Spécial O.P.S. Force

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.

SOF is what it is. It's a 90s American Jerry Bruckheimer show about special ops soldiers, so don't expect it to be particularly forward-thinking in terms of 'foreigners' or equality and diversity. It also covers some pretty dark themes, although most of the really bad stuff (torture etc) occurs off-screen. That said, it's actually a lot better than most shows of the time period in terms of, well, not being complete garbage. Whilst there are some huge nope moments (lesbians as a punchline, some really choice racist dialogue, numerous rape threat storylines, I could go on) it's an easy watch, it's fun and fast and has a cast of really likeable characters who you'll grow to love (yeah, even Benny Ray, who's a total dudebro.) It's also cheesy af, which ups its fun quota by a huge amount. I enjoyed it a lot.

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.

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.

Okay, okay, so this entire series exists solely for the purpose of putting Dennis Rodman and his multi-piercings on the air, but hey, it's not bad.

So you've got this team of five special agents that go around doing these international deeds of good will and shooting people for kicks. That's actually not that bad. Brad Johnson, Tim Abell, and Melinda Clarke bring the same brand of action and drama that was present in the cancelled "Soldier of Fortune, Inc" (a better title than what they've got now), and newcomers David Eigenberg and Dennis Rodman bring the comedic relief. How can you not get a kick out of Dennis?

On the down-side, the main purpose of this show seems to be Dennis getting rub-downs from beautiful, scantily-clad women. Ignoring the fact that a 6'8 man (with more piercings than some countries and flourescent hair) is trying to "blend in", there's also the problem that his character is identical to the one he's supposed to be replacing, who was a core member of the show's predecessor.

But back on the up-side, Eigenberg is brilliant in his portrayal of Nick Delvecchio. How can anyone not love this guy? Cross Gilbert Gottfried with Casper the Friendly Ghost, and you've got it.

This show has a chance, and possible staying potential, but it would be a good idea to see if former cast-mates Mark Sheppard and Réal Andrews can be lured back. The show has lost much of its appeal without the camaradie that marked the other series.