Spécial O.P.S. Force

Actually this show is so full of cliches it stinks. The russians/koreans/iraqians/arabs are so unbelievable stupid they're silly. Not much to be said about directing. The female in the crew is the only enjoyable thing to watch.

As far as hollywood TV goes, I think this is probably the best military show ever made. The characters have realistic military values. Duty, Honor, Country, Loyalty and others. The same values that are imbedded into soldiers today.

If you want realism, the episodes are full of real life crises from s*** holes across the world. Harry Humphries does an excellent job providing military realism. A considerable base of knowledge was placed into the show (at least the first season), that it could be sold as believable to even those with some military experiance.

The failure of the show was undoubtable due to the times. In 1997 the United States involvement in the world was reactive, and the Military played no role but as a peacekeeper. The show also failed in not reaching the neccessary audiences through advertising and good time slots.

The show had a great impact on me. I connected with the values portrayed and started a career for myself in the United States Army.

Oddly, I found myself actually watching this show late night during its syndication runs. What confounds me is how a moderately enjoyable light fare like this can be cancelled, and yet the absolute junk of Walker: Texas Ranger and Martial Law is still in production.

In any case the most I can say of Soldier of Fortune, at least in its 1st season, is that it's a smarter and grittier A-Team. Villains do die and some members of the team actually are believable as former SpecOps operatives, particularly worthy of note is Tim Abell, who himself was an Army Ranger. Brad Johnson was born to play a military man and Melinda Clarke is stunningly gorgeous.

Jerry Bruckheimer puts his usually polished, right-wing slant on episodes. Themes like Patriotism, Self-sacrifice, and Honor are routinely addressed though not necessarily explored to any depth. At the end of a few episodes, I did feel like waving a flag.

Like I said, this is not like reading Proust, but it was enjoyable on late night syndication. After Dennis Rodman joined in Season 2, the show became truly ridiculous. By moving production to Montreal and trying to create a more "hip" crew, the creators destroyed what I thought was interesting chemistry.

I've always been an 'A-Team' fan, and when I saw 'SoF Inc.' I thought it was the 'A-Team' for the 90's. Well, it was. Then they changed it way too much with the second season and it just wasn't the same anymore. I hope that the guy responsible for that never lives it down.

I hope that someday a network is created just for all action movies and TV shows. 'SoF Inc.' would be a perfect addition. If you like action shows and movies and you haven't seen this one, you should try to find it if it ever makes it to home video. The first season is worth it, even if only for the writing. The second season was okay but the chemistry just wasn't there anymore.

Here's a good example of that tried-and-true rule. One person called the show an Intelligent A-Team, and, for the first season anyway, that was the best possible description you could get. Five HIGHLY trained and skilled mercenaries, four ex-SpecOps soldiers and the lady an ex CIA field agent/troubleshooter. Officially, they're guns-for-hire; independant SpecOps, bodyguards, and security consultants. Unofficially getting most of their money and jobs from a backdoor of the State Department, working missions where secrecy and official deniability is paramount. If they're caught, the US government doesn't even know they exist.

The first season was spectacular. The actors were all form-fitted for the roles and the action had Jerry Bruckheimer written all over it. If you wanted to see what real military special operations were like, this was as close as Hollywood can get. Then they screwed it up....

In order to spice the show up and add some color, the Powers-that-be dumped the very professional Mark Sheppard and Real Andrews and replaced them with conciderably less professional but more colorful Eigenberg as a mouthy ex-DEA agent and Dennis Rodman as an independant freelancer who occasionally works with the Team (Rodmans schedule prevented him from committing full-time to the show). Within two months the show went from an intelligent A-Team to an A-Team Wannabe. The quality of the show dropped rapidly and so did the number of watchers. It wasn't long until the show was finally cancelled altogether. As it was, Soldier Of Fortune was great. If they hadn't tried improving it, it could've lasted a good five years more.