The Hitchhiker (TV Series 1983-1991) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy)

The Hitchhiker: DVD Volumes 1, 2 and 3

The Hitchhiker was one of HBO's earlier attempts at original series programming. It began in late 1983 with a mere trickle of three episodes, but the producers started taking it seriously a year later, in the 1984-85 season. The frequency of new episodes varied throughout the show's run. Sometimes there was a fresh episode every two weeks, and at one other point they were experimenting with a new one every week, followed by a dark period of reruns and production time.  Sometimes production was dark for a long period. The longest hiatus was almost two years, from May 1987 until April 1989, so there were no new episodes aired at all in calendar 1988, but the show experienced a strong revival in 1989, when a full slate of 26 new episodes was aired. They were still producing a small number of episodes as late as 1991. Here is the episode count by season. The seasons do not correlate perfectly to calendar years, although in three of the six (1983, 1987, 1989) cases they do happen to match up

Season	Dates	# Episodes
1	Late 1983	3
2	November 1984- April 1985	10
3	October 1985 - April 1986	13
4	February 1987 - May 1987	13
5	April 1989 - December 1989	26
6	September 1990 - February 1991	20

In concept the show was similar to the old Alfred Hitchcock TV series, except that it was in color and R-rated. Hitchcock was replaced by some young hunky guy, but the general narrative concept remained the same - the host would make a few pithy, omniscient remarks at the beginning and end of each episode, and the stories usually involved murder and/or the macabre. Even the name was an homage to "Hitch." The HITCHhiker. Get it?

There have been three volumes issued on DVD and there are ten episodes on each volume. The existing anthologies therefore present 30 of the 85 total episodes. I don't know what logic was used to determine which episodes were chosen for which anthology, but they don't really seem to be in any kind of order, as you can see from the tables below. The following summarize the episodes on each volume, and are listed in the same order in which they appear on the disks. The episode numbers and air dates are taken from tv.com.

Volume 1

Episode Name	#	Air Date	Nudity
Last Scene	24	3/35/86	Breasts from LeGena Hart
Nightshift	14	10/15/85
The Miracle of Alice Ames	46	7/15/89
Ghostwriter	19	1/7/86	The full monty from Dayle Haddon
Man's Best Friend	18	12/10/85	Breasts from Jennifer Cooke
W.G.O.D	17	11/26/85
The Legendary Billy B	33	3/31/87
Homebodies	31	3/17/87
Why Are You Here?	30	3/10/87
In the Name of Love	34	4/7/87	Breasts from Lucy Gutteridge, nude photos of an unknown

Volume 2

Episode Name	#	Air Date	Nudity
O.D. Feelin'	20	1/28/86
True Believer	23	3/11/86
Perfect Order	27	2/17/87	Breasts and brief buns from Virginia Madsen. Even a very brief flash of her crotch. Beautiful images. Also mud-covered topless nudity from two unknowns.
Cabin Fever	39	5/12/87
A Whole New You	82	2/1/91
Dead Heat	29	3/3/87	Breasts from Denise Galik
The Curse	22	2/25/86
Out of the Night	15	10/29/85	Breasts from Desiree Becker
Secret Ingredient	38	5/5/87
Man of Her Dreams	25	4/8/86

Volume 3

Michael Madsen's nudity was the only male flesh on display in any episode among these volumes, thereby assuring that Michael and Virginia would provide the only brother/sister nudity. Among the thirty episodes on DVD, there is absolutely no nudity at all from any episode numbered higher than 37, even though the series consisted of 85 episodes! The later episodes, like the ones numbered in the sixties just above this paragraph, have lots of irritating teases - strategic cutaways, fully clothed sex scenes, etc. It seems that there was a deliberate move away from nudity. 

For what it's worth, my favorite episode is Ghostwriter, #19. It not only features rare full-frontal and rear nudity, but it has a clever, twist-filled plot, a typically offbeat performance by Willem Dafoe, and some good direction. Another good one is Last Scene, which was directed by Paul Verhoeven.

The volumes get progressively weaker. Not only does Volume #1 have the best nudity and the best stories, but it has full-length commentaries for three of the episodes, including Verhoeven's. Volume #2 still has some nice nudity, especially the episode with Virginia Madsen, but not as much, and has only two commentaries. Volume 3 has very little nudity and no special features at all.

Volume 1 also has the biggest stars. In addition to Dafoe, some of the guest stars in Volume 1 include Joey Pants, Margot Kidder, Gary Busey, Helen Hunt, James Remar, and Kirstie Alley.