Walker, Texas Ranger – The Third Season by Paramount

Actors

• Chuck Norris
• Clarence Gilyard Jr
• Sheree J. Wilson

Format

• NTSC
• Full Screen
• Color

Editorial Review

Three seasons of dispensing his own brand of roundhouse-kicking justice have not slowed Texas Ranger Cordell Walker (Chuck Norris). As an appreciative observer remarks at one point during season 3, “You still have all the moves, Walker.” Whether going undercover as a cocaine dealer in Miami or “delivering a little pain” against white supremacists, Russian mobsters, street gangs, IRA terrorists, heroin smugglers, or vengeful ex-convicts, Walker is “a damn one-man army” who “walks the walk and talks the talk.” No one delivers Chuck-isms such as, “The bigger they are, the harder they hit” like Norris. Walker, Texas Ranger's third season is a bit edgier than seasons past. The language is a tad cruder and the action more graphic. The episode “The Juggernaut,” about a wife beater terrorizing a woman's support group, is particularly rough stuff. In the explosive season opener, “Blown Apart,” a Bible-quoting mad bomber unleashes a holocaust of fiery destruction that even Walker cannot defuse in time. Among the season's most memorable episodes is “Final Justice,” in which Walker discovers that the man who killed his parents when he was a boy is still alive, leading to a most dangerous game in which Walker becomes the prey of this hunt-happy racist (portrayed by John Vernon, best known as Dean Wormer in Animal House). In “Deep Cover,” Walker partners up with a female cop played by world champion kickboxer Kathy Long, who, as an actress, makes a great world champion kickboxer. “Blackout” opens intriguingly with an amnesiac Walker waking up in a casino office clad in a tuxedo, holding a gun and lying next to a dead body. Chuck Norris commentary would have been a real kick, but then again, he is a man of action, and this season does deliver for Walker fans. –Donald Liebenson