Trust me, he never Flew or Landed a plane in the entire series or in the telefilms. He was a Passenger on each terrifying occasion. From wing-walking to being shot down to being dumped out over enemy territory.
The soldier years were intense, where he went from trying to be the too-perfect soldier to realizing the evil and uselessness of the war and devoting himself to doing anything he could to help End it. Good stuff.
I really dug the overall continuity and thought it was a very interesting fleshing out of Indy's backstory.. We get to see where his values came from and also where he gets all his cynicism. As a young man he was far more idealistic than the hard-bitten Ford Indy would be. You could really see character development each week as the war and the real world really beat his ideals to hell at times. He was an old-fashioned Romantic as well--every love affair was really a huge deal to him at first, but by the time Ford's years came around, he'd become the kinda guy who'd tell Marion something like, "I did what I did, you don't have to be happy about it..."
And with his various young-loves, every time he got into it, I'd hear the echo of Ford's voice in the back of my mind..."Years of field work..." Oh man, wasn't it great to see him try to be Smooth in the London, 1916 episode? Remember the older woman on the bus, the War Widow? Hilarious. "I could come home with you!" And then years later, as he's starting to hit his stride came the Scandals Of 1920, also a winner, with the Three Girls at Once thing. And a great look at the Broadway of the time. "When it was really Broadway" as Old Indy said.
I always wished they'd bring in a young Belloq, and I think it would've happened if the show had lasted beyond it's first season. I always thought it'd be great to bring him in as a young rival. They could've started out as good friends, but then the rivalry would kick in and you'd have Belloq stealing the girls, the artifacts, the glory, someone who always had an edge over Indy. And the whole Abner/Marion thing could've been fun in passing as well. I thought they'd introduce Marion in a cameo as this pesky 15-year old with a crush.
I was sad that the show had to end where it did...at least there came a few 2-hour specials on the Family channel that carried him a little further. At least they finally got him home from the war and to a cold reception from his father. I wanted to see more of the college years, because there's still a large gap in the story here: Just how DID Indy ever wind up becoming a Professor of Archaeology? I wanted to see them bridge that gap, show us where and how that became a plausible outcome. He didn't seem all that devoted to his studies at that age, ya know...when did he go from slacker to member of the faculty? Oh, and before I forget...once back in America and at University, I'd hoped we might meet a younger Marcus Brody. He may've been at a different college altogether I suppose, but a cameo would've been nice, since he and Henry Jones were such old friends and said that he'd seen Indy grow up and the two Henry's grow apart.
I wanted them to reach a point in the Young Indy story where we could've seen Sean Patrick Flannery don the complete Indy Outfit for the First Time...the jacket, hat, whip and pistol...and go out on that first Mercenary sort of archaeological adventure. Somewhere along the way his idealism slipped a notch there too...going from the sentiment of "It Belongs In a Museum!" in Curse Of The Jackal, to "Fortune and Glory, kid, Fortune and Glory..." in Temple Of Doom. Like Belloq said, "We have both fallen from the pure faith..." I would've been fascinated to watch that development on screen.