The Series:

The first of the six seasons that Nash Bridges was on the air was a quick one - only eight episodes - but it was enough to earn the series a following strong enough to carry it for five more years. The show debuted on CBS on March 29th, 1996 and ran until May 4, 2001 and now it too has made its way to DVD.

For those unfamiliar with the series, it follows the exploits of a middle aged San Francisco police officer named Nash Bridges (Don Johnson) who works in the special investigations unit. He, along with his partner, Joe Dominguez (Cheech Marin), cruise the streets of San Francisco in a yellow 71 Plymouth Barracude that Nash's brother gave him years ago before shipping out for a tour of duty in Vietnam - a tour Nash believes he never came home from. Regardless, these two cops have their jobs cut out for them as they seem to attract all manner of strange and dangerous cases.

If serving the public trust wasn't enough to keep Nash busy, there's his personal life. He lives with his aging father, Nick (James Gammon), who suffers from mild dementia and can't seem to stay in a nursing home long enough to make it worth putting him in one. He also has to deal with his daughter, Cassidy (Jody Lynne O'Keefe), who has grown up much faster than he wants her to. Nash has got two ex-wives who weren't able to make it work with him, and it seems that any time he takes an interest in a woman his career gets in the way.

With the help of a few other SFPD employees - Harvey Leek (Jeff Perry), Evan Cortez (Jaimie P. Gomez) and Sgt. Ronnie (Ronald Russell) - Nash tries to balance his personal life with that of a committed detective and finds that it isn't always an easy job.

The eight episodes that make up the first season of Nash Bridges are:

Disc One:

Genesis (Pilot): In the debut episode we see Nash go undercover as a computer buy to infiltrate and bust a gang who have stolen a massive shipment of microchips with the intent of selling them on the black market.

Home Invasion: A family if Chinese immigrants find themselves the victims of a horrible break and entry that turns into an assault. The father winds up dead and Nash and his team have to find the killers and bring them in.

Skirt Chasers: The formerly retired Joe re-joins the SFPD's Special Investigation Unit when he finds out that his pension payments aren't going to be quite what he'd hoped for. His first case? Help Nash nail some heroin dealers.

High Impact: Someone calls in a bomb threat against the mayor of San Francisco and Nash and his team have to go investigate but things get ugly when it is accidentally triggered.

Disc Two:

The Javelin Catcher: Nash is checking out a case involving two rival gangs that resulted in a nasty shooting spree. He soon discovers that one of the weapons used in the incident is actually a military prototype that's went mysterious missing.

Vanishing Act: Nash goes undercover so that he can buy some industrial equipment that was stolen from and is now being sold by members of the Russian mob. Harvey Leek is helping him out on the mission, and Nash becomes worried when Harvey disappears with a few hundred thousand dollars on his person.

Aloha Nash: Nash is planning on taking Kelly away from it all on vacation but the day they're supposed to leave he gets called in on a case that will find him chasing a bookie and an F.B.I. agent who has changed sides.

Key Witness: Lisa claims to have seen a murder but no one can find any evidence whatsoever that there was a crime or a victim! She tries to convince Nash of what she knows to be true but without anything to back it up, he's going to have a hard time proving her story.

Shot in and around San Francisco, California, Nash Bridges doesn't really break the mold as far as cop shows are concerned but it does manage to entertain. Don Johnson and Cheech Marin have an unexpectedly sincere chemistry together and they seem to be having a good time with the material. There's a great sense of humor running throughout the series that makes it a lot of fun to watch, but at the same time the series does a surprisingly good job handling some of the more serious and dramatic aspects of the storylines as well. The plots are generally fairly predictable but there's enough action and adventure in here that they're still a lot of fun to watch.

While the action and intrigue are what keep the show moving, the focus on Nash's ability (or, inability, depending on which episode we're talking about) to handle his personal life as well as his professional life is what gives the series its heart. It's here that the character development becomes more interesting and more important to the show's success. Nash's efforts as a father and as a son often prove to be more complicated than taking down mobsters, hoods and bad guys and it's nice to see him portrayed as an every man type with real problems and issues - it lends the series a bit of believability.

As the series would progress, the cast of characters would expand and develop and the stories would get more interesting because of it. The first eight episodes don't hold quite the same amount of interest as later seasons would arrive with but without these initial stories to set those later episodes up, they likely wouldn't have been as successful. Think of this batch of eight hour long stories as an appetizer. The series had pretty high production values at the time that it was being made and that helps it to hold up well twelve years after its debut.

The Video:

Nash Bridges is presented in its original 1.33.1 fullframe aspect ratio, just s it should be. Despite periodic softness and some occasional quirkiness in the color reproduction, the series generally looks pretty good here. There aren't any problems with mpeg compression artifacts nor is there much in the way of edge enhancement to complain about. Sharpness and detail levels are as good as you'd probably expect from a ten year old television series, meaning that they're not perfect but they're decent. Black levels stay fairly strong and while there is some obvious aliasing now and then, the good outweighs the bad and the series looks decent enough even if the transfers are interlaced.

The Audio:

The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track (which comes with optional English closed captioning) is about on par, quality wise, with the video. Dialogue stays clean and clear and there aren't any problems with hiss or distortion though there are parts of the series where the low end of the mix does slightly overpower the performers and muddle the dialogue up just a bit. That said, this is the exception and not the rule - generally the series sounds just fine.

The Extras:

First up, as far as the supplements are concerned, are two audio commentaries - one for the pilot episode with series' creator Carlton Cruse and start Cheech Marin, and one that has been edited together from an interview with Don Johnson for High Impact. The track with Cruse and Marin is an enjoyable one as they talk about what it was like working on the series in the early days. Marin's quirky sense of humor makes it a fun listen but in addition to that there are some interesting stories about how the series came to be in the first place. Johnson's track, which isn't really scene specific or even episode specific, isn't quite as focused and it's obvious that his talk has been edited together rather than recorded specifically for High Impact. That said, there are some interesting moments that make it worth checking out.

Up next is a Writer's Roundtable interview that gathers up five of the scribes who came up with the series' various plots to talk about what it was like writing Nash Bridges. At just under nineteen minutes in length this is actually a fairly decent discussion that touches on where many of the ideas for the episodes came from, what it was like coming up with the characters, and how it can be tricky to write for an actor as opposed to writing for the character that the actor would play.

A brief two minute interview with Don Johnson and Cheech Marin that was originally shown when the series was new is included though it is over before it even really begins. More interesting is Don Johnson And His Original Gonzo Idea which is an eight minute interview with Johnson shot earlier this year. Here he talks about how he came up with the idea with some help from the late Hunter S. Thompson (who appears in a cameo in the pilot episode) who was Johnson's neighbor for some time! From there he talks about how that idea turned into the series' premise and what it was like trying to get it rolling.

Aside from that, looks for a vintage network promo spot that was shown before the show was originally broadcast, trailers for a few other TV on DVD releases, menus, and episode selection.

Overall:

Say what you will about the series but Nash Bridges - The Complete First Season remains as much fun now as it was when the series was first aired. Johnson and Marin make a good team and the odd sense of humor that the show is laced with is a nice contrast to the action and procedural aspects of the show. The audio and video quality are decent enough and the extras aren't bad either - recommended.

Ian lives in NYC with his wife where he writes for DVD Talk, runs Rock! Shock! Pop!. He likes NYC a lot, even if it is expensive and loud.