Unique final season of 'McHale's Navy' released after Veterans' Day

November 11, 6:51 AMTV on DVD ExaminerJohn Stahl

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the TV on DVD Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Conway, Borgnine, and Flynn on 'McHale's'

This is a very good day to feature the DVD set of the fourth season of the 1960s military comedy "McHale's Navy" on "New Releases Tuesday" because it is Veteran's Day and this set is being released next Tuesday.

This season is noteworthy because it is the last one of the series and is the one in which World War II era PT (for pocket torpedo) boat commander McHale, his truly motley crew, which includes future "Carol Burnett Show" star and  master of slapstick Tim Conway, and their highly excitable and not very bright commanding officer Captain Binghamton (a.k.a. Jolly Wally or leadbottom) are transferred from the naval base in the Pacific where they spent their first three seasons to a small town in Italy that the army had liberated from the Germans.

Given that this change in setting did not seem to affect the nature of the storylines of the show much, I am not sure that it can be considered a figurative "jump the shark" moment; additionally, I have not seen an actual jump the shark moment in any episode that I have seen. I suspect that the popularity of "Hogan's Heroes" and difficulty coming up with more Pacific-based storylines for "McHale's Navy" may have influenced the locale shift.

The move to Italy created a series of new conflicts, notably in the form of bringing the gang into contact with the army officer who was in charge of the area. There were also interesting storylines about the need for positive propaganda regarding the American forces and about illegal war souvenirs and looting furnishings and supplies in an area that the war had hit hard before reaching the depicted period in which the allied forces were making great strides.

My primary criticism with this set and with the sets of the other three seasons of this show is that the outer packaging shows several color photos from the series; this indicates strongly that the series was in color or that Shout Factory had colorized the episodes. Neither of these are true. A "B&W," which indicates black-and-white, is printed on the back cover of each set. However, this is fairly inconspicuous.

My second criticism is that only Season 2 contains synopses of the episodes; it is odd that this was only done once and was done for a season that was in the middle of the series. However, each set does list the episode titles and their original air dates.

I also would have enjoyed seeing at least the 1964 "McHale's Navy" movie or the 1965 movie "McHale's Navy Joins the Air Force" added as features to one of the DVD sets. It does not seem that these were ever released on DVD. I did learn that the issue is that Shout Factory does not own the rights to these films.

I want to mention as well that I will be posting a bonus entry later this morning about a pending release of a DVD set of another 1960s military comedy. The fifth and final season of "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C." is being released in two weeks, but I concluded that Veterans' Day was an appropriate date to share my thoughts on this release.

Please feel free to share any comment or questions as additions to this entry or as e-mail to tvdvdguy@gmail.com.