Rating: 
Summary: What a waste of money and time!
Review: I have always been a fan of short horror stories whether written or tv/movie media, I bought this dvd set on the recommendation of a store clerk,,woe! the stories are far from interesting very far from frightening pure trash with a few gratuitous bare breasts thrown in for titilation (pun fully intended) also over use of the big F word probably to impress adult audiences of the mid 80's..the only thing I can see that was even of passing interest was the presence of a few big names of today that got their start in this pitiful series,,even then the jacket blurb overlooked the presence of Geraldine Page yet touted the presence of James Remar,(James Remar??? C'mon!)Kirstie Alley did an overacting job then as she does in her Pier 1 commercials, it totalled 300 minutes and I stuck through to the bitter end hoping the next of the 10 would improve,,,alas,,,not to be,. I could have been doing something worthwhile in that 5 hour period. Live and learn.
Rating: 
Summary: Going my way?
Review: I watched this show all the time back int he old HBO days. It had that eerie them music and good stories. The sex scenes weren't bad either.
Rating: 
Summary: Too Expensive For Such Few Episodes
Review: Ok, let me start right off and tell you that I do not own, nor have I even seen this DVD. However, I own the 3-disc 26 episode set released in Canada (feel free to read my review at http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0001E7LL6/) and I feel that I should do a quick comparison of both.
This set gives you less episodes for more money than the Canada set. This set costs $31.48 US Dollars plus shipping for 10 episodes. The Canada set cost me $34.57 US Dollars *WITH* "Expedited International Shipping" for 26 episodes!
The Canada set contains the first 26 episodes of the series (seasons 1 - 3 here, season 1 in Canada), but in a different order from how it was shown in the United States. This set contains 10 episodes from Season 3 (Nightshift, W.G.O.D., Man's Best Friend, Ghostwriter, Last Scene), Season 4 (Why Are You Here?, Homebodies, The Legendary Billy B., In the Name of Love), and Season 5 (The Miracle of Alice Ames). The season 3 episodes are also in the Canada set.
The Canada set does have a lot of cheapness to it. For starters, there is an ungodly amount of compression artifacts found in the set. Practically EVERY episode has at least one noticable artifact (though admittedly a few of these you'd have to have an "eye" for in order to see them). Also, it comes in a cheap top/bottom load slipsleeve (the cases easily fall out when you take it off the shelf). I wish it was a side loader like mosts dvd-set sleeves. Plus there are numerous errors in the text on the packaging (lots of cast members who aren't in the episodes on the discs, one director not involved in the episodes on the discs, and a few spelling and character name errors), which makes it seems quite unprofessional.
There are two episodes in the Canada set, which are also in this set, that have video/audio errors. In "Last Scene" there's an original tape defect at 28:35. In "Man's Best Friend" there is no audio from 12:42-12:46. The original Lorimar video I have has the audio. The DVD cuts out music and the dog panting and the first part of Michael O'Keefe's dialogue ("I mean..."). I wonder if these two errors are in this set as well.
Each episode in the Canada set has a 2.0 (stereo) and 5.1 audio track. I really see no need for the 5.1 track and would have preferred that they left it off (maybe there wouldn't be so many damn compression artifacts if they had that extra space on the discs to work with). From what I've read, this set has the original mono track as well as a stereo track. I would have preferred that the Canada set had this, especially since the stereo track is probably just a downsample of the 5.1 track (on rare occassion the stereo track has a stereo effect at the oddest spots - like in dialogue - which wouldn't be there if that were the original audio track of the series).
The U.S. set contains bonus features, namely audio commentaries on selected episodes, plus closed captions, and multi-language subtitles. The Canada set contains NO bonus features, other than the unnecessary 5.1 audio track.
I gave this set 3 stars only because I presume it doesn't have any compression artifacts like the Canada set does. I didn't include the audio commentaries in the rating because I never heard them and I'm trying to fairly compare both sets based on the episodes themselves.
If you want a more detailed review from someone who actually owns this set, check out: http://www.freewebs.com/settokaiba/theseries.htm
Rating:
Summary: The Hitchhiker
Review: The Hitchhiker never jumped the shark in my opinion (then again, my parents never wanted HBO in their home so they could keep their kids from having access to TV T&A, thus, I didn't catch it in the early years.) Page Fletcher, however, was like a cooler Alfred Hitchcock, the Fonz of suspense. And that intro (...) with the rattlesnake chiming in as we see him walking through dust on the shoulder of the highway. In junior high school I saved up and bought a cheap leather backpack to carry my books in, trying to be as cool as Fletcher's semi-sinister-yet-all-knowing character that I got to see about 2 minutes of during the episode, but hours and hours of in the commercials. The backpack didn't make me cool, so my 12-yr.-old self gave up the Hitchhiker for heavy metal. (That didn't work either, but they all have nostalgia value.)
Rating:
Summary: The Hitchhiker Rules!!
Review: The Hitchhiker was an awesome show! I remember watching it on HBO when I was a kid. I also enjoyed the later episodes on USA network. The stories were great. I just wish some network would show the Hitchhiker again
Rating:
Summary: Hitchhiker #1
Review: The Hitchhiker was an awesome show! I remember watching it on HBO when I was a kid. I also enjoyed the later episodes on USA network. This show could never jump- the stories were great. I just wish some network would show the Hitchhiker again
Rating:
Summary: The Hitchhiker series is stil the Best
Review: The Hitchhiker was the best show on tv(then again, my parents never wanted HBO in their home so they could keep their kids from having access to TV T&A, thus, I didn't catch it in the early years.) Page Fletcher, however, was like a cooler Alfred Hitchcock, the Fonz of suspense. And that intro (bump-dump-bump-chhhhhhh-bump-dump-bump-chhhhhhh-ooorrrwouoonnnnhhhhh) with the rattlesnake chiming in as we see him walking through dust on the shoulder of the highway
Rating: 
Summary: HBO in the 80's!!!!
Review: This was a spooky, gory and weird series that truly pushed the limits of HBO at the time. Kind of like The Outer Limits mixed with Tales From The Crypt, it features a hitchiker that kind of "introduces" a new story every episode. Many famous faces and directors got a start on this series. HBO used to run this show at about 11:00 at night to make sure all the kids were asleep!
Rating:
Summary: Where's Episode 4 : Love Sounds????
Review: While it's nice that this series is out on dvd, I'm disapointed to learn that "Love Sounds, episode 4"" was not included here as it's the best episode from THE HITCHHIKER series.Is there going to be a SECOND dvd release with MORE episodes on it?. Please, anyone, email my agent if you have any info on this.
Thanks. Tovrich AGENT : perillij@yahoo.com
Rating:
Summary: Where's Episode 4 : Love Sounds????
Review: While it's nice that this series is out on dvd, I'm disapointed to learn that "Love Sounds, episode 4"" was not included here as it's the best episode from THE HITCHHIKER series. Is there going to be a SECOND dvd release with MORE episodes on it?. Please, anyone, email my agent if you have any info on this.
Thanks. Tovrich AGENT : perillij@yahoo.com
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