Rerun Junkie Confession–I Love a Series Finale

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Warning! I will be spoiling the hell out of how several reruns ended. Proceed with caution.

The only episode of The Big Bang Theory I’ve ever seen in its entirety was the series finale. Never really cared for the series, but I had to see how it ended.

I’ve got a thing for a series finale.

Many series don’t get a formal ending. They get cancelled. Which is a shame, especially when they end on a cliffhanger because they fully expected to get another season, but had the rug pulled out from under them. An official series finale wasn’t a common place thing with older series. Most of them just ended without any grand exit even if they weren’t cancelled.

But whether the episode was intended to be the end of a series or not, whether it’s a big send-off or a quiet goodbye, I’m fascinated by how shows end.

The Fugitive was the first series that had a real finale: the one-armed man was caught and Richard Kimble was finally proven to be innocent. It set the template for other shows to follow. Wrap up all of the plot lines and say goodbye.

Obviously, the biggest series finale was M*A*S*H. Though alive when it went off the air in 1983, I can’t say for certain that toddler me actually experienced the end of the show’s 11 year run. I didn’t get to watch it until about twelve or thirteen years later when I was in high school. I’d been watching the reruns since junior high (not counting falling asleep to the episodes they showed after the local news when I was a kid spending the night at my grandparents’ house), but the finale was never shown. And now I can’t remember if some station did a one-time replay or if someone loaned me a copy of it. Either way, I finally managed to see it.

Talk about a grand finale. I can see why so many people tuned in. It was more than just bringing a popular series to a close. It was an event.

Safe to say most shows don’t get that kind of treatment.

Barney Miller got a three-part finale that saw the 12th Precinct building sold, everyone getting split up, Barney and Levitt getting their long-sought after promotions, and Barney turning off the lights and closing the door as he left the squad room. A fitting, bittersweet end.

One of the most brutal series finales is courtesy of Quantum Leap. Dr. Sam Beckett is leaping from person to person in his timeline, trying to right the wrongs of the past while searching for a way home. Spoiler alert! The last episode features a title card announcing that Sam Beckett never made it home. How do you like your feelings? Crushed over ice? Because that’s the only way you were getting them with the way this show ended. It still makes my chest ache to think of it. And I didn’t even watch the show religiously.

Sometimes a show gets cancelled with enough warning that it’s able to tie up enough loose ends that the final episode feels like a satisfying enough conclusion. Stargate: Atlantis comes to mind. Atlantis ends up on Earth and our cast is hanging out on the balcony, taking in the Golden Gate Bridge sunset. It promises more adventure is possible, but it’s not a cliffhanger. Stargate: Universe wasn’t so lucky. The show ended with everyone but Eli in stasis pods, and Eli had only a couple of weeks to fix the broken one or he’d die when the life support ran out. Yeesh.

The A-Team ended up with a shortened final season when their retooling didn’t boost ratings like they’d hoped. What should have been the final episode perhaps wasn’t the strongest, but the final scene was a perfect sum up of the show. They’d get their freedom and keep working to get justice for the underdogs. However, months after that “final” episode aired, the network aired a partially finished episode (they used scenes from another episode to “finish” it) and that became the series finale. “Without Reservations” is good, but the ending doesn’t hit that finale feel like “The Grey Team”.

Steve McGarrett finally caught Wo Fat in the last episode of Hawaii Five-O, but the Marshall family never made it back from The Land of the Lost. Dorothy finally found the love of her life and got married in the last episode of The Golden Girls, but as far as we know Mork and Mindy are still stuck in the stone age.

Planned or not, happy or sad, I love to see how a show ends.

Rerun Junkie Character–Dr. Miguelito Loveless

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A great hero needs a great nemesis. In the case of The Wild Wild West and its two heroes Jim West and Artemus Gordon, only a true diabolical genius could do.

Enter Dr. Miguelito Loveless.

Played by the fantastic Mr. Michael Dunn, Dr. Loveless is quite the foe. His evil schemes are so clever that West and Gordon only narrowly avoid utter doom time and time again. Choosing a little person to play the main characters’ biggest arch rival might seem like an odd choice. When one thinks of an evil villain, they think of someone imposing, particularly in the physical sense. However, Mr. Michael Dunn has enough presence that his personality looms threateningly even though he physically can’t.

The result is a truly unique adversary.

Like any good villain, Dr. Loveless typically had a right hand woman and sometimes a left hand man. For six for the ten episodes he appeared in, his lethal lady was Antoinette, played by Phoebe Dorin, who worked with Mr. Dunn as a singing act. In three episodes, he had a towering assistant named Voltaire, played by Richard Kiel. One additional task that Voltaire had that other henchman might not, would be to help elevate Dr. Loveless when necessary.

Dr. Loveless’s height wasn’t ignored. It sometimes even factored into his plans, and his treatment by the rest of the world due to his height did factor into his hatred of humanity. But everything Dr. Loveless did, a six foot tall man with a hatred of humanity would be just as likely to do. He was a diabolical genius who wanted to take over the world. It’s good to have goals.

Likewise, Jim West and Artemus Gordon took Dr. Loveless seriously. They treated Dr. Loveless like the brilliant and dangerous man that he was.

His first appearance in “The Night the Wizard Shook the Earth”, the third episode of the series, established Dr. Loveless as a cultured, brilliant man who treats his underlings with an odd sort of courtesy and respect even when he loses his temper, and who loves his saintly mother for many reasons, but mostly for instilling in him a love of music. A nice juxtaposition, given that he’s lying in wait to kill a man. Which he does, of course, right under Jim West’s nose. When Jim finally meets Dr. Loveless in person, he finds the genius inventor in his game room besting three big men in physical combat with the help of his walking stick. A marvelous first impression. He doesn’t greet West as an adversary, but as a guest, serving him tea and chatting about the man he murdered and the explosives he invented before rescuing a fly from his tea. He even sings a song, accompanied by Antoinette. It’s all very gentlemanly. Jim poses as a turncoat and Dr. Loveless tests him by having him deliver a message to the governor of California. You see, the state has taken his family’s land and he wants it back. It’s not much. Just half the state. And he’ll periodically blow up 5,000 people with his powerful explosives until he gets it. A very reasonable request, especially since he does make a few good points about politicians. Anyway, even though Jim West bests him in the end, Dr. Loveless proves himself to be a formidable adversary, a role he takes quite seriously throughout the run of the series.

In his quest to gain control of California and the world, Dr. Loveless employs murderous toys, hallucinogens, Jim West dopplegangers, shrinking powder, starvation powder, practice robberies, and even fakes his own death.

In his last appearance, the Season 4 episode “The Night of Miguelito’s Revenge”, Jim West is lured to a barber shop under the pretense of meeting Artemus Gordon, but his shave turns out to be a close one. The other customer is none other than Dr. Loveless, his face concealed by a towel and using fake legs to give the impression he’s much taller. With West under a towel of his own, Dr. Loveless proceeds to drug him and then deposit him in a funhouse that’s not so fun. At least for Jim. When he comes to after being beaten by the thugs hiding there, he finds himself back in the barber shop and chasing Dr. Loveless as he executes his latest plan: a kidnapping scheme according to an old nursery rhyme. While Dr. Loveless seems to be living his best life in his circus with his captives, Jeremy Pike (this was one of the episodes Charles Aidman stepped in as sidekick while Ross Martin recovered from his heart attack) manages to figure out who the next victim is and takes his place. Dr. Loveless taunting West on stage as the “dummy” in a ventriloquist act leads to Jim being buried at sea, which fails of course, but we all had fun trying. As it turns out, Dr. Loveless is seeking vengeance on those who’d wronged him and his friends and holds a mock trial at his circus with a clowns for his jury and Jim West being the final defendant. West and Pike spoil his plans, but Dr. Loveless naturally escapes.

Such was the legacy of Dr. Loveless that his son Dr. Miguelito Loveless Jr, played by Paul Williams, plagued Jim and Artie in the 1979 TV movie The Wild Wild West Revisited. Sadly, this legacy was in part because Mr. Michael Dunn had passed away in 1973.

As villains go, Dr. Miguelito Loveless was perhaps one of the most eloquent and clever, his malice carried out by brilliance and even though you never want to see him win, you’re always glad to see his charming face.

Book ’em, Danno–Episode 36

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Book 'em Danno Podcast

Season 3 still has a few swerves to it as it heads towards the finale.

In “The Gunrunner” we get a suspicious kidnapping and the 1971 version of a burner phone. In “Dear Enemy” Vera Miles insists that Steve re-open the case that sent her husband to jail for murdering his mistress.

The ultimate swerve is that George Murdock isn’t the asshole. Even when he’s a good guy, he still manages to be a dick. Not so in “The Gunrunner”. Yes, I say many words about that, the burner phone, and Vera Mile’s decided to wear a pink nightie (?) to talk to Steve about re-opening her husband’s case while Gary Collins looks on. Also, I probably spend more minutes talking about the greatness that is Dub Taylor than he is actually in the episode.

Listen to all of the words and minutes on Souncloud, iTunes, Spotify, and Stitcher.

Behold the photographic evidence of the ultimate payphone set-up and the nightie in question. Two bits of greatness I will never get over.

1971 burner phone

vera miles and gary collins

Battle of the Sexes

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When I watched the first season of Baa Baa Black Sheep, I dreaded getting to the episode titled “W*A*S*P*s”. Right there in the episode description it said that “a battle of the sexes lands on the frontline”.

I loathe a battle of the sexes.

I make no secret of the fact that much of the rerun content I watch (and some of the current content) is “male-oriented”. It’s action stuff. It’s police stuff. Classic cis het guy fare. So there isn’t a lot of quality women content or input. And yes, some of it can be eye rollingly bad. But nothing quite irritates me like the battle of the sexes.

The context is typically of women doing man’s work, whatever the hell that is. I wasn’t raised with gendered work. I was raised with work and somebody better do it and don’t make me tell you twice.

Think of “St. Gilligan and the Dragon”, which I talked about in this post. The women go off on their own because the men are being pricks The women are able to hack it and the men are useless. The implication, of course, is that the men don’t know how to do things like cook and do laundry because it’s something women do and is therefore beneath them. Starving and stinking for their mancards.

Naturally, it’s played for laughs because the battle of the sexes is a frequently used theme in sitcoms.

One such episode that has always stuck with me is The Brady Bunch episode “The Liberation of Marcia Brady”. Basically, Marcia goes on the record that she thinks women can do anything men do and then Greg ends up goading her until she decides to prove herself by joining The Frontier Scouts. For the final initiation, Marcia has to use her Frontier Scout skills to navigate through the woods following a trail that Greg has left.

The twist? Greg has purposely made the trail as hard as possible to follow without breaking the rules. And to everyone’s surprise, Marcia succeeds.

Marcia’s initiation is a perfect example of how the patriarchy works. In order to prove that women can do anything men can do, Marcia actually had to do better than what the guys had to do because the boys were so threatened by the idea of a girl joining their little scouting group they had to actively sabotage her.

Something similar happens in many episodes of Barney Miller whenever there’s a female detective. I can remember it happening with Wentworth, Batista, and with the two officers in “Hot Dogs”. All of the women were seen as overly enthusiastic and aggressive in doing their jobs because it went right over the heads of their male counterparts that they had to be. They had to do everything the men did, but they had to do it more and they had to do it better -and in heels!- lest they be considered failures and ruin it for every other woman on the force.

There’s a similar vibe in the Emergency! episode “The Indirect Method”. Roy and Johnny are charged with training a female paramedic who is described as hard-nosed. Is it any wonder? The pressure is intense. She’s doing man’s work, after all.

As for the Baa Baa Black Sheep episode, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I didn’t hate it. The women were not only good at their job, but also serious about it in a way that was less about being as good as the men, and more about showing their passion for flying. Yeah, the guys tried to treat the ladies like they would any pretty face in the vicinity, but it turns out the women were more like them than they realized. Translation: our fellas got hoodwinked by them.

This battle of the sexes was a little more evenly matched. And while it did have it’s hang-ups and of course, the guys had to save the ladies (though, they didn’t really do anything that fighter escorts wouldn’t do for transport planes other than be a little mushy), at least the respect cultivated between the two groups was genuine and not based on arbitrary standards of excellence.

As a result, the episode got my respect, too.

Rerun Junkie Guest Star–Nehemiah Persoff

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Nehemiah Persoff sadly passed away last month at the age of 102, but with 207 credits listed on IMDB, there’s a reason why it felt like he was always on TV for about a thirty year span. Pretty impressive when you consider that he never had a regular or recurring role on any series. Maybe best known for his role in Yentl, Mr. Persoff left his mark on many TV shows during his career.

He did multiple episodes of Hawaii Five-O, but his turn as the unpleasant Harry Cardonus, the weak-link in a criminal organization that McGarrett manipulates in order to get him to testify, really stands out. While under police protection, his attitude towards Steve McGarrett, Five-O, and HPD makes you wonder if Steve won’t kill him before his buddy does. He’s unlikable from the beginning, but there’s enough character and humanity to him that makes him feel like a real, fully formed human and not just a plot device.

Mr. Persoff frequently played rabbis and other Jewish characters. His turn as Yakov Berger, a Hassidic Jew and diamond merchant on two episodes of Barney Miller (the closest he came to a recurring character) are fantastic. In the first episode, “Middle Age”, he’s the intended target of a theft. In the second episode, “Riot”, he along with other members of the Hassidic community take umbrage with the precinct’s lagging response times to calls to an extreme. Both episodes are quite funny, thanks in large part to Mr. Persoff’s performance.

Most likely because of his olive complexion and his gift with accents, he was often cast as Middle Easterners or Latinos. His performance as Pancho Hernando Gonzalez Enriques Rodriguez in the Gilligan’s Island episode “The Little Dictator” is probably the best example of the latter.

A gifted, versatile actor, Mr. Persoff turned up on a wide variety of shows. Westerns like Wagon Train, Rawhide, The Big Valley, The Wild Wild West, The High Chaparral, and several episodes of Gunsmoke; Sci-Fi shows like The Twilight Zone (in a rather haunting episode called “Judgment Night”), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Land of the Giants, The Time Tunnel, Logan’s Run, Battlestar Galactica, and Star Trek: The Next Generation; and family friendly fare like The Flying Nun, Little House on the Prairie, and Doogie Howser MD.

He ran the gamut of crime shows, from Honey West, Mannix, Richie Brockelman Private Eye, Vega$, and Magnum PI to The Untouchables, The Mod Squad, Adam-12, The Streets of San Francisco, Columbo, McCloud, and Police Woman to Burke’s Law, McMillan and Wife, Ellery Queen, Baretta, Quincey ME, Murder, She Wrote, LA Law, and Law and Order.

He checked in with Ben Casey, Marcus Welby MD, and Chicago Hope. He got spooky with Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Thriller. He courted intrigue with The Man from UNCLE, Mission: Impossible, and Search. He hung out with both The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman; sided with Wonder Woman; helped out MacGyver; rode the Supertrain; and spent some time on Fantasy Island. He even has the distinction of guesting on two shows that shared the same name (but not the same premise) twice! I Spy (a series in 1955 and again in 1965) and Hunter (a series in 1976 and again in 1984).

Nehemiah Persoff was a talented man with an incredible range from the dramatic to the comedic and everything in between. And those talents can be regularly found on just about any rerun. It’s nice to know we can still find him any time we want to tune it.

Rerun Junkie Confession–I Love Crossovers

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When Dan and I first started making our plans to chat about The Green Hornet for Eventually Supertrain, I knew that we would be discussing the whole series, but I was absolutely delighted when he said that we’d be including the Batman crossover episodes.

In those episodes, our heroes Green Hornet and Kato take a trip to Gotham City where their status as villains precedes them and puts the Caped Crusader and his sidekick on alert. As it turns out, Britt Reid is old frenemies with Bruce Wayne and they spend the two-parter jousting over some woman who’s obsessed with the color pink while their alter egos attempt to apprehend Colonel Gumm.

It’s magnificent.

But I’d probably think that anyway because well, I am a sucker for a crossover.

There’s just something about seeing characters you know so well meeting other characters you know so well in each other’s environments. It’s oddly exciting to me. It’s fun. It’s different. I think The New Scooby Doo Movies did this to me. I saw Davy Jones running from ghosts with Shaggy and Velma and I was hooked.

Speaking of childhood, I was addicted to ABC’s TGIF. It should be no surprise to you how absolutely stoked I was as a young person to watch Steve Urkel from Family Matters show up on Full House and crash into Step by Step. For my 11 year old self, that was must-see TV.

It probably would be for my 42 year old self, too.

Back in the day when all of the CSIs were up and running, they managed to a crossover with all three of them, and though I’d kind of fallen out of love with them at that point, you better believe my ass watched all of those episodes anyway.

The 1980 Magnum PI was implied to exist in the same universe as the 1968 Hawaii Five-O, but a proper crossover never happened. However, Magnum PI did crossover with both Murder, She Wrote and Simon & Simon, creating its own little universe that should have seen Rick and AJ visit Jessica Fletcher at some point, but it never happened. That probably would have been too much for my heart seeing as how much I enjoyed them visiting Hawai’i. But I still love watching the crossover episodes we did get.

With the reboots, the 2010 Hawaii Five-0 crossovers included Magnum PI, MacGyver, and NCIS: LA, which means that it shares a universe with JAG, NCIS, NCIS: New Orleans (RIP), and NCIS: Hawai’i, which recently did its own crossover with NCIS.

Talk about crossover inception.

In the vein of all of this, there’s something special about characters from the original show visiting the show’s spin-off. Like Arnold from Diff’rent Strokes showing up at Eastland to visit Mrs. Garrett on Facts of Life (Arnold also showed up on Silver Spoons, and Diff’rent Strokes had three different crossover episodes with the show Hello, Larry). Or like the Fonz and Richie Cunningham showing up on Laverne and Shirley. And Laverne and Shirley turning up on Happy Days after they got spun-off. The two shows even had a crossover two-parter. Laverne and the Fonz also turned up on Mork and Mindy and Laverne made an appearance on Blansky’s Beauties because Garry Marshall had a whole universe going there.

Likewise, characters crossed over in the Henningverse, would go from The Beverly Hillbillies to Petticoat Junction to Green Acres and back again.

And of course, Stargate: SG-1, Stargate: Atlantis, and Stargate: Universe all crossed over with each other. I mean, they were all based with the same government program. It’d be weird if they didn’t.

I know that these are just stunt episodes, many times using the popularity of one show to help boost the ratings of the lagging one. But sometimes it’s just two popular shows colliding and exploding in a joyous cacophony of fun.

I’m going to be honest. I never get tired of it. I don’t even care if the shows crossing over have nothing in common and the premise is completely ridiculous, I’ll still watch it. Give me all of the crossovers.

Make the TV Universe infinite.

Book ’em, Danno–Episode 35

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Book 'em Danno Podcast

Season 3 begins to wind down with this two-parter. In “FOB Honolulu”, Five-O is looking to recover counterfeit currency plates that people everywhere are dying to acquire. Like there’s a literal trail of dead bodies they use to track the plates across Asia. It’s part of the slide show.

Wo Fat is back and we’re introduced to a KGB colonel charmingly called Misha the Bear, whom I wished made more than one appearance because he was a good time.

Also there’s Monte Landis, excessive amounts of knitting, and one of the best tail dodges I’ve ever seen onscreen.

Listen on Soundcloud, iTunes, Spotify, and Stitcher.

Now this is a fabulous disguise. The gum chewing really completed the look.

in disguise

The Good About “Bad” Shows

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There are people who will trip over themselves to tell you something is bad. And by bad, I mean bad as in not good. These people who only consume critically acclaimed content will gleefully inform you that whatever show you love is really bad, actually.

These people are plentiful and to be perfectly frank, they’re buzzkills. I can only assume that they’re acting out of a desperate need to feel superior to others in order to fill some sort of void in their own self-esteem. Or they’re just joyless jerks. I don’t know. I’m not here to judge. But I can say they will go above and beyond to make their point and make you feel shame about enjoying a “bad” show.

Unfortunately, as someone who hate watches Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan every time it comes on TV, their arguments are wasted on me. I am immune to such discourse because I am gleefully unqualified when it comes to declaring things “good” and “bad”. You can’t reason with someone like me. You can’t make me feel bad about my TV choices.

Because I always choose joy.

Okay, I know it doesn’t look like it with the hate watching thing, but there’s still a joy in that. And I have hate watched a show. The only reason I ever watched Arrow was because David Nykl had a recurring role on it and he was really the only thing about it that I liked. Oliver Queen was the worst and his friends were all enablers and I will die on that hill. But there was still something joyful in talking shit at my TV in between Anatoly sightings. I had fun, at least.

I’m also having a blast doing this CSI: Miami re-watch. This show is bonkers and I love it. But even back in the day it wasn’t exactly considered to be quality television.

Which is a shame because it is pure joy.

There is a place for these shows on our TVs and in our lives. It’s okay to enjoy them. I don’t necessarily think that “bad” shows contribute to brain rot if you watch them intelligently. You’re talking to someone whose favorite thing is copaganda. ’70s cop shows are my jam. I enjoy them for what they are, but I don’t buy their message. I love Steve McGarrett, but I know he’s not an accurate representation of reality.

Are their a lot of “bad” shows? Sure. Are there a lot of “bad” shows that masquerade as “good” shows? Absolutely. Are there a lot of shows that I wouldn’t watch? God, yes. But will I fault anyone for enjoying their “bad” shows? No. I want them to have as many spots of happiness in this unkind world as possible.

Do I watch things of quality? Yes, it’s been known to happen, usually by accident. By my own admission, I watch a lot of shows that are less than quality caliber. On purpose. And I’m fine with that.

They make me happy.

And that’s a good thing.

Rerun Junkie Guest Stars–Burt Mustin

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For nearly 30 years, if a TV show was in need of a quirky and/or spunky senior citizen, they could call on Burt Mustin.

According to IMDB, he racked up 199 credits between 1951 and 1979, a feat that wouldn’t be too remarkable if he hadn’t made his first onscreen appearance at age 67. As fate would have it, Mr. Mustin’s retirement as a salesman gave birth to a second career that has blessed us all.

Mr. Mustin had recurring roles on several series including portraying Arthur Lanson on Phyllis, Jud on The Andy Griffith Show, Grandpa Jenson on Petticoat Junction, and Gus the Fireman on Leave It to Beaver. He also frequently made repeat appearances on shows as different characters, including Our Miss Brooks, Adam-12, My Three Sons, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, The Texan, Dragnet 67, and The Monkees.

It’s the last two shows that contain my favorite Burt Mustin performances.

In the Dragnet 67 episode “Homicide: DR-22”, he plays Calvin Lampe, who is at first thought to be a nosy neighbor of and then a possible suspect in the murder of a career girl. It’s later revealed that he’s a retired chief of detectives and friend of Friday and Gannon’s boss. He ends up helping the two whippersnappers solve the homicide. Calvin Lampe has an unmatched attention to detail and his insinuation in the case is at first a source of a bit of annoyance before Friday and Gannon realize how valuable it is. One of my favorite scenes is Lampe talking to Friday and Gannon while a uniformed officer in the background (played by Jack Webb favorite Marco Lopez) gives them a yikes look.

Mr. Mustin appeared in two episodes of The Monkees that I love. He was the butler in the classic “The Christmas Episode” and he portrayed a Tarzan knock-off by the name of Kimba in “Monkees Marooned”. The bit in which Peter translates for him is a hoot.

He stuck to The Andy Griffith universe, appearing in both Gomer Pyle: USMC and Mayberry RFD and even popped up on The New Andy Griffith Show; spent some extra time in the Henningverse on a couple of episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies; completed the Jack Webb odyssey with a couple of episodes of Emergency!; and appeared on both The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda.

He turned up on Westerns like Maverick, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Wagon Train, The Virginian, and Alias Smith and Jones; hung out with Lucille Ball on both The Lucy Show and Here’s Lucy; and cut up on The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bewitched, Laugh-In, The Brady Bunch, Sanford and Son, All in the Family, and Love, American Style. He got mysterious on Mr. Lucky, Surfside 6, and 77 Sunset Strip; saw some action on The Girl from UNCLE, Batman, The Fugitive, and Get Smart; got spooky on Thriller, The Twilight Zone, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and The Outer Limits; and he even did a couple of medical stints on Ben Casey and Marcus Welby MD.

There wasn’t a television genre that Burt Mustin couldn’t shine in. He’s a delight in everything he appears in, elevating a generic senior citizen into something more memorable and cementing his face into the good graces and fond memories of generations.

Not bad for an old guy, huh?

Rerun Junkie Show–David Cassidy: Man Undercover

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david cassidy man undercover

I first remember coming across David Cassidy: Man Undercover when I was doing guest star research for Book ’em, Danno. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to watch it. David Cassidy playing an undercover cop in the ’70s bridge between The Mod Squad and 21 Jump Street? Yes, please! It became one of my Holy Grail shows. It hasn’t been released on DVD, so streaming was my only hope.

I lucked out when it showed up on Crackle. The only hitch in the giddy-up? Episode 5 is missing for some reason (EDIT: Thanks to Gail for providing a link to Episode 5 in the comments). Missing an episode or two in a 200 episode show is no big deal (there are two eps of Hawaii Five-O I haven’t seen because they don’t get play in syndication, but one of them I’ll be able to watch thanks to streaming; bootleg is the only way I’ll ever see the lost episode); in a 10 episode short-lived series, it can be more significant. However, I think my binge watch of the nine available episodes is sufficient, at least for this little write-up.

As the title so expertly explains, David Cassidy plays undercover officer Dan Shay. He and his fellow undercover officers including Paul Sanchez (Michael A. Salcido) and T.J. Epps (Ray Vitte) answer to tough, loud, and supportive Sargent Abrams (Simon Oakland), while his wife Joanne (Wendy Rastattar) takes care of their daughter Cindy (Elizabeth Reddin), worries about his safety, and wonders if he’ll ever get to attend family events like a normal husband.

Every episode Dan Shay goes undercover as someone else named Dan (and I’m pretty sure every last name started with an S, but it might have just seemed that way) to infiltrate some sort of crime group and bring them down from the inside. Now, we’re talking about heartthrob David Cassidy here. Even four years after The Partridge Family, he was still something of a baby-faced hunk, which played in his favor for some undercover assignments and against him in others.

He was believable as a street racer, a college student in a baby-making scheme (yes, you read that right), and as a junkie. He was really good as the junkie, something you wouldn’t expect from such a normally clean-cut guy.

It was a stretch of believability when he went undercover as a pimp (yes), a motorcycle gang member, and an arms dealer. It’s no fault of his own. David Cassidy pulled off the acting, but when you put him next to another arms dealer played by James Whitmore Jr., the difference is glaring. He just didn’t have the right look.

Other guest stars include James Whitmore Jr.’s Baa Baa Black Sheep Squadron co-star WK Stratton (who was also almost too sweet-faced to play the bad guy he was playing); Ty Hardin, Norman Alden, Frank Campanella, Gerald Berns, Donald Petrie; soon to be TV names Heather Thomas, Gary Graham, and Randi Oakes; J. Jay Saunders, Jenny O’Hara, Alan Vint; voice artist king Michael Bell; Lana Wood, Ed Harris, Ed Nelson, Barry Nelson; horror faces Christopher Stone and Cliff Emmich; Jacques Aubuchon, Vince Howard, Joe Santos, Ken Swofford; ladies Jenny Sherman, Robin Dearden, Barbara Tarbuck, and Christina Hart; Paul Koslo, Vincent Bagetta, Tom Simcox, Craig Stevens, Carl Weintraub, Justin Lord, and Frank Converse.

Even if David Cassidy couldn’t always pull off the undercover assignments to my expectations, the episodes for the most part were decent to good. I particularly liked the twist of the college baby ring. Instead of coercing knocked up college girls to give their babies up for adoption to couples who could pay the huge fees, they solicited willing college students to make designer babies the old-fashioned way. Paying couples could flip through a book of headshots and pick the DNA they wanted. Then the chosen two would bow chicka wow wow their way to a baby and a payday. The problem was there was no take-backs and those who tried to back out of the deal were dealt with harshly. And that’s where Dan came in.

The episode in which Dan goes undercover as a junkie was also quite good, but more for the relationship that Dan established with another junkie. Sure, he used and manipulated him, but it was also clear that Dan cared about the man, too.

That’s the thing about the show. It’s very earnest. Dan is not only big on getting justice, but also on doing the right thing. The show humanizes addicts and sex workers, when most shows at the time still treated them as castoffs, undesirables, and garden variety criminals. That doesn’t stop them from playing Joanne as a petty, insecure wife when Dan is undercover as a pimp (I know) and working closely with a sex worker. Which is a shame because most of the time, their relationship is pretty grounded. She worries for him and gets frustrated with his work, but they also have silly, loving moments together that work really nicely to keep her from being a typical serious police wife.

I think the show would have benefited by keeping Dan’s undercover assignments toward his strengths of looking like a young, hip guy and/or derelict, juxtaposing that with his home life as a husband and father, but apparently, there’s more excitement in trying to convince us that Dan is a tough prison thug (I was not convinced; nothing to do with the acting, everything to do with the looks).

The show does tend dampen any climax peril for Dan. The only time I ever actually feared for him was when he was nearly molested in prison (which wasn’t the climax) and even then he quickly dispatched the offender. Most of the time the episodes wrap up pretty quickly and neatly with the bad guys not fighting back a whole lot. Sometimes it makes sense, but I expect James Whitmore Jr. not to go so quietly.

Even so, I enjoyed the show.

It’s just more evidence that I’ll watch Simon Oakland yell in anything.