The Fourth Season

Wings is a fun sitcom that first aired in 1990 and ran for eight seasons until 1997. The show was about the daily lives of several neurotic airport employees who worked at Tom Nevers Field, a small airport in Nantucket, Massachusetts. The series was created by the same individuals (David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee) who were responsible for the hit television series Cheers and Frasier. For more details about this series, please refer to DVD Talk's reviews of seasons one and two and season three.

Season four picks up where season three left off. In the season three finale, Helen was invited to play with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. On the day of the special event, the gang hopped in a plane and headed to Boston. Unfortunately, the plane crashed and Helen and Joe's dreams went down with it. "Lifeboat" continues the story with the cast stranded in the ocean. After their rescue, Helen and Joe consider different futures. Helen loses her desire to play classical music and Joe, with no plane, decides to give up Sandpiper. In the season's following episodes, these issues are addressed. For instance, "The Fortune Cookie" is a goofy episode where Brian convinces Joe to fake an injury to get more insurance money.

One notable change to the cast this season is the reoccurring character Alex Lambert (Farrah Forke). In "Two Jerks And A Jill", Alex comes to Nantucket to run her own helicopter tour company. She was in the U.S. Army and flew Apache helicopters in Desert Storm. She is a tough and sexy woman who grabs both Joe and Brian's undivided attention. And throughout the season, both Hackett bothers go out of their way to woe her. She continues to appear as a love interest into season five. Other fun episodes involving the Brian-Joe-Alex love triangle include "It May Have Happened One Night", "I Love Brian", "The Key To Alex", and "Date Package Number Seven".

Also in "Two Jerks And A Jill", Brian borrows Lowell's boat and sinks it. In the following episode "It's So Nice to Have a Mather Around the House", Joe and Brian deal with having a new roommate. At first, having Lowell around the house is great. He does all the cleaning and makes gourmet meals. But the Hackett brothers find his good qualities come with too much mothering. It makes for a fun episode.

A real fun episode, my favorite of the season, is "I've Got A Secret". Joe, Brian, Lowell, and Faye go to Atlantic City for the night while Alex, Helen, and Antonio spend the evening together for a girl's night. The fun part comes from Shalhoub's performance in the silly situation of a girl's night. Another good episode is the two-parter "The Gift". In it, Joe and Brian try to revitalize Helen's interest in her classical music career. They mortgage the house and buy an expensive cello and encourage her to audition for the Nantucket Quartet. Meanwhile, the rest of the gang audition for a play about Oprah Winfrey that is based upon the Phantom of the Opera.

Overall, Wings' fourth season continues with a similar light-hearted, fun tempo found in earlier seasons. I enjoyed getting to see these episodes again, but the humor just wasn't nearly as strong as I would have liked. With season three, I had more fun, but season four felt lighter in comedy with more drama and story arcs. There are some episodes that try to be funny, but have very limited humor. In the end, Wings's fourth season is entertaining and will offer decent entertainment value for fans, but it probably won't be the most memorable experience as some of the episodes are too light on comedy.

Episode Guide

1. Lifeboat: As the gang floats along, waiting to be rescued from the plane crash, they watch Joe's plane - and their dreams - sink to the bottom of the ocean.
2. The Fortune Cookie: When Joe finally gets his insurance check for his downed plane, it's ridiculously low. So Brian talks him into faking an injury in order to get more money.
3. Noses Off: A doctor makes a comment about Brian's nose...and suddenly Brian feels he needs plastic surgery. Roy employs a student as his own personal slave.
4. Blackout Buggins: Brian arranges for Roy to sing the National Anthem at a Red Sox game. But after Roy faints and becomes a laughing-stock, he begs Brian for a second chance.
5. Mathers Of The Heart: Helen kisses Lowell after he fixes her stove, so Lowell decides to ask her out. But after their date, he realizes he made a big mistake.
6. Two Jerks And A Jill: There's sexy female helicopter pilot named Alex Lambert on the island. And the Hackett brothers are falling all over themselves, trying to get a date with her.
7. It's So Nice To Have A Mather Around The House: When Brian accidentally sinks Lowell's houseboat, Lowell comes to stay with the Hackett brothers as their new rommmate...and spoils them with tender loving care.
8. Just Say No: A beautiful woman Brian is obsessed with is back on the island. And although his friends warn him that he's being used by her, he falls back into the same behavior.
9. It May Have Happened One Night: Everyone's infatuated with finding out what really went on between Joe and Alex the night before. And Lowell is determined to catch the cricket in Roy's office.
10. The Customer's Usually Right: Joe goes ballistic after being charged a video store rewind fee, and gets an old lady fired on Christmas Eve. And everyone takes turns playing Lowell's drums.
11. Exit Laughing: Helen falls for Joe's hunky oceanographer friend...until she hears his laugh. Meanwhile, Roy helps Antonio deal with a neighbor's loud leaf blower.

12. What The Cabbie Saw: Antonio testifies as the sole witness to a robbery. But when the thief is released due to a technicality, Antonio thinks he is being stalked by a crazed criminal.
13. Labor Pains: Lowell's been offered a job at Logan Airport for twice the money. But when he uses it as a leverage to get a big raise from Roy and Joe, they call his bluff.
14. I've Got A Secret: Helen hosts a "girls night" with Alex and Antonio, where secrets are spilled. But when revealed the secret that years ago Alex posed for a spread in Playboy?
15. The Gift (Part 1): For Helen, it's impossible to audition for a string quartet without a cello... so Brian suggests Joe mortgage the house to buy her one.
16. The Gift (Part 2): The string quartet rejects, then accepts, then drives Helen crazy. Now they're going on tour, and Helen would love to quit, were it not for Joe and Brian.
17. I Love Brian: Brian jumps through hoops to get Alex to believe he can actually get them into the Clint Black concert in Boston. And Antonio discovers the joys of I Love Lucy.
18. The Key To Alex: Joe and Brian can't figure out Alex. So they try the sensitive approach. Then jealousy. And finally, honesty. Lowell searches for a nickname for himself.
19. The Houseguest: Helen feels sorry for crotchety old Carlton Blanchard. But after he falls and hurts his ankle at her place she's stuck with the houseguest from hell.
20. Goodbye Old Friend: Lowell has no trouble accepting the death of an old mechanic friend... just writing the eulogy. Helen suffers a concussion and has to stay up for 18 hours.
21. Another Wedding: At a friend's wedding, Lowell is nervous about seeing his ex-wife, Bunny. And while Roy gets stuck at the children's table, Helen gets stuck dancing all night.
22. Date Package Number Seven: Alex is impressed with the spontaneous date to Maine that Brian took her on...until she discovers it was all pre-planned. A video game is driving Fay nuts.

The DVD

Video:
The video is given in 1.33:1 ratio full frame color. The picture quality is rather good and only suffers from minor compression artifacts. However, there are a few occurrences of low frame rate, where the picture gets slightly choppy and more grain than usual.

Audio:
The audio track in this release is an English 2.0 Dolby digital stereo sound track. The audio in this release comes off fairly flat. However as found with most TV on DVD releases it's not necessarily bad, since the majority of the audio is spoken dialogue.

This release also supports closed captioning.

Extras:
There are no extras included with this release.

Final Thoughts:
Wings is a fun, light-hearted comedy about the employees in a small Nantucket based airport. The cast has a good chemistry together and manages to play out some fun jokes from the situations they get into. The show can be formulaic and sometimes too generic with episodes that aren't always funny. Still, there are enough decent episodes to keep fans entertained. However, I believe it has limited replay value.