User Reviews

POOR EXECUTION! I guess it was understandable that TPTB wanted to create this "fourth season" of Airwolf so it can go into syndication (and it was great to see the re-runs starting in 1989). But did they really have to make the results stupid? Yeah, it was shoestring budget and all or most of the flight footage was stock from the previous seasons. At least the writers could have done decent watchable stories and plots instead of making the results look like they feel sorry for themselves for being low budget.

I echo other fans that there should have been better closures for Archangel, Caitlin and Dom. At least for Archangel and Dom we got something (lame ones at that), but Caitlin just disappeared w/o any real explanation.

Poor Barry Van Dyke. He has the distinction of being a part of two substandard sequel series to two popular TV shows (Galactica 1980 being the other). Sorry, but he didn't make a convincing Saint John. (It would have been nice if Christopher Connelly reprised the role for continuity's sake, but he was probably already dying of cancer which he succumbed to in 1988.)

However, the one thing I will give credit to the producers of season 4 is, they brought Airwolf back to what she made for and that's fight foreign enemies.

To the original CBS series' discredit, during the latter seasons, they began to have Airwolf solve homegrown problems and some of them were best done without the helicopter. So much for keeping a top secret state-of-the-art flying machine secret! While the results of Season 4 left little to desire, at least Airwolf was a combat machine again fighting the real world enemies of the time and not baddies like greedy oil barons.

It was nice to see JMV to "pass the torch," but too bad the torch didn't burn as bright as before.

This edition of 'Airwolf' i.e., the fourth season of 'Airwolf' is hated by reviewers for the following 2 reasons: 1] The first three seasons starred Jan Michael Vincent in the lead role instead of Barry van Dyke who took over from the former. Naturally fans felt betrayed and were not inclined to like the new series lead.

2] The fourth season is indeed low budget compared to the first three seasons and all the footage of the Airwolf super-helicopter used in the fourth season is borrowed from the first three seasons.

Yet, Airwolf, Season 4, is not as bad as reviewers would have you believe. I started watching Season 4 recently with low expectations and I was pleasantly surprised by the performance of the little-known Canadian actors who play the other lead roles in this series. Even the much-maligned reuse of helicopter footage from the previous seasons has been fairly well done by this show's editing department, considering that video-editing software did not exist in the 1980s.

A few episodes in Season 4 are actually fairly good. I suspect that if one watched Season 4 first and the first 3 Seasons later, the former would not seem so bad at all. Barry van Dyke's St.John (Sinjin) Hawke is actually more likable than Jan Michael Vincent's brooding performance as Stringfellow Hawke. Of course, one would expect that St.John, after his many years of captivity and ill-treatment in Vietnam, would be the one who is moody and morose. Not his younger brother Stringfellow who managed to avoid capture.

Another point that other reviewers have missed is that the tall, square-jawed Barry van Dyke seems more believable as an action hero than the short, slightly-built Jan Michael Vincent who somehow manages to beat up the bad guys during three seasons of this show. Yet, it is true that both actors give rather middling performances in their respective roles.

I thought I would throw my 2 cents in on this infamous incarnation of the beloved show about a super helicopter.

Is it as bad everyone says? Sadly, yes... Here's the basic back story in case you didn't know. CBS canceled the original Jan-Michael Vincent starring version after it's 3rd Season. This was due to a combination of things, namely Vincent's severe drinking problems, the incredible expense of producing each episode(roughly a million, in 1986 dollars) and sinking ratings. This left the producers and other people with a vested interest in the show with a problem though. They didn't have enough episodes to sell the show into syndication. So the producers sold the rights to the USA network, who then in turn slashed the budget to a fraction of what it was and moved the production up to Canada to further save money. That's right, this season exists solely so they could produce enough episodes for syndication. That's a bad omen right from the start.

Each episode was now produced for about 150k, a far cry from that million on the original CBS series. This in a nutshell, is what made this the abomination that it is. Because of the pea sized budget, they could no longer afford to keep and operate the flyable Bell 222(aka Airwolf!). By the time this season was in production, she was already stripped of her modifications and sold to a German hospital, where she operated as an emergency transport until she sadly crashed and was destroyed in a thunder storm. This means all aerial footage of Airwolf seen here is recycled from the CBS show, although some of it was never actually used on the CBS show. That creates a nearly impossible obstacle to get past. How do you produce a show about a super chopper and not even have said chopper? Very poorly I'm afraid... They did however have the other Bell 222; the stage mock-up version to shoot the actors in. This Bell 222 however could not fly(it could only spin it's rotors very slowly), but being as it was ALL they had, they shoot the hell out of it. The NO-budget and the move to Canada also meant that NONE of the original cast could be retained. They were able to acquire the services of Jan-Michael Vincent(in a very uninspired performance) for the pilot episode. That was it. A bunch of a B-level Canadian actors take their places, but to be fair, they do an 'ok' job considering what they have to work with. You can't really blame them for this disaster. But without the characters so near and dear to us(Hawk, Dom, Archangel), it doesn't feel like the same show. You can't get rid of characters that had been with us for 3 years and expect fans of the show to happily accept and embrace the new characters.

Oh, and the lack of money also meant that the show was now shot on video instead of 35MM film. And trust me, you can tell! It's extremely cheap looking, like some crap cable show you might see on at 1 in the morning. In short, all of the production values of the CBS show are HISTORY. What you have here is nothing but a low budget Canadian cable show that happens to feature footage of Airwolf from the CBS show.

I won't even go into the countless continuity problems. The writers simply didn't have a clue. I question whether any of them had even watched the previous seasons...

Overall, this is an embarrassment and is best avoided. I recommend you pick up the first 3 seasons on DVD if you haven't yet and pretend this garbage doesn't even exist. This season is not available on DVD and likely never will be, but if you really want to watch it, it's readily available to watch online now. Both Hulu and Netflix have the entire season available to stream.

But like I said, just stick with the first 3 seasons and treasure those forever.

(Update: Amazingly, this season was in fact released on DVD. So there you go. Now you have Netflix and an official DVD release if you so desire to see this junk.)

This 'new' series is an insult to the people involved in the original "Airwolf" series (1984-1987). All of the 'action' sequences are rip offs from the original series, the money spent on locations, sets and special effects must have been calculated in pennies (Cents) rather than the million dollars they spent on the original series. Barry van Dyke, Michelle Scarabelli and Gerwaint Wyn Davies are no replacements for Jan Michael Vincent, Jean Bruce Scott, Ernest Borgnine and Alex Cord. This show has managed to turn a classic of the 80's into a laughing stock.

I honestly could not even watch the first show. The title sequence was enough to see what would be even worse. I have never given a 1 oe 10 star rating before but I had to inthis case. And I thought " blaxplotation " was bad.. This " show was worse than the GNAA film you had to watch to join them. At least that film had a lame plot line it followed. Suspend reality to have some entertainment value. Mr. " Sunbum " himself has always been a excellent actor from " McHale's Navy " to AirwolfI know about the alcohol and drug problems; Did JMV had to prove that he was able to run with the big dogs? In real life, hell, no! Jus walk away, that makes you a bigger man by doing that. The poster child for not doing drugs. They eat you up and then spit your remains out. Kinda like what happened to the Airwolf series. 4th year. If this was the first year, the show would have been quickly canceled after 2 shows.Stick a fork in it, it's done....

Airwolf Series 4 gets a rough time from fans and general viewers, even now. Well, I really like it.

To quickly go through the details - due to the expense, behind-the-scenes issues and sinking ratings, Airwolf was laid to rest at the end of Series 3, only to be resurrected again with a diminished budget, all-new cast and no access to the original Airwolf helicopter. This latter restriction is the biggest problem for me - the sequences involving the 'copter flying are either used from earlier series, or from previously filmed unused footage. The weather in these sequences is bright and sunny, and beautifully filmed, whilst the newly recorded footage for Series 4 is filmed in a different location (Vancouver) in often cold, rainy conditions. The contrast remains jarring throughout.

Only original cast member Jan Michel Vincent appears book-ending the first episode. He puts in a great final performance, despite looking a little haggard, and his character String is written out in such a way that the viewers don't know whether he lived or died - which is an ambiguity I rather like. Ernest Borgnine is represented by a body double filmed from behind, who perishes minutes into 'Blackjack', the first episode - Alex Cord and Jean Bruce Scott don't appear at all.

'Playing' with established continuity, String's brother Saint John Hawke appears and becomes the new lead character. Barry Van Dyke is big and beefy with a jawline to die for - he looks as if his character might be an arrogant posturer, but he isn't. He and the other three new regular cast members are appealing and well-played.

It's true to say not all of the special effects work - Airwolf's briefly seen new laser looks very cheap, for example, and a couple of the stories are unnecessarily slow-moving. This is also be true of earlier series, however - and I enjoyed the majority of these episodes a lot. Intrigue, a bit of romance, camaraderie, explosions, jeopardy - it's all here, not packaged in as polished a way as previously perhaps, but there's still much to relish. Possibly my favourite episode is 'Malduke', featuring Dick Van Dyke, Barry's dad, as the titular villain. It's as a good as anything under the 'Airwolf' banner.

I just watched an episode all these years later. I must have chosen not to watch when on network due to the cheap looking special effects and using old airwolf footage.

The original Airwolf series was not a cinematic masterpiece by any means, but the story lines were creative and engaging, and the acting was tolerable. Unfortunately, the same can't be said "season 4". It's a completely different show except for the recycled aerial footage from seasons 1-3. As other reviewers have mentioned, there was no budget for the flying stunts, and the "Airwolf" helicopter was no longer available.

Many of the stories attempt to take on sappy social issues, and the acting is mostly poor. The Canadian actors aren't believable in their roles, and don't "fit" in the California setting. Frequently when listening to the dialogue, I felt compelled to check that my playback speed wasn't at 1.5 times normal.

I starting episode 1 determined to watch the entire season, but in the end, I couldn't do it. I gave up after 10 episodes.

Cheaply produced, uses old aerial footage from original series, bad acting, the story falls apart as they kill off Dom and wound String in the first episode, rescue St John with amazing ease and insult every fan of the original series. If the original cast had remained this show might even have survived the budget cuts, alas it died a slow and very painful death at the hand of a cable tv company.

I was a die hard fan of the originally Airwolf while I was in my mid-teens, so I was definitely target audience at the time. Jan-Michael Vincent's brooding character was the stuff of legends for myself and my friends back then. The roar of Airwolf's engines was awe inspiring too us.

Then came the new Airwolf. Pure garbage. How finicky do you think a 15-16 year is about that sort of thing? We even thought David Hasselhoff was some sort of master thespian in Knight Rider for goodness sake. Some gratuitous helicopter scenes and some shooting would've probably at least kept our interest, maybe a plot or two that actually made us care about the characters even though we all knew that the show had jumped the shark... But no, they had to turn it into a trashy, soap-opera style drama with a bit of Airwolf thrown into the mix. Rubbish, I did NOT watch it more than a couple of times.

The USA version of Airwolf was a huge disappointment. I categorize this with Battlestar Galatica 1980, another dismal TV sequel also featuring the great acting talents of Barry VanDyke.

The characters from the original were killed off or written out to lighten the financial burden of reviving the show. Aerial footage was for the most part recycled from the original show, which, like Battlestar Galactica, recycled plenty of its own footage.

To further decrease costs, it appears that they shot on videotape rather than film resulting in a lower production quality look.

Airwolf went from sci-fi drama to Saturday morning cartoon. Keep this one in the vault please.

Argh!

I loved the original Airwolf series, it was big and bold and a joy to watch. The action sequences and story lines were as good as could be expected. A great show. However this version which I often call Canadian Airwolf due to the number of actors in it who never seemed to have made it out of cheap Canadian TV programmes is an utter disgrace to the original show. It's so obvious that the action sequences have been put together by taking clips from the original series and then having the writers make up some sort of boring storyline around it. There simply aren't words to describe how bad this version of Airwolf is. They should have put the original team together to make a movie or something, not done this.

I am in a state of shock whenever i see this program on tv, the first series was a classic, the second was good and the third was watchable mainly due to the budget. However the forth "DEAR GOD" what were they thinking. Killing of someone who looked like Dominic Santini, did string die or not and not even attempting to show anything to do with Alex Cord other than "He has been re-assigned" to sum god awful place and what happend to Jean Bruce Scott. The sound of Airwolf changed, the action sequences were put together from the earlier series and where did all those computers come from in the hidden base, which by the way only took one episode for Lock and Rivers to find whereas it took what four episodes for Alex Cord to even get near it. It is an insult to Mr Bellasario and everyone else involved in the original. This must of been a good idea to someone.

For many reasons, I found the original "Airwolf" series to be one of the best shows on television. The actions sequences were truly fantastic. Each character developed throught the run of the series.

Season four was a true waste of time. The characters were very weak and shallow, the overall tone of the show diminished. Originally, Only three characters were skilled enough to fly Airwolf. In the new series, it seemed that everyone on the show could fly airwolf, with equal skill.

On the original show, the characters, while flying Airwolf, always wore their helmets. The new version often featured bare-headed, wearing headsets, with no helmets.

The fourth season of Airwolf demonstrated the classic situation of a series being around one year too long. A good effort, but a very poor result.

This show was a waste of time! I only liked one episode and it was when they were in Russia! There was no real action, no nemisis like in the original. Altough the actors were ok, they still were not anywhere near as good as the original cast. Stringfellow finally met up with his brother before he dies. The part that made me laugh was in the original series the flashbacks with St. John Hawke, he was an older guy and then when they made this series, he was younger! Talk about pathetic!

The original series were cancelled from tv, because the actor that played Stringfellow Hawke made a lot of trouble on the set and in his personal life. They didn't want to continue it. A very small other station bought over the rights of the series and continued the filming. The original refused to work further on it, because they knew that there wasn't enough money to keep up the quality of the series.

Watch the original series from 1984-1987!!

I'd enjoyed the original series in college. I'd 'save' the TV in the lounge for it, even if I had to be there for 4 or 5 hours just watching other things.

But when 'Airwolf II' came out, I found other things to do instead. A friend of mine & I don't even soil the 'Airwolf' name by putting it with this show. We call it 'that show'.

Poor stories, worse special effects, and a hopeless ending to Dom & String. Caitlin? Well, she just disappeared.

Sometimes a show really is rescued by changing networks. Sadly, Airwolf wasn't one of them.

Y*A*W*N All I can say is that it was sssoooooo boring! The only interesting one was when they went to Russia and that's it! The original was way better, I really liked all the fighting with the helicopter and Harlin Jenkins and Mace, but the new ones all they ever wanted to do was "Help"...lack of action!

I saw 2 episodes of Airwolf Season 4 on my TV guide on the TV. It didn't say who was in it and I thought the original cast from seasons 1 to 3 would be in it. The episodes I watched, The Golden One and The Puppet Master were absolutely crap, awful lame and very cheesy. I have the Airwolf seasons 1 to 3 box set on DVD and they are absolutely awesome and brilliant but Airwolf season 4 is extremely crap, lame and cheesy and the episodes are a like a TV show for little kids. The original theme tune from seasons 1 to 3 is much better than the Season 4 theme tune. It's the same theme tune but the original one from seasons 1 to 3 is much better and sounds much more better with it's powerful electronic sound compared to the Season 4 version. The cast is absolutely awful and can't act at all. Barry Van Dykes acting as StJohn Hawke was absolutely crap, lame, and cheesy. Geraint Wyn Davies was also absolutely crap and lame as Major Mike Rivers. Michele Scarabelli was absolutely awful, crap and lame as Jo Santini and Anthony Sherwood was absolutely awful, crap and lame as Jason Locke. The characters Stringfellow Hawke played by Jan Michael Vincent, Dominic Santini played by Ernest Borgnine, Caitlin played by Jean Bruce Scott, Archangel played by Alex Cord and Archangels assistant Marella played by Deborah Pratt were all 1000000 times better than Season 4's actors and characters and they were much more powerful, tougher, stricter, kinder, friendlier than them. Barry Van Dyke was a wimp as StJohn compared to the more powerful, tougher, kinder and friendlier Stringfellow Hawke played by the awesome and absolutely brilliant Jan Michael Vincent. Geraint Wyn Davies was also an extremely unnecessary wimp as Major Mike Rivers compared to the strong, powerful, kindhearted and friendly Dominic Santini played by the awesome and extremely brilliant Ernest Borgnine. Michele Scarabelli was also an unnecessary woman as Jo Santini compared to the friendly, strong and tough Caitlin played by the brilliant Jean Bruce Scott. Anthony Sherwood was also an unnecessary wimp as Jason Locke compared to the powerful, strong and firm Archangel played by the awesome and absolutely brilliant Alex Cord. Deborah Pratts acting as Archangels assistant Marella was also much, much more better than Michele Scarabellis awful, crap and lame acting as Jo Santini.

The fourth season of Airwolf is the continuing adventures of the Supercopter Airwolf with a new crew. This show is full of action/adventure and with alot of humour. It is alot like the previous three seasons of Airwolf and the new team of Airwolf proved to be great heroes. This season includes a new theme song and great background music. If your are true fan of Airwolf, then you will enjoy watching this Canadian fourth season of Airwolf.