didn't know their life story until they got to Rampart. Getting to know the patients before their accidents does not make them more endearing. It also seems that they were trying to copy other medical dramas of the late 70s like Quincy, a model that just didn't fit Emergency.

I'm not too impressed with a lot of the new characters, but I liked seeing John de Lancie (Q from Star Trek) as a new doctor. I would have liked to have seen more of him in "Inferno." I will consider watching some of the other movies to see if his character is developed a bit more. Pity if it isn't.

[–] colbarre 10 years ago

Agree, the movies, save for a few moments here and there, were bad. There were times I felt that even Randy and Kevin didn't want to be there LOL!

[–] slackersmom 10 years ago

I totally agree. I wonder if these movies were made at the tail end of R & K's contracts, so they were more or less obligated to be involved. I bet that in real life, they were itching to move on with their careers.

[–] colbarre 10 years ago

I believe that is correct, I heard RM and KT had to fulfill their contract obligations and Robert Fuller I believe was able to wiggle out after a couple of the movies. I never considered the movies as S7 either because they were so bad and featured so very little of RM and KT.

[–] youngtrek 10 years ago

Yes. Here's an excerpt regarding the cancellation of "Emergency!" and the making of the six two-hour post-series television "movies-of-the-week" from the EMERGENCY!: BEHIND THE SCENES book:

"'Emergency!' was cancelled after five and a half seasons, even though it typically beat most of the competition, mainly 'All in the Family'. The show garnered a respectable 28 ratings share, envious by today's standards. The show, however, was already sold for another twenty-two-episode season. The problem was that MCA/Universal's 'The Bionic Woman', which began airing in 1976, needed an additional year for profitable syndication[...] Something had to go, and a new NBC programming executive and former head of CBS Records, Irwin Segelstein, canceled 'Emergency!'. Ironically, 'The Bionic Woman' lasted only the additional season[...]"

"During this time, Segelstien wanted to replace 'Emergency!' with a series titled 'Quail Lake'. The 90-minute pilot/movie aired on May 18, 1977, as 'Pine Canyon Is Burning', starring 'Adam-12's' Kent McCord as a LA County Fire Captain at Station 110. The same producers, writers, and directors from 'Emergency!' developed the pilot for MCA/Universal Television [...] The series was not developed, and NBC's vice chairman Segelstein was gone 6 months later."

"Randy Mantooth and Kevin Tighe were brought back to fulfill their 7-year contract and appeared in six post-series movies. This unfortunately did not include the crew of Engine 51, although the hospital cast was brought back for two of the movies [Robert Fuller as Dr. Brackett for only the first one]."

(Having just watched the first two, Mantooth and Tighe are in quite a bit of "Steel Inferno", so I'll bet they had to be on set shooting quite a bit for that one. However, what with the very short amount of screen time they had in the second tv movie, "Survival on Charter 220", I wouldn't be surprised if they managed to get all of their shooting done for that one in only a couple days or so. Although, what with the nature of shooting television and movies, they may have had their scenes spread out over the course of the overall shoot due to practical concerns such as shooting all of the necessary footage in one location or interior set needed for the entire movie prior to being able to move to the next set or location.)

David Young
Riverview, Florida

[–] mawsis 10 years ago

The movies were AWFUL.

[–] youngtrek 10 years ago

Well, I've just watched the first two of the six post-series "Emergency!" tv movies-of-the-week (via the "Emergency!: The Final Rescues" DVD set). I agree with most in that they are disappointing in many ways, especially when ones realizes that this is the last times we will see Roy and Johnny and the Rampart gang. However, I have to admit that I had become fascinated by the very existence of them when I heard they had done six post-series two-hour movies and I think every die-hard "Emergency!" fan should still see them if for not other reason than curiosity's sake.

I *do* like some things about both of these first two movies.

"The Steel Inferno" has the better use of Roy and Johnny of the first two movies (as others have already posted in this thread). Both movies take a rather long time in setting up the background characters (the ones who will have to be rescued and the "guest-star" paramedics, firemen, etc.). "Steel Inferno" takes a bit less time for this than "Rescue on Charter #220", though, and once Roy and Johnny get called in on the fire we do get to see them quite a bit from that part forward. I also really like the use of Dr. Brackett (who I will very much miss in "Rescue on Charter #220") and Dr. Morton (who is in both movies serving on the on-site trauma teams, which is a nice touch; likewise, the inclusion of "Officer Vince" (Vince Howard) in both movies). Likewise, Dr. Early and Nurse McCall staying back at Rampart to handle things there. The fact that everyone is present--with the notable for the Engine 51 crew (if I recall correctly there is a quick line about a brush fire going on somewhere else in the county at the same time; I can only presume Engine 51 was already involved in that when the high rise fire started) makes this first movie generally satisfying to me.

"Survival on Charter #220" I have more mixed feelings about. As a general two-hour disaster genre tv movie-of-the-week of its period, it's all right, I suppose. They spend almost half of the movie getting things set up (introducing the various characters and getting everyone in place for the inevitable crash). In some ways it gets things right. First off, for the first half hour or so it *feels" the most like a typical episode of the series. Interposed between the scenes on the planes, we get some rather nice scenes with the "other" Squad 51 shift interacting with each other, making a late night rescue, and back in the station (complete with obvious re-use of Squad 51 leaving the station at night footage; that guy left behind closing the garage door sure walks like Stoker, doesn't he?). And we get the scene or two back at Rampart with Dr. Morton, Nurse McCall, and the new doctor who Dr. Morton is getting onto about her poor bedside manner (irony of ironies, as she points out, Dr. Morton criticizing someone else over bedside manner).

Once the places crash and the actual rescue work begins, we get some really nicely set up material of the firemen trying to contain the various fires sprouting up all over the place and to locate and rescue victims in the planes and on the ground. You can tell they really spent a lot of time and money on the second half of the movie.

Unfortunately, the negatives outweigh the positives here. First off, they make most of the characters on the two planes very unlikable. The only ones I really end up caring about in the end are the stewardess and maybe the pilots on the governor's plane. I very quickly couldn't stand either of the two in the other plane (the plane which actually caused the crash because the woman turned off his radio and he, stupidly, never turned it back on), nor did I end up caring about either the governor or any of the others surrounding him. (I did like the two other Squad 51 paramedics and their related characters, including the girl who got hit on the head withe baseball.)

Second, there are several hard to believe moments due to execution (most likely lack of budget) or situations. I can't believe neither of the two planes saw each other until literally seconds before they collided because the pilots on the governor's plane was being told about the other plane in their vicinity. And, of course, they couldn't actually show the planes hitting each other (too expensive for a tv movie). And, of course, the governor's plane crashes right where most of the movie's on-the-ground characters have been set up (yet without killing any of them, just several of those already on the planes). And, of course, we have the rather cliche situation of the older man being trapped under the nose of the plane in his basement and his dog getting out to let the firemen know where he is.

The worst things about this movie are that for the first time in a long time it feels like a general disaster story--in this case, television movie--merely *guest-starring* some of the "Emergency!" characters. As others have already pointed out, Johnny and Roy are barely in this movie. Matter a fact, I think I can remember off the top of my head all of their scenes. First, they arrive at Station 51 to relieve the other shift (including the single really good Roy and Johnny scene where they are arguing with each other about Johnny borrowing a bunch of Roy's things and not giving them back; Roy: "You want to borrow my truck to cart all of that other stuff back to me?"), then they are at Rampart when they get the call about the girl with the unknown injury, then they arrive at the house and start to treat here when all of a sudden the planes crash and the roof drops in on them. Then, quite a bit later, while the other two paramedics are trying to get into the house, we finally get a shot of the inside with Johnny unconscious and Roy trying to call the hospital and the fire department dispatcher back but not being able to make contact with either. Then, in the next interior scene with them Johnny comes to, followed by the last scene we have with Roy and Johnny where the other paramedics manage to get them out of the house. There's still a good twenty plus minutes left in the movie and we never see Roy or Johnny again (unless that fireman sitting on the ground in the triage area when Dr. Morton walks by is perhaps one of them). Definitely no more scenes with both of them or with any actual dialogue.

I was especially disappointed that they didn't show even a momentary reaction shot from either of them upon realizing that the squad had been crushed by one of the plane's falling engines. I know that it's just a vehicle but still, they'd been driving that squad for over six years (and it was one of the key visual touchstones of the series to us viewers; to us die hard "Emergency!" fans, it was akin to seeing the General Lee or B.J. McKay's red and white semi-truck or K.I.T.T. from "Knight Rider" getting destroyed). Destroying it worked within the context of it being where it was in the midst of the where the plane went down, but they really needed a tag scene once everyone was safe and the scene of the accident was secure to show Johnny and Roy going back and having one last moment with the wrecked squad.

I was also constantly distracted by not only the absence (again) of the Engine 51 crew, but more importantly this time that of Dr. Brackett. I realize that he may not have been on duty when the crash happened but with something of that magnitude I'm sure he would have been called in anyway. They really needed at least one throw away line about Dr. Brackett being away at a medical conference or something to cover for his absence. Likewise, they could have had Engine 51 at the scene via radio reports and perhaps even a shot of the truck arriving at the scene without having to show any of the actual firemen inside of it.

It seems like the writers were more interested in resolving the various rescue victims situations in the last fifteen minutes rather than showing the impact on the "Emergency!" regulars (or even the guest-star paramedics from the other Squad 51 shift, as they completely disappear too once the girl has been taken to the hospital). As a result, when the end credits came up I couldn't help but think to myself, "That's it?" It felt like the movie finished before the story did, leaving out important resolution moments with Roy and Johnny and also with the two other Squad 51 paramedics.

I'm going much more into detail about "Charter 220" because I just watched it and the details are more fresh on my mind. I watched "Steel Inferno" last night. Regarding "Inferno", I have to say that I was very impressed by a lot of the locations they used, both exterior shots of the high rise and also the interiors, particularly the work they did inside the elevator shaft.

David Young
Riverview, Florida

[–] winterlori 10 years ago

So I just watched "Survival on Charter 220. Ugh, it was difficult to get through. I agree youngtrek it was fine for a regular TV movie of the week, but don't try to pass it off as an Emergency! movie. I know I watched it back in the day when it was first run, but I don't think I've seen it since. My main complaint, obviously, is the lack of Johnny and Roy. I think even the hospital staff was in it more than them, except for Dr. Brackett of course.

I did not like the other Squad 51 paramedics as it seemed to me they were trying to create another Johnny and Roy, i.e. one dark hair, one blonde. And I thought it was really stupid that the plane just happened to crash right next door to them and Johnny and Roy just happened to be in there.

I did enjoy the conversation with Roy and Johnny in the locker room like you, youngtrek. And Johnny has a dog we never heard about before!

I thought it was odd that Roy asked Johnny after he woke up "you okay?" Obviously he's not. He's bleeding from his head and has been unconscious for several minutes. And then Johnny just gets up and seems fine. Roy does suggest he visit the first aid station but then they get out of the house and we never see them again. Ugh, so frustrating.

And yes, I agree, they should have shown their reaction to their squad being smashed.

[–] stgcomm 10 years ago

Youngtrek wrote:

Second, there are several hard to believe moments due to execution (most likely lack of budget) or situations. I can't believe neither of the two planes saw each other until literally seconds before they collided because the pilots on the governor's plane was being told about the other plane in their vicinity

Had reality not imitated art in Southern California, six months after Survival on Charter 220 aired you might have had a point (no offense)...

Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) Flight 182 was a Boeing 727-214 commercial airliner, registration N533PS, that collided with a private Cessna 172 light aircraft, registration N7711G, over San Diego, California on September 25, 1978.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSA_Flight_182

Reading the radio transcripts, it is very close to the incident in the show- the article even mentions the episode.

As a funny point of trivia, James A. Watson, Jr. was in the cockpit in both Survival on Charter 220 and Airplane! II ! He also appeared as a deputy D.A. in a number of Quincy M.E. episodes.

Plots aside, I enjoyed seeing the depictions of infrastructure, emergency operations and apparatus in San Francisco and Seattle- especially the Seattle FD marine units.

The "chemical plant" propane explosion in The Convention was filmed at some support buildings at the former Hamilton Army Air Field (later AFB) in Novato, CA. The clues are there that the scene was shot at or in view of an abandoned airport, and after an online search it turned out to be Hamilton as verified by the locality and looking at historical photos that showed the design and placement of the hangars. I, however, have yet to locate shots of the “support area” with the warehouses, heating plant, etc.

Of the movies, The Steel Inferno is my favorite because of the somewhat realistic high rise fire operations. I agree that we could have done without the soapy parts. It might have been one of the best episodes of the series- lots of action- if it had been 45-50 minutes long (1 hour on TV) and had the usual Station 51/ Rampart crew. It would have been unusual in that it would have been a single incident episode, although this had occasionally been done before with several related incidents occurring within the backdrop of a major incident, like Brushfire or Isolation, or the never produced "earthquake episode". (Why was there never an earthquake on EMERGENCY!?)

[–] winterlori 10 years ago

Another thing I forgot to add about Survival, Charter 220, did you notice the color of the biophone box changed? It is no longer orange, but white. Johnny is carrying it when they go into the little girl's house who was hit by the baseball. I was wondering at the time why they didn't take the biophone, but then he started talking on the phone handset and it is connected to the white box.

[–] youngtrek 10 years ago

Having just watched the third tv movie, "Most Deadly Passage", I found that I actually *liked* this one (surprise, surprise)! I think I enjoyed for three main reasons:

1) Roy and Johnny and in it a *lot*. Maybe even more than they were in "Steel Inferno" (definitely a lot more than they were in "Survival on Charter 220"). It had some nice personal moments between the two of them as well as between them and the two Seattle "Medic 1" paramedics. And, while they were still observers only, they did take things into their own hands a bit in the big ship explosion/evacuation at the end ("What are we just standing here?" "Good question, let's go.")

2) I didn't find any of the characters in this own especially unlikable (as I had with the more soap opera type sub-plot characters in the first two tv movies). On the contrary, I think I liked just about everyone in this movie, especially the captain of the ferry boat and his wife.

3) This tv movie had some truly spectacular exterior location shots of Seattle and the surrounding area. Shots on the water, Puget Sound, the snow covered farm one of the Seattle paramedics owns, etc. And I found the rescue sequence at the King Dome to have been especially well done and exciting (the helicopter shots of the two paramedics climbing those long rows of steps along the roof of the dome to be able to get access directly above where the injured man was stuck dangling in the "video booth" hanging from the inside ceiling of the dome. It all looked spectacular on my big screen tv. (This TV movie is actually one of the few episodes of "Emergency!" that I would personally recommend for a blu-ray release because of all of the great visuals.) Likewise, they did a really good job with all of the interiors of the ferry boat engine room.

So, so far, after having watched the first three movies, my personal take:

1) "Steel Inferno": okay
2) "Survival on Charter 220": ehh
3) "Most Deadly Passage": good

David Young
Riverview, Florida

(P.S.--One other thought. Looking at the original release dates of the first three movies, they aired on:

1) "Steel Inferno" - January 7, 1978
2) "Survival on Charter 220" - March 25, 1978
3) "Most Deadly Passage" - April 4, 1978

So, if these dates are correct, "Most Deadly Passage" aired just one week after "Charter 220". Perhaps this is why they didn't have Randy Mantooth and Kevin Tighe very much in "Charter 220", since they knew they would be used rather heavily in the first and the third tv movies and wanted to give the two actors a lighter load in between?)

[–] winterlori 10 years ago

Thanks for all your commentary on the "after movies" youngtrek. I have yet to watch all of them because I am dreading it. I know I must have watched them back in 1978-79 when they first aired but I don't really remember them. Mostly because I know Roy and Johnny aren't in them much. I did recently watch "The Steel Inferno" and I agree it was ok, but Roy and Johnny were not in it enough and I missed the rest of the Station 51 guys. I missed Captain Stanley standing there ordering everyone around and calling out orders on his handy talkie to the incoming engine companies. But, I do have the entire series on DVD so I do have the movies and I will watch them. I'll just have to drink a lot of wine while I watch. I'm encouraged to know that Most Deadly Passage is better than the other two and Roy and Johnny are more present.

Thanks again for your thoughts and keep on posting as you watch the movies. Maybe I'll watch a couple during the holidays and can catch up with you.

[–] winterlori 10 years ago

I liked this movie also. Johnny and Roy were in most of it as opposed to Charter 220. However, even though they were in it, they never really did a lot of their "paramedic thing". They were pretty much guests, but again, at least they were in it. I liked how they originally teamed up Roy with the swinging single guy and Johnny with the married guy on the farm. Luckily they got that worked out. I'm glad too they didn't have any soap opera-ish stories as they did for Steel Inferno and Charter 220. The other characters didn't really annoy me like the Steel Inferno and Charter 220 ones, but I didn't really love them either.

I liked the rescue at the King Dome also. This was especially interesting to me since we went to a Seattle Seahawks game a few years ago and the Book said they demolished the King Dome to build the new Seahawks stadium.

I loved the scene at the end of this movie with Roy and Johnny talking to the other paramedic team from Seattle who are bickering (sound familiar?) Johnny then says, "I wonder what that was all about?" and Roy says, "Oh, you know how it is with partners. One says something and the other overreacts and then there's a big misunderstanding . . . " And Johnny says, "what do you mean by that?" as they walk away bickering in the distance. I thoroughly enjoyed that whole scene. That's the Johnny and Roy that we know and love. And I love that Roy specifically used the word "overreact" because that was always what Johnny did.

[–] youngtrek 10 years ago

The fourth TV movie to air, "What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing...?" really didn't leave much of an impression on me one way or another. A few nice Roy and Johnny moments (most notably Johnny's womanizing backfiring on him with "Eager Ellen"). The whole thing about if women could make for good paramedics is very dated now, of course, although I guess it did reflect attitudes at the time the tv movie first aired.

The big rescue at the end of the movie with the ship in the harbor on fire was impressive, of course (and it was nice seeing Johnny jumping in the water to save one of the San Francisco firemen).

The scenery was nice at times but it wasn't anywhere near as impressive as it was in Seattle though.

I found it interesting that this time around they made several remarks about how San Francisco's paramedics program seemed behind that of Roy and Johnny's back in Los Angeles. For instance, Johnny, while riding with the firemen, wants to at least start to check a man's vitals but is told they have to wait for the actual paramedics to arrive, that all the firemen could do was provide oxygen to the victim in the meantime. And later, at the scene of an automobile accident involving an a car and an ambulance, Roy asks if they can give one of the victims something for the pain and is told that they don't have the legal clearance to administer those drugs yet (as Roy apparently would back home). I found this to be interesting as in the Seattle movie they seemed to go the other direction, demonstrating how Seattle had an almost superior system to the L.A. one in many ways. (Then again, they had to admit that the Seattle model probably wouldn't work with the much larger population in Los Angeles county.)

The moment from "What's a Nice Girl" that really stood out to me is a really funny logistics problem they apparently decided to gloss over and hope no one would notice back in those pre-VCR and DVD days. The rescue of the guy hanging from the bridge over the old historic fort. The rescue squad is directed into the open courtyard down a ramp through a very narrow opening in the outer wall which had a very low height clearance. The squad made it though okay. Then, a few minutes later, the paramedics ambulance arrives and starts down the same ramp. The ambulance is obviously way too tall, though, to make it though the low clearance. The second before the top of the ambulance would have hit the roof of the tunnel/entrance, they cut away and then a moment later the ambulance is already in the courtyard. I actually went back and looked at it at least a couple times. I can only imagine them on location to shoot all of this and realizing that the ambulance wasn't going to be able to make it through the tunnel. As I said, I'm sure they figured they'd just shoot it driving down the tunnel as far as they could and hope nobody watching would notice. Me, if I was having to think of a quick (yet practical) solution, I think I would have shown the ambulance come to a stop part way down the ramp and then have a bit of overdubbed radio chatter ("Base, we're not going to make it through this entrance tunnel. Is there another entry way?" "Affirmative, there is a service entrance on the north side". Or something like that.)

David Young
Riverview, Florida

[–] winterlori 10 years ago

This movie was ok, not as bad as Charter 220 but not as good as Deadly Passage. What I did like about this movie was Johnny and Roy were in the entire thing and they did act as FF/PMs somewhat in several scenes. We got to see Johnny dive in the water to save a firefighter like you said youngtrek so that was cool.

I liked the scene at the beginning after Johnny and Roy are treated to an actual meeting with the Chief and Roy says, "they are really making us feel at home" and Johnny says, "what do you mean, they never treat us like this at home."

I also enjoyed the "Eager Ellen" story though it seemed so odd to me that Johnny would ask her out within seconds of meeting her. They didn't even have a conversation other than getting introduced. But, I guess that's Johnny. I liked seeing him gulp down that wine after she said they would be together "forever". Hahahahaha serves him right for jumping in with both feet. And I liked at the end when she is walking out with them and telling Johnny of all her plans she has for him. It was funny to see Roy watch Johnny with that big smile on his face waiting to see how he was going to get out of this one.

In the Book, it says the opening story is a man hung up in a ship's rigging. I didn't see that on the DVD. Maybe that was in the original TV version and they cut it out for the DVD? The Book also states that when the tour guide says, "Fort Dix", it is actually "Fort Point". On the DVD, the tour guide actually does say "Fort Point". So maybe they corrected that and dubbed it in? Why would they use the fake name in the first place?

Anyway, like I said, I liked this one fine. I didn't mind the characters too much but, again like in Deadly Passage, I didn't love them either.

My next one will be The Convention and I will watch The Greatest Rescues last because to me that is the true last episode. I don't know how they can get promoted to Captain and then film two more episodes of the them going to San Francisco to observe paramedic programs. And they were never introduced as Captains. The Greatest Rescues SHOULD HAVE BEEN aired last.

[–] youngtrek 10 years ago

"In the Book, it says the opening story is a man hung up in a ship's rigging. I didn't see that on the DVD. Maybe that was in the original TV version and they cut it out for the DVD? The Book also states that when the tour guide says, "Fort Dix", it is actually "Fort Point". On the DVD, the tour guide actually does say "Fort Point". So maybe they corrected that and dubbed it in? Why would they use the fake name in the first place?"

I take it that you also have the "Emergency: The Final Rescues" two-disc DVD set like I do? When I recently watched mine it did show the opening rescue of the guy caught up in the ship's rigging. Although, wait a second, that's the opening of "The Convention". I know because it featured the San Francisco rescue worker-paramedic couple both responding to the scene (second movie with them).

As for the Fort Dix/Fort Point thing, I want to say that I heard it called "Fort Dix" but I'm not as certain about that one.

David Young
Riverview, Florida

[–] winterlori 10 years ago

Sorry, its taken me a few days to get back to you youngtrek. Yes, I have the two-disc DVD set of the "final rescues". I actually have the entire series on DVD which I just bought this year. So maybe it is different if you bought yours several years ago? I even had the closed captioning on and I know it said "Fort Point". Very odd if yours is different. Why would they change that? Anyway, when I have a chance I will watch that scene again just to make sure. I did, however, check the opening scene and there was definitely no one caught in a ship's rigging so I guess maybe they originally filmed that for this movie and then used in "The Convention" instead?