I'm watching this after 30 years. It's not as good as I remember. But there are a few good things that I liked. I did a pros and cons review.
Pros:
-Lee Majors is the best thing about the show. He's charismatic and funny. His gruff replies and facial expressions had me in stitches. If you're a fan of his, you should definitely check this out.
-Jeffrey Meek is incredibly handsome and exotic looking. Bonus, his acting is pretty decent, tho he's not given a lot of drama and emotion. He's great to watch in fight scenes.
-The two leads have great chemistry. Their camaraderie between the two characters sometimes feels like the actors are really smiling and laughing with each other for real. A lot of witty banter. They are a great buddy pairing.
-Lots of Japanese culture, Asian actors and characters. Bravo for 1992.
-The action is really good. The fight scenes and the martial arts are really good.
Cons:
-Too light of a series considering Raven has such a dark past. Everything is so darn cheerful.
-Too "Baywatchy." Bikini babes in the opening credits as well as throughout scenes in each episode. Light music and not very atmospheric cinematography(intentionally so, I think). Raven has such a dark past, and these things just take you right out of it. You just can't take the show seriously. It's like, what is this? Is it an action-drama or just a light superficial series. If it's the latter, why even bother with Raven's dark past? Just let him be a martial artist do-gooder detective, already.
-The secret ninja stuff is silly. I like a good mythos of cool comic-book-ish stuff, ninjas, martial arts, cults, and secret societies, as much as anyone. If done well. But combining the secret ninja stuff with being so "Baywatchy" just made the whole thing seem ridiculous.
-The search for Raven's son became tired. I just didn't care.
-For a guy that had such a huge target on his back by the Black Dragons and possibly the special opts, he didn't have very good security at his house and didn't even bother staying low-key.
-It was sexist at times as another reviewer mentioned. Women weren't exactly portrayed in the greatest light in this. I think they probably could have benefitted from a third main character that was female. And not stupid or weak.
-This guy had such a dark past where terrible things happened, and he did terrible things too. But there's no emotional impact to the character. I said in the pros, the lead was a decent actor but he was, in a way, very cardboard. He had nothing to express, no inner struggle, no emotions: anger, grief, regret. He was very zen, ergo his meditating all the time. But it also made him seem very boring in a way.
-The stories weren't that great and missed opportunities. There were lots of plotholes and the flow of stories weren't that great. They had many opportunities to show flashbacks of this guy. To give him layers and development. To show the audience what made him. But they never bothered with it. I recall another show I loved that came out at the same time, Highlander the series. That show was incredible with the development of its lead utilizing many flashbacks. Too bad this show didn't do that.
Maybe I'm being too hard on it, or overthinking a show that was just so "Baywatchy." Maybe we should just enjoy the ride as a light show. But I feel like the show didn't know what it was, or wasn't allowed to be what it wanted given it was stuck on network tv. I really liked it at the time, but now 30 years later, not so much. 5/10.
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