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Review: The Dukes of Hazzard: Season Four DVD Set
Reviewed
by Craig Byrne
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Click
to see a gallery of promotional images from The Dukes of Hazzard
Season 4!
The
fourth season of The Dukes of Hazzard is a bit special
to me, of all of the seven years the show was on the air. I was
three years old in 1981 when a majority of these episodes aired,
and some of my earliest television-watching memories were of watching
The Dukes with my parents on Friday nights on CBS.
Especially
considering the big-screen movie that just came out, some might
instantly pass off the Dukes as being something that was
only popular in rural communities or in the South; there's also
the criticism that the show is "stupid;" but when you
watch it, it's actually very good family fun.
 Seasons
2 and 3 got the show closer to becoming what it would eventually
be; but Season 4 might be the most memorable. Recurring characters
like Miz Emma Tisdale the postmistress started showing up more
frequently. There are some guest stars like Tracy Scoggins and
Jonathan Frakes who appear. Hughie Hogg comes back, and two-hour
episodes like "The 10 Million Dollar Sheriff" are part
of the game. Every cast member really seems to be totally getting
into the groove.
Those
of you who want to wash the bad taste of the recent Dukes film
out of your mouth, if you want to pick a season of the series
as an example of what the show really was, Season 4 is just what
the doctor ordered. While I do like every cast member for one
reason or another, some of the real underrated stars of the show
are Sorrell Booke as Boss Hogg and James Best as Sheriff Rosco
P. Coltrane. Compare them to Burt Reynolds' skinny, boring Boss
and M.C. Gainey's humorless Rosco of the movies and it's like
comparing Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Tarzan. Best
especially gets to play things up this season, with his crazy
outfits in the two-hour episode all the way through to his "little
velvet ears," Flash.
Perhaps
to coincide with the film, Warner Home Video put these episodes
on one-sided discs... each with very cool images on each disc.
This is SUCH an improvement over the double-sided discs used for
previous years, and I wish this would be done with more TV-on-DVD
sets. They also included Boss Hogg on the DVD cover, which they
hadn't done before... I hope this is something we see again in
the future, with supporting cast members joining Bo and Luke.
The only weird part about going to the single-sided discs is that
the DVD set literally takes up twice as much shelf space as the
previous three years.
WHV
hasn't made an announcement about Season 5 of The Dukes of
Hazzard yet. It will be a difficult one to market as Tom Wopat
and John Schneider are only in that season for four episodes.
They were replaced by two lookalike, mostly-talentless actors
in that season after a contract dispute... but hey, they weren't
much worse than Seann William Scott and Johnny Knoxville. For
the sake of completion, and the fact that the "Coy and Vance"
era does feature some humorous scenes, including Enos and Cletus
sharing a squad car, I really hope WHV does go ahead with
Season 5 and releases those episodes. But for now, I'm so glad
to have Season 4, and I think you will be too.
And
for fans of The Dukes and fans of Smallville, check
out Tom Wopat's guest appearance on Smallville, currently
scheduled for November 3!
Click
here to order The Dukes of Hazzard Season 4 through Amazon.com
and support this site!
Visit
the official TheDukesOfHazzardDVD.com site
Click
to see a gallery of promotional images from The Dukes of Hazzard
Season 4!
For
more on the show, check out The Dukes of Hazzard: The Official
Companion
Note:
The views of Craig Byrne don't necessarily represent the thoughts
and feelings of everyone at KryptonSite.
Want
us to review a new TV-show related DVD at KryptonSite? E-mail
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