When there is trouble or injustice around, when tyrants try to rule with impunity and without care to the welfare of the innocent, there must come a hero. A hero that comes in the masked form of Zorro, the one man who will stand up against oppression and has the support of all the towns people except for the Alcalde. Early in the ninteenth centrury, the Alcalde is a tyranical leader of the town in the early years of Los Angles who will do anything to get what he wants. Only Zorro is strong enough and smart enough to put a stop to all the opression that the Alcalde and his military force puts upon the people.

This was a tough and very time consuming show for me to watch. With 88 episodes for the 4 seasons that the show ran by the time I finished I had had enough of watching Zorro. This was a show that if I had watched it when it first came out I probably would not have watched it past the third episode. It was filmed from 1990 to 1993 in Madrid, Spain and was aired on the Family Channel with the same main cast appearing in the 4 seasons of the show, except for Michael Tylo who left the show at the end of season 2. Also making appearances on the show is notable actors such as Adam West, Peter Postlethwaite, Andre the Giant, Warwick Davis, Tim Reid, Jesse Ventura, and Roddy Piper.

Zorro is a character that has been around for a long time who fights for anyone that has had injustice done to them. What makes him fight is having a leader that will beat, tax, and even attempt to kill anyone he thinks is in league with Zorro or has done something that he feels is against the law. It does not matter if that person is innocent or if there is any evidence that shows that they didn’t do it, the leader would still try his best to hurt them.

For the life of me I just couldn’t get my head around why anyone would stay in that town. With a leader that is crazy, evil, and will do anything to get more money and even attempt to kill them, why was anyone still there? In fact why not try to take him out? Get a new leader, they can’t all be bad right? Well, actually they must because after the first Alcalde, Luis Ramone (played by Michael Tylo) who was mean was replaced by Ignacio De Soto (played by J.G. Hertzler) who was also being a tyrant. Though I guess with a show that’s supposed to be about the hero standing up for the weak and opressed, having the bad guy actually win would not be the best course of action. But that’s not all that I didn’t get. How Don Diego de la Vega (played by Duncan Regehr) could fool everyone into not ever suspecting that he is Zorro is ludicrus. So he wears a mask, but it only covers half his face, his mastache is left showing and his eyes are uncovered as well, nor did he even change his voice to sound differently. Anyone with half a brain should have been able to figure out that he was Zorro.

At first I wasn’t really able to get into the show. It’s cheesy, it has cheesy acting, cheesy plots, and an all around cheesy show. However, after I had watched around 6 episodes in a row I had noticed that I was actually getting into the show. By the time I made it to the end of the first season I had found that I enjoyed the show and was looking forward to seeing the other seasons.
In the first season the acting started off on a low note but after awhile it seemed that the actors started to get comfortable with each other and with their roles. Granted it is somewhat a cheesy show and I doubt the show would even make it to a seasond season during the current time nor have 25 episodes filmed for the first season. Since it was given 25 episodes it gave the show enough time to develop itself into a show that turned out to be enjoyable.

 Throughout the 4 seasons there are certain episodes that stood out over all the others. Most of the ones I liked the most was in season 2, such as the Christmas episode titled ‘It’s a Wonderful Zorro’. Yep, it was about Don Diego de La Vega thinking he hadn’t changed anything while being Zorro so an angel comes down to let him see what life would be like if there had been no Zorro. Sure it’s a little cliché, a lot cliché actually, but it was still fun to watch. Then getting to see the epsiodes ‘The Devil’s Fortress Parts 1 and 2’ that went to the present period as well as showing the past with Zorro. Following those epsiodes were ‘One For All, parts 1 and 2’ that was at the end of season that was also good. Season 3 was decent but this was the season with the new actor J.G. Hertzler playing the role of Alcalde Ignacio De Soto. By this point in the show I had grown to like Michael Tylo in the role of Alcalde so having this new guy come in trying to be the same character.

Still, I have no idea how Zorro was able to make it to 4 seasons. There’s so much wrong with the show that it’s mind boggling. Film quality of the show is horrible. Even for a show that was filmed in the early 90’s the way it looks is poor. I don’t think the show had anything done to it to improve on the looks any when transferred over to DVD. Then there’s the day for  night shooting that looks nothing like night. If you don’t know what day for night is, it’s when something is shot during the day but is darkened to make it look like it’s night. Today this style of shooting is done well with good filters and camera angles that make it look like night. In Zorro, the night shots look like someone had just put a dark lense on and started to shoot. There’s clouds in the sky that can be seen as well there being shadows.

The worst of the flaws for the show is the repeative story lines in the show. Every epsiode had the Alcalde doing something wrong and then having Zorro save the day. This same flow for the show got old after the first season and though they tried to change it up some in season 2 it was still the same in the end. If I had been watching this show as it was being aired I would have gotten bored with it pretty quickly but because it is on DVD with no commericals and the ablity to fast forward through the opening theme, I was able to enjoy it just enough to continue watching.