The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles

I saw these Adventures of Young Indiana Jones years ago and I honestly thought I imagined them because they disappeared for years. I would always tell people there were all these stories about Indy in World War I, and people didn't believe me. I was so happy to see the entire series is now on Disney+ and I can see them again.

Watching them years later, I'm surprised at how well they hold up. Sure, they didn't have the same budget as the films, but in many cases they did shoot on location and you really get a feel for Europe during the war.

Secondly, can I just shout at how GOOD Sean Patrick Flanery was as the eponymous Young Indy. Not only did he have the looks to match a younger Harrison Ford, but he also captured the character perfectly, if a much more earnest and innocent version of Indy (when and how he became more cynical I don't know).

Unfortunately, we never got another season and got to also see younger versions of characters from Raiders, especially Abner and Marion Ravenwood or Sallah, but we do get a backstory of the troubled father-son relationship between the Joneses.

Definitely one of the best series ever put out on TV. The historical intrigue was always interesting. Young Jones meeting Lawrence of Arabia, Picasso, and (my favorite) a very notable young Vietnamese revolutionary always kept your interest up. Plot lines, although sometimes a little trite, were usually well-done and faithful to history. Definitely a good successor to the movies with just enough action to boot.

Too bad it's not still on TV.

This was one of my favorite tv series and... oh wait, it STILL is!!! Indiana Jones, whether in the movies, or on TV, ROCKS!!! The tv show had Indiana Jones meeting real life history makers and was actually quite educational, which I enjoyed. Of course, episodes like The Treasure of the Peacock's Eye show Indy starting to get into what will become his future career - archeaology. The episodes showing him fighting in The Great War - later known as World War I, are really cool too and really paint an accurate as possible picture of what it really was like. It showed different events in Indy's life that shaped his values and ideas and made him into what he is now. Sean Patrick Flanery did a great job as Indiana Jones. The show rules!

I loved the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. They were great stories full of adventure and always related around historical events. If you are reading this and you loved it also, I have something you can do. The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles is not currently released on DVD. But there is something you can do about it. If you go to Amazon and search for the Chronicles on DVD, It will say that it is not released and has no date set. It will allow you to vote by putting in your email to receive a notice when it is released. Then see if you can get your friends to do the same. I would love to see the Adventures again, but it won't happen unless we speak up. :-)

It was a ratings flop but that wasn't George Lucas' fault: network t.v. is too small a format for the life of Indiana Jones (even if he is fictional!)

Among other places, young Indy travels to Egypt, Dublin during the Easter Uprising and eastern Africa in World War I. He meets up with historical personages like young, fey Mid-East scholar T.E. Lawrence, more Irish writers and rebels than I can recall here, General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and his friend, Karen Blixen (a.k.a. Isak Denisen). And, as the phrase goes, that ain't all!

About only ten episodes were made but each of them is really a cinematic production in its own right, light-years better than your typical movie-of-the-week or mini-series.