The Steve Canyon TV Collection 3 Volume Complete DVD Set

BOTTOM LINE: Anyone who is a fan of the AirForce and/or vintage aircraft & fighter jets or loves old TV shows should eat this show up. The episodes really look & sound amazing especially considering the rarity of the series. It's only available direct from the estate of Milton Caniff, (creator of the character and the comic strip the show is based on), but don't let that deter you. Even though these aren't from a big 'name' video company, the spectacular results speak for themselves. Several episodes also feature audio commentary tracks from guest stars, which adds to the fun & ups the value. This show was a great find for me. I love it! 5 STARSTHOUGHTS: Although few will remember it, this was a very entertaining show and series' lead, Dean Fredericks, is solid as the no-nonsense pilot who gets dropped into all manner of situations and locations as a sort of Air Force troubleshooter. He's your typical ruggedly handsome, clean cut, 'take-charge' hero; determined to get to the bottom of any issue or do what must be done to make a new piece of hardware function successfully, even if it means taking some hair-raising risks. I knew of Fredericks only from his role in the low budget sci-fi flick THE PHANTOM PLANET. (This show was filmed only a two years prior.) There are a TON of well-known character actors featured in these shows and for me it's always fun to see an actor you remember from a TV show or movie popping up here, often looking far younger than I'd ever seen them before. (HAPPY DAYS' Marion Ross is prime example.)The show itself is a loose series of unconnected stories in which our hero is sent to an Air Force base to oversee a new technological development or otherwise troubleshoot concerns. The episodes are written in a loose, documentary style, as though we're seeing actual material that's only recently been declassified by the government. Whether it's true or not I don't know. What I do know is that the tech they present is backed up by some truly amazing actual footage, so I'm inclined to believe these are more or less factual. There is no use of models or other optical trickery; it's real jets & bombers up there and the actual flight footage is, for the most part, very well integrated into the shots of the actors suited up in fighter or bomber cockpit mock ups. (The actual footage is often somewhat blurrier than the shots of the actors but it's still an impressive effort, regardless.) My wife & I both found this show to be a lot of fun and an fascinating look back at the past of our airborne branch of the military. If you love classic jets then you'll be drooling over most every episode. LOL.THE DVDs: Though not released by any of the major video companies, this set is nonetheless very well put together. It's evident that loving care was taken during the transfer process to get the best possible sound & picture from each episode. Being as this was a fairly obscure one season series, I am guessing that the film elements they had at the Caniff estate were in very good condition. The results are spectacular. Each show has mostly razor-sharp picture and clean sound, the kind of look you usually see in Blu-ray hi-def. Seriously. I was extremely impressed overall. Each disk's main menu screen allows selection of PLAY ALL or choosing from individual shows, as well as any bonus content; each episode is divided into 6 chapters. The shows play out as they aired way back in the day, including the complete commercial breaks for other ABC shows... and cigarettes! (Man, was it weird to see cigarette ads; everyone puffing away furiously while some offscreen crooner sings about how satisfying they are, etc. LOL) The wealth of bonus content, in the form of accessible audio commentary tracks was unexpected but very welcome. The content varies from show to show, as most all of these folks are well into their twilight years and are attempting to recall the details of a guest star role from an obscure, single season TV series made well over 60 years ago. Whether you buy them separately or as a complete 3 volume set, this impressive collection of STEVE CANYON comes Highly Recommended.

The picture and sound quality were probably better than what I experienced watching this show on TV decades ago. I.E. excellent picture and sound quality. The show takes actual Air Force incidents and puts Steve Canyon in the middle of them. The amount of fiction vs. truth likely varies with each episode. I like the stories, which are reasonably accurate technically, and the acting is good. Watching this show again brought back good memories of a simpler time in my life. This show probably helped convince me to serve as an Air Force pilot rather than joining the Marines. As a kid, I loved the watching the depicted airplanes fly and later got to fly a couple myself. This DVD set is obviously on the pricey side, but for me it was worth it. I think, to some extent, they may be trying to sell it as a collectors' item. However, I bought it to watch it, not to let it sit on a shelf unopened. I agree with other comments that the the included cigarette commercials are disgusting. The only saving grace is that they represent a much smaller portion of the viewing time than they would today and you can fast forward through them. At least in the later episodes (maybe all episodes) they come at the end of the show, just before the credits. The show itself is NOT interrupted. I timed one disk 3 episode and the total commercial time came out to be exactly 1 minute. 1 minute of advertisement out of a 30 minute show. Wish we had that today!

A very good and interesting show (as other reviewers detail), however... despite being labeled as proper, pressed DVD's all over the Amazon web page and in reviews, these are, in fact, cheap, made-on-demand DVD-R's (which will have a limited life compared to a real DVD). Frankly, I just don't understand why companies use DVD-R's at all, as 1) typically if one is ordering 300 or more copies, it is actually cheaper to make real DVDs, 2) after the initial DVD order, re-presses are even cheaper than the initial run (so *much* cheaper than DVD-R's), and 3) the per DVD cost is so low that sitting on a few hundred or even a few thousand copies in inventory hardly costs anything. I wish companies would realize and forgo the false economy of DVD-R's and just shop around to find someone that, instead of pushing DVD'R's, will produce an affordable quality DVD product for their customers! Myself, due to numerous DVD-R disk failures within 3-8 years after production, I generally won't even order a title if I know it's a DVD-R, and I'd guess that I'm not alone in that. Oh, well, welcome to the disposable, "You'll own nothing..." 21st century.

I very much enjoyed these three DVDs, and would rate the series alongside Season One of the Twelve O'Clock High TV program as an accurate portrayal of the challenges of leadership, human relations and flight. The Steve Canyon TV series is based upon the cartoon strip created by Milton Caniff and is Caniff's follow-up to his famous cartoon series "Terry and the Pirates". Terry also found its way onto TV in the early 1950s and is also on DVD. The "Steve Canyon" 30 minute TV shows ran from 1958-1959. The Air Force invested heavily in this program--a good public relations and recruitment venue. These black & white shows are expertly re-mastered and retain all of the commercial spots. At the end of the DVDs, it is interesting to see just how many people and institutions played a role in the restoration of this series from the Caniff estate. If you are a fan of the US Air Force during the late 1950s and the aircraft flown during that time, then these DVDs are for you. Highly recommended.