Jesse aus dem All

I was 13 years old when "Hard Time" first appeared on the air. It's understandable that it didn't do so well with the viewing audience in the late '80s. I, however, wasn't a member of that demographic and loved the show.

The special effects used to create Control, main character Jesse's floating, orange, orb-like companion, seemed so cutting edge back in "the day." Looking at the Incredibles or Shrek today, the little guy seems to pale in comparison.

The show tends to consist of Jesse running around in his leather jacket, blue jeans and white sneakers, jumping long distances, tearing up things and throwing people when he brushes with authorities. He often uses violence. I guess he was just learning how to adapt to life on planet earth, huh?

I'm strangely drawn to the show today, 16 years after it was cancelled. What's the appeal? I have no clue what it could be besides pure reminiscence.

I have all 13 episodes on DVD, which I bought on goldmonkey.com. They were copied from a less-than-spectacular videocassette. Some even include commercials that weren't cut during the original taping.

When I first seen this show, I was a kid. It was back in 1991 or 1992 when it was aired in a weekly "Walt Disney Hour" with an animated series and some short Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, etc. cartoon. I liked it, it was a series I watched every week. Two years ago one of the TV channels took it back to screen: I watched it again and liked it more than in childhood. The show is not a special effect-full Star Trek or a serious science fiction, but a great comedy. My favorite episode is in which a female from Jesse's race arrives to Earth and tries to kill him. The scenes at the end of this episode are fantastic!

Somewhere on another planet, there was a war. One of the soldiers was suspect in treason. And the goverment of that planet decided to send him on Planet Earth to expiate his guilt. Now I don't remember exactly how many series were in this movie I watched this one seven years ago. But I remember almost all of them.

I watched with a big pleasure Jesse's adventures on Earth. I think that children will like this movie.

I saw this on Hungarian television in the, I want to say very early 90s. The Hungarians always had great dubbing, so the show came across flawlessly. Stuck with me ever since. For me, the Karate Kid villain was Jesse from this series. Periodically thought about it and today finally I looked it up on IMDB. A bit shocked that it only has 8 reviews total. I wonder how many other great shows exist that most don't know about? My first review ever on IMDB is for this, I liked it that much. Great show, I hope I'll see it again in the future, perhaps with my children.

Nine out of ten because I'm sure it's not perfect, just very very good.

Remember the episode when Jesse was working as a Hot Dog Vendor at a wrestling arena and he ends up kicking some butt to the tune of a screaming crowd yelling "Hot Dog Man! Hot Dog Man?"

Priceless sci-fi entertainment for its day...

I loved this show when I was a kid... A shame it only lasted twelve episodes, since that's not realy long enough to be re-run...even on the Sci-Fi channel.

Time to check Ebay, methinks...

Four Stars (****)