AIRWOLF - 1980s U.S. action/espionage/sci-fi series

[Ken Cheng]

Any fans here of the 1980s American TV series AIRWOLF? The series' central attraction was a souped-up military helicopter, but those expecting something cheesy like the similar KNIGHT RIDER were in for a surprise. The show had a cast of excellent actors (Jan-Michael Vincent and Ernest Borgnine were the main stars), interesting and atypical characters, and intelligent Cold War-style plots. I was a big fan of this show in the day, and still am.

[ghostdarTeal'c]

i think i loved this series as a kid, but kinda forgot what it's all about now tho....

i know its on military...but forget the details that made i love it....

[Ken Cheng]

www.airwolf.org

Also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airwolf

Finally, http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Airwolf

Long story short, the C.I.A. (called "the Firm" in the TV series) has contracted a brilliant, but twisted genius engineer named Dr. Charles Henry Moffett to build a supersonic spy/attack helicopter code-named "Airwolf." Although it looks like a Bell 222 helicopter, Airwolf is in fact an armored, supersonic flying weapon capable of Mach 1+ speed and a service ceiling that takes it to the edge of space. It features multiple weapon systems (a half dozen variety of missiles plus chain guns) and the most sophisticated array of surveillance and computer systems ever mounted on the aircraft.

During a demonstration test flight, Dr. Moffett steals Airwolf and takes it to Libya, where he flies it on terrorist missions for the Libyan government. The Firm hires Stringfellow Hawke, Vietnam War veteran and ace helicopter pilot who was Airwolf's original test pilot, to recover Airwolf from Libya. Hawke, an intense loner who lives in seclusion in a cabin by a California mountain lake, agrees to help the Firm to recover Airwolf on one condition: that it helps him to locate and rescue his older brother St. John (pronounced "Sinjin") Hawke, who went missing in action in Vietnam fourteen years earlier.

That's the basic setup for the rest of the series.

[Ken Cheng]

The famous Airwolf startup and takeoff sequence.

Very cool.

[KeongJai]

yep. this show was right up there with macguyver.

[Ken Cheng]

yep. this show was right up there with macguyver.

I liked it better than MACGYVER, or any other 1980s action show myself.

AIRWOLF had a dark edge that was very uncommon for a 1980s series. In some ways, it was ahead of its time.

AIRWOLF was also one of the most expensive shows ever made for television. In addition to the high costs for aerial footage (a B-52 bombing run that was part of the last episode of the first season was the most expensive television special effect at the time, and might very well still be), the salaries of the two main stars (Jan-Michael Vincent and Ernest Borgnine) were very high (JMV was the highest paid actor on U.S. television for his work on this series). That's one of the reasons the show lasted only three seasons on CBS (plus one more, lower budget season on cable).

The soundtrack is killer too.

[blueberry]

I love the soundtrack. I remember bits and pieces of the show, but not much.

I used to watch this show on Thursday night 8pm back in my country (Knight Rider was on Wed night 8pm and McGyver was on Friday nigh 8pm). Among these 3 series, Airwolf was the one I remember the least, maybe like you said before, it was dark - so for little kid like me, I couldn't understand much.

[Ken Cheng]

I love the soundtrack. I remember bits and pieces of the show, but not much.

I used to watch this show on Thursday night 8pm back in my country (Knight Rider was on Wed night 8pm and McGyver was on Friday nigh 8pm). Among these 3 series, Airwolf was the one I remember the least, maybe like you said before, it was dark - so for little kid like me, I couldn't understand much.

AIRWOLF had a different tone from the other 1980s adventure shows. Probably because of the nature of the titular superweapon, people died on the show regularly, and not all the episodes concluded with a happy ending (the end of the pilot episode that started the series was very sad and tragic, in fact).

The series had heavy Cold War overtones, especially during the first season. In 1984, when the series started, the ideological struggle between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was still going full bore (although interestingly, just about a year after the show started, Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War had begun), and this was reflected in many of the series' episodes.

The cast just blows me away, though. Jan-Michael Vincent was a movie superstar of the 1970s, and Ernest Borgnine was/is a Hollywood legend. To have these two actors headline the show gave it a class that the other Eighties action shows couldn't hope to match.