Tonight's TV: Emergency! (1972-79) - A Universal Blu-ray Review

EMERGENCY! (1972-79), one of the key TV series not only of my childhood but of '70s television, has just been released on Blu-ray.

All of the show's six seasons plus six follow-up TV-movies have been compiled into a single 28-disc Blu-ray set which runs over 111 hours.

Roughly two decades ago I painstakingly collected the series on DVD for my kids; suffice it to say that they loved the show as much as I did on first run in the '70s. I've been very happy to revisit the series via Blu-ray, and I plan to pass on the old DVD sets to my son.

I'm such a fan of EMERGENCY! that I attended a packed 50th anniversary tribute to the series in August 2022. You can read my account of the evening here. Many in the audience that night had been inspired to become fire fighters or paramedics thanks to EMERGENCY!

The anniversary tribute went into significant detail about the role of EMERGENCY! in the early establishment of paramedic programs across the country, beginning in Los Angeles, where the show was set. The show, created by Robert A. Cinader and Jack Webb, was the first time many Americans ever heard the term "paramedic."

Technical experts worked hard on making the show as authentic as possible, and Cinader himself became such an expert on paramedic issues that he served for many years on the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Commission. Today the station where the show was filmed is the Robert A. Cinader Memorial Fire Station.

The double-length pilot episode, "The Wedsworth-Townsend Act," goes into the establishment of the paramedic program via two young trainees, Roy DeSoto (Kevin Tighe) and Johnny Gage (Randolph Mantooth). Tighe and Mantooth have great rapport, and indeed, when they appeared at the anniversary tribute I learned that they had become lifelong close friends.

Los Angeles emergency room doctor Kelly Brackett (Robert Fuller) has initial concerns about non-medical personnel treating patients before transporting them to the hospital, but is won over when DeSoto and Gage's skills save the life of Nurse Dixie McCall (Julie London) when she's injured while helping at an accident scene.

Also key in the show's large ensemble cast is Bobby Troup as Dr. Joe Early, a neurosurgeon who often works emergency shifts. Dr. Early's perennially calm, easygoing demeanor provides a good contrast to Dr. Brackett's more uptight persona.

London -- who was in her mid '40s but rather hilariously described as 30 in the pilot -- was famously Webb's former wife and the current wife of Troup, but that was no barrier to Webb hiring both for the series. London and Troop certainly had fascinating careers, between acting, singing, and composing, including Troop's famed "Route 66."

I'd forgotten how strongly Dixie's romance with Dr. Brackett was pushed in the pilot episode, but their relationship was subsequently toned down. I also note that Dr. Brackett comes off as rather a male chauvinist in the pilot, particularly, but that also seems to improve as time goes on, and frankly it serves to humanize a character who often seems to have rather a high regard for himself.

Other series regulars included Marco Lopez and Mike Stoker, whose characters were the same as the actors' real names, and Tim Donnelly as Chet Kelly. (I did a double-take seeing Donnelly without his mustache in the first regular season episode, "Mascot.") I really appreciate the show's cast continuity, having the same faces in the station for years.

Series regular Ron Pinkard, who played hospital physician Dr. Mike Morton, shows up as early as the pilot, but curiously his character had another name, Dr. Gray, in that movie.

Many other familiar faces cross through the episodes, including Webb regular Virginia Gregg, who briefly plays a nurse. Also look for long-running DAYS OF OUR LIVES star Deirdre Hall as a nurse in a half-dozen episodes.

I've found going back to this series for the first time in years akin to a box of great candy; it's hard to stop! As I've reviewed this set I've often thought "Just one more..." and then booted up the next episode.

I love the "procedural" aspects of the show, which I've found are of interest to adult and child viewers alike, making this a great series for family viewing. And the exciting Nelson Riddle theme music still gets my pulse pumping!

Obviously it's going to take me many hours of viewing to watch the entire set, but the prints I've seen to this point have all been outstanding, looking very crisp and sharp.

Included as an extra is the "Lost and Found" crossover episode with ADAM-12. ADAM-12's Kent McCord and Martin Milner also appear briefly in the pilot.

I'm a big ADAM-12 fan as well and had the great pleasure of meeting Kent McCord last April at the Hollywood Heritage Museum. I'm hoping that ADAM-12 will be receiving a similar Blu-ray treatment before long.

EMERGENCY! was landmark, influential television which is also great storytelling. Recommended.

Thanks to Allied Vaughn and Universal for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray collection. It may be purchased from Movie Zyng, Amazon, and other online retailers.

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