There’s a lot to cover here. Where to start? First, Joe Lara still makes an excellent Tarzan. Contrary to what I originally thought, he still looks like Tarzan, perhaps even more so than in the unrelated and inferior TARZAN IN MANHATTAN. This first part and first episode is unlike any other TARZAN movie or TV show before it. There are a number of reasons for this. 
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Volume 7671
Tarzan: The Epic Adventures
TARZAN’S RETURN I & II
Reviews by Charles MentoJoe Lara as Tarzan and Aaron Seville as Themba
Guest star: Lydie Denier as Olga de Coude
Lists of Credits are Featured in ERBzine 7670
CONTENTS
Parts 1 & 2 of a Two-Hour Movie
Part 1
A two-hour movie that reintroduces John Clayton, Lord Greystoke -- Tarzan.
Tarzan is in Paris where he is becoming more uncomfortable
with civilization and yearns for the jungle.
His return begins with a "Journey to the Center of the Earth".
In order to close the hole to the other world
Tarzan must find the gem stolen from the gateway.
Gaff: Look for cable attached to the vine on which Tarzan is swinging.
Part 2
After being devoured by a gigantic snake in the first half
Tarzan must follow Rokoff to Pellucidar at the Earth's core.
Rokoff plots with the Queen of the Mahars who are human flesh eaters.
1. EPIC ADVENTURES: TARZAN’S RETURN I
Part One of a Two-Hour Movie
The time is 1996. Syndicated shows were at their height. This started with the slow moving STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, quickly followed in the same year by the far most exciting FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE SERIES way back in 1987. By the mid 1990s, fantasy hero shows such as the HERCULES movies and THE LEGENDARY JOURNIES OF HERCULES (which spawned the far more exciting and serious---at least at first XENA, WARRIOR PRINCESS and YOUNG HERCULES; XENA having six seasons but the first three are the only three worth pursuing), MUTANT X, BEASTMASTER (highly recommended TV show based on the movies), CONAN (which should have had Conan going solo or at least with just one companion, for my money I’d have used the African companion in all of them and no other), THE NEW ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (with aliens as well as fantasy villains and allies), a bunch of other Robin Hoods, THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SINBAD (and a later BBC SINBAD, which was just as good), CLEOPATRA 2525, HIGHLANDER and HIGHLANDER: RAVEN, and more.
All of these shows had a similar style with a lot of fantasy, monsters, witches, sorcerers, jungles, deserts, giant legendary creatures, islands, castles, sword fights, and more but most of them were also very different in approaches and individual tones. HERCULES and its spinoffs often used a lot of humor, sometimes did parodies, even musical episodes and out right comedies and take offs on say LAW AND ORDER and/or GROUNDHOG DAY, often with hilarious results.
There are plenty of great action set pieces as well and sometimes a lot of meaning and emotion behind them (especially the first three seasons of XENA).
The effects were always variable (SINBAD probably had the beast of these and did one episode where the main witch shrunk Sinbad with great special effects).
At times, the heroes were ruthless and Sinbad can be seen in a narrow hall of a ship stabbing a villain dead in his stomach.
THE LOST WORLD is another beast entirely. And quite worth watching but that’s for another time.
Of these, TARZAN THE EPIC ADVENTURES seemed to be an outlier because…while it was one of them, it also lacked, from what I recall, the humor and the ability to make each episode somewhat different from the others. We shall see as we go on into the series. I was expecting to be bored by this first episode, parts one and two made from what was presented as a two hour movie (with commercials).
Okay, Lara is great here, again. He looks like Tarzan, is fit as can be and yet this is different from every TARZAN before and after.
First, this takes place…and to differentiate it from both Wolf Larson’s TARZAN series AND TARZAN IN MANHATTAN, the past of a VERY specific year 1914. Unlike Wolf’s shows and Ely’s show, we’re given very specific settings, too, and this episode moves from Paris to North Africa and then deep Africa jungles. There is no wondering here and that’s a good thing.
It takes the brave choice of making it specific and mentions Africa several times, unlike most of Ely’s show and almost EVERY Wolf episode.
Also unlike Wolf’s show, here we have a large cast of villains, allies, henchmen, main villains’ second in command (two of them!) and lots of extras milling around.
There’s even a large tribe that Tarzan and his new friend (a doctor?) Mugambi encounter once back in the jungle. Some intended humor from Mugambi about the tribe being cannibals isn’t funny. Joshua Mugambi is from the Wazuri from the blood of a Wazuri chief.
Other than Jai, Tarzan shows walk a narrow unbalanced line of Tarzan’s friends and allies. Mugambi has his good points but overall, I prefer Jai to almost all the others, even Roger.
Lydie Denier is a guest star here as Colette and she has some good action scenes, mostly getting kidnapped by the two main villains, first by Russian Czar’s son, the prince (?) Nicolai Rokoff and his assassin Alexi to Africa and then by Achmed Zek, the fat slave trader who tries to make her part of his harem, threatens to have her tongue cut out, and then auctions her off as a slave before trying to get her away from Tarzan but Tarzan and Colette (French and her father appears too!) stop him.
Christopher Dennis appears as Tarzan’s friend in Paris, Phillip D’Arnot.
There’s also an old man who can lead the villains to the spot the shiny amulet came from ---an area under and/or behind a waterfall that has a golden pylon. The area is guarded by a giant snake.
Tacanda is a palm tree which you can eat the core of. Themba might be the name of the chief of the tribe who is a friend of Tarzan. The tribe’s name might be Cucoyou.
Again unlike all the Tarzan TV shows (and most movies) before it, this has stock footage kept to a minimum and what stock there is fits in almost perfectly with the main action. Yet…somehow the jungle here does NOT look like Africa to me but it somehow seems to be functional.
Okay, the snake. Yes. As in some HERCULES episodes, the giant snake looks fake. It seems to be a combination of large rubber head and maybe some bad CGI? BUT I don’t much care about bad special effects (unless they’re truly awful which this is not) if the story moves, and is interesting and can provide other things.
This moves faster than I thought it would and isn’t as boring as I thought it might be. I know I wandered from this show but recorded it when it was on but lost interest quickly so we shall see.
The snake is okay even if it mostly does not work. They should have written into it that the snake devoured or killed some of Rokoff’s men. That might have made it seem more of a threat.
The cliffhanger: Tarzan, to save Joshua, jumps at the snake and somehow lands in its mouth, which closes over it. Josh claims it ate him.
Though there are some clever moments during the fight scenes, there are far better fights in those other shows so the action here is not really all that it should be, making this seem slightly sleepy but again, not slow. Just as the fights get going, they seem to be over, which his realistic as most fights do not take long amounts of time and the stunts are okay but nothing to write home about. Lara is seen swinging through trees a bit toward the end but at 31 minutes in, or so, as he lands at the crux of a tree that split in the past in growth, Lara seems to have a wardrobe malfunction and we’ll leave it at that.
We hear the TARZAN yell (Johnny) during the credits (scenes from this two hour (with ads) story) and at about the 32 minute mark. Also Tarzan has already been educated it would seem and now it is time for him to return to the jungle.
This is not a bad start and feels different to those before it with a large cast, a semi supernatural tone, a very good Tarzan, and visuals that get the job done if not spectacular.
