SnoopyStyle Progressive high school teacher Ralph Hinkley (William Katt) is given a class of delinquents including Rhonda Blake (Faye Grant) and Tony Villicana (Michael Paré). He falls in love with his divorce lawyer Pam Davidson (Connie Sellecca). He takes the kids on a field trip to the desert. The bus breaks down and he goes off to find help. He runs into hard-nosed FBI agent Bill Maxwell (Robert Culp) who is investigating his partner's killing. The odd couple has a close encounter with a UFO. The aliens give Ralph a powerful superhero suit. Ralph struggles to make it work (especially flying) after losing the instruction book.It has a great premise for a superhero show when the superhero genre just got a leg up after Superman (1978). It's riding the first wave of superhero in the real world. The problem is that it doesn't follow through. It turns into an action procedural that Stephen J. Cannell would be famous for all throughout the 80s. Instead of digging into the ramifications and the personal lives, it becomes one rescue idea for each episode. There's a problem and the duo solves it after 60 minutes. In fact, the show doesn't even give Pam that much to do most of the time. Nine times out of ten, she's simply the girlfriend character despite being the third character to know Ralph's superpowers. The show eventually makes her a third wheel while they get rid of the students. Even Ralph's son fades into the background. The characters don't grow and the show becomes episodic in nature.The most memorable episode is when the duo encounters two old men who had a suit back in the day. However the silly episodic stories mount up. There is a ghost in one episode. They're digging for gold in another. With voodoo, Bermuda Triangle and everything else, the second season simply has too many stupid episodes and the show never recovered.

DKosty123 William Katt proved in this series he could act. His adventures with the suits are a group of mishaps & plot twists without equal in super hero history. This show is definitely a time piece that is not for the younger kiddies now.Robert Culp is amazing as Bill Maxwell. We know from his days opposite Bill Cosby in I Spy that he could do comedy, but his character here is an even funnier off-shoot of his FBI agent routine. He is always looking for help from those green guys.Connie Selleca, even though she was pregnant during this shows filming, was eye candy & easy to fall for. She always seemed to help set the mood for the shows she had a major role in. The kids in the cast were just that, the kids. William Katts mom, Barbara Hale does a couple of guest shots along with June Lockhart. Some other notables guest starred too. The best episode is called You Don't Mess Around With Jim. The plot is not only well thought out, a sort of Howard Hughes clone who dies under mysterious circumstances, but the show has a couple of great special effects stunts that make you wonder, how did they do that? This is by far the best episode. Sometimes, the writing on this show lacked sound logic. You didn't mind if you like the cast, which a lot of us did. Some of the other shows are pretty good too. Tung-in-cheek humor, Ralph Hinkley style.

ringmastr3 Since someone else has beautifully described the premise of the show, I will explain my love for it.This show was one of my favorites as a kid. I watched it with my dad every week, including the pilot. I've owned two copies of the theme song on 45 record singles since I was very young. Now that we own the series on DVD, my husband and I watch it with our kids (now they understand that corny song that mommy always plays on that prehistoric turntable at home). Even our four and five year old daughters stay glued, which is hard to get them to do unless they're watching something animated or with puppets. It's a great family show, and even though it's very dated, the stories stay fresh and the comic relief is the best. Just the expressions William Katt gets on his face are worth the watch. One of the best things about this show is how they incorporate life lessons for children, as well as for adults, into each episode, and do so without being too cheesy. I feel very proud to have my children see that even the most average guy can be a true hero, no matter how clumsy he may be. Throughout the series he reminds Bill, the FBI agent whom he "befriends", that being tough and violent isn't always the best way to solve issues and that compassion and communication is really best. As a high school special ed teacher, he teaches his "hood" students that they are not just nobodies, and that anyone can be really successful in life if they just put their minds to it. What a great, wonderful show that ended much too soon. Sadly, it only survived 3 short seasons. I'm very grateful to have it forever on DVD. I highly recommend this series to anyone.

Bolesroor If you aren't familiar with "The Greatest American Hero" you owe it to yourself to get the DVDs... you won't be disappointed. I used to watch the show as a kid and I loved it... they used to play it on Saturday mornings after the cartoons had ended and I never missed an episode. Flash forward twenty years and I'm amazed at not only how well the show has held up but at all I missed the first time around.Ordinary schoolteacher Ralph Hinkley is given a supersuit by space aliens... when wearing the suit he has all the powers of a superhero. The trouble is he lost the suit's instruction book in episode one and has to figure out how it works as he goes along. He's partnered with crusty, by-the-book FBI agent Bill Maxwell (Robert Culp) and gets lots of help from his gorgeous girlfriend Pam (Connie Selleca). If you think this is a broad, goofy comedy or kid's show you couldn't be farther off... if you think it's kitschy nostalgia you'd be wrong as well. The Greatest American Hero is nothing short of one of the greatest TV shows of all time.The concept of the everyman becoming superman allowed the show's creators and writers to examine different aspects of human nature... there's so much going on in every episode that getting the bad guy is almost secondary. In one of the best episodes "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys," Ralph is forced to examine what it means to be a hero while Bill wrestles with having to arrest his OWN hero, a veteran police officer who has turned to a life of crime. The show was unbelievably human, and the three leads are a perfect triangle... Robert Culp grounds the show by not pulling any punches as the skeptical, impatient fed; his disbelief at the premise only serves to make the premise more real.William Katt as Ralph is excellent, completely believable as a man trying to balance his roles as boyfriend, father, teacher and superhero. Connie Selleca is not just beautiful... she's a confident, funny actor, putting more into Pam than was on the page. This show is also wonderful as a time-capsule piece, a reminder of when TV could appeal to everyone and still be intelligent, dramatic, and FUN. (Today so many dramas open every episode with a corpse it's all but become the rule.) "GAH" is also one of the BIGGEST TV shows ever made... by that I mean its visual look and style of direction is grand, cinematic. If you get the DVD's you'll see that every episode is a mini-movie. You'll also see that it's one of the best transfers EVER done. The show, twenty years later, is more bright, clean and vivid than anything on TV today. And you also get the memorable theme song, which still gives old-time fans like myself instant nostalgia whenever we hear it.In conclusion I highly recommend "The Greatest American Hero" to everyone... you will love it, your kids will love it, and it will stimulate your imagination, make you laugh and make you think. What more could you ask for?GRADE: A+