Rerun Junkie

Five Favorite Villains

/ Kiki Writes / Leave a comment

I’ve made no secret that I love a good bad guy, someone to really make our good guys work with their nefarious, sometimes elaborate, plots. I make a distinction between villains and antagonists. Antagonists are the every day assholes that make a protagonist’s life more difficult. Villains do that, too, but typically less often and with a lot more razzle dazzle.

Here are five of my favorite villains in no particular order. Yes, I realize there are no women on this list. Maybe next time. Like I said, I do enjoy my villains.

Wo Fat (Hawaii Five-O)- I think it’s no surprise that this Chinese operative makes the list. He vexed Steve McGarrett for 12 seasons, always managing to elude justice until the very last episode of the series. Khigh Dhiegh plays the character with a sophistication and refined ruthlessness that plays well with Jack Lord’s upright lawman in the scenes they share, but makes for a believable, formidable foe even when they don’t cross paths. Wo Fat is a smart, cultured man with high expectations who isn’t afraid to make long-term plans, like investing YEARS into a plot to frame Steve. That’s the kind of job dedication you don’t get from your average criminal. He’s got an endless supply of henchmen, his own little submarine, and at least two doubles that we know about. He’s also got that drama kid drive for the theatrical. His plans never fail to be grand, even when they don’t need to be. He’s willing to go that extra mile to make it worth all of our whiles.

Dr. Miguelito Loveless (The Wild Wild West)- My favorite 19th century evil genius. I’ve written about Dr. Loveless in the past, so of course he’s going to end up on my list. Michael Dunn brought a charm to the character that elevated him to arch rival status. He took a certain joy and pride in pursuing his goals, and of course his goals involved becoming ruler of his own kingdom. Whether he was after California, the United States, or the world, Dr. Loveless’s scheme was sure to be as diabolical as it was eccentric. And he’s not going to spare any expense when trying to get rid of Jim West and Artemus Gordon. Hell, he tried to give West a premature burial at sea once. He also faked his own death. Dr. Loveless had a flair for the dramatic that even the biggest men couldn’t best.

Memmo Fierro (CSI: Miami)- A show as bonkers as CSI: Miami could get needed a recurring villain with some pizzazz. Enter Memmo Fierro. A member of the Mala Noche gang, he was first introduced in the fourth season as Marisol Delko Caine’s killer. He could have easily been a one-off character, but Memmo had style. And a lot of tattoos. He’s inked from the chin down and I’m sure that he somehow had more every time he appeared onscreen. Anyway, despite being put in prison, Memmo continued to be a thorn in Horatio Caine’s side thanks to his ability to escape prison for reasons ranging from finding out his daughter was being mistreated in foster care to exacting some Mala Noche revenge. And if that meant disguising himself as an old white man, then baby, he was all in. The interesting thing about Memmo is that he started as a ruthless killer, but every subsequent appearance reveals him to be more than that. Robert LaSardo gave dimension to what could have been a one-dimensional character, a bit of humanity to the cold blood killer. He’s never really redeemed, but when Horatio declines to take the opportunity to get rid of him once in for all, you understand why. And just because there’s a sort of…truce?…between the two men, doesn’t diminish Memmo in the least. He’s still bad ass. And probably scheming.

Michael (Stargate: Atlantis)- One of my favorite things about Stargate: Atlantis is how often the peril our heroes face is their own damned fault. The living embodiment of just because you can doesn’t mean you should is Michael, a Wraith the Atlantis crew captured and then turned into a human. It probably would have worked out fine if they could have kept up the “Oh, you’re just a soldier with amnesia” routine, except Michael found out who he really was and saw footage of his torture and transformation. It should come as no surprise that he didn’t take it well. Connor Trineer does an amazing job at portraying the pain of the betrayal that pushed Michael over the edge. Michael’s escape led to him reverting to something of a Wraith/Human hybrid that wasn’t accepted by anyone, so he decided to just fuck shit up. His grandest plan was to create his own race of Wraith/Human hybrids, but he did also manage to take over Atlantis once. Then again, who didn’t? We might not agree with what Michael does, but we all understand exactly why he’s doing it. And even though he was presumed dead before the series came to an end, you have to think that maybe…just maybe…we’d see him again.

King Tut (Batman)- Like I could make this list without naming a Batman villain. It might not be the popular choice with Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, and Riddler around, but King Tut is my guy. First of all, he’s not actually a villain. He’s an Egyptology professor who gets hit on the head and becomes one of Batman’s most theatrical foes, which given the Gotham City bad guys, is no easy feat. It’s Batman, so of course the plots have to be over the top, bordering on ridiculous, but when executed by a big man who thinks he’s a long dead Egyptian ruler with a penchant for one-liners and tantrums, well, they’re just that much more over the top. In the hands of Victor Buono, this baddie chewed scenery like he was at an all you can eat buffet and the dining was too good. King Tut could never best the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder, but he will always be the royal ruler of camp.

As always, if you don’t like my list, feel free to make your own.

Where Do Your Sympathies Lie?

/ Kiki Writes / Leave a comment

Minor trigger warning for mentions of sexual assault.

Something I frequently encounter while watching my cop shows are the grey moral areas that our heroes wander into. Specifically -at least for this post- I’m thinking of the victims and culprits and the audience’s perception of them.

For example, in the Hawaii Five-O episode “Little Girl Blue”, the two men who kidnap the little girl of the title aren’t your typical hardened criminals. Luther -played by Ron Feinberg- is a 6ft 7in beast of a man who has the mental equivalency of a child thanks to a brain injury incurred during his service in Vietnam. Meanwhile, Frank -played by Jackie Coogan- is a former orderly with a bad heart and considered the brains of the operation only because he’s at least functioning at an adult level. It’s not quite a Lenny and George scenario from Of Mice and Men, but it has that flavor.

We know from the initial kidnapping that these aren’t your ordinary criminals. The two men take the time to wrap the little girl up in a blanket and put her slippers on her. In fact, if their getaway hadn’t been interrupted, little Debbie would have been treated to a picnic while waiting for the ransom to be paid and everything to work out. None of the violence we saw would have happened if that cop hadn’t pulled Luther and Frank over. And really, the only reason Luther panicked in the first place was because the cop asked him for his license and he didn’t have one. It’s just an unfortunate series of events that land these two guys in hotter water than they’d intended to boil.

You just kinda feel bad for these guys. Obviously, Luther’s diminished capacity and Frank’s bad heart and bad choices don’t absolve them of their behavior, but you’re not exactly rooting for Five-O to come down hard on them.

Or maybe the audience was back when this episode aired in 1973. Maybe the deaths of two cops was enough to erase any shred of sympathy the viewer might feel for Luther and Frank. Or maybe when the kidnapping went sideways and Debbie was crying for her mom, maybe that was enough to alienate the viewers and have them rooting for Luther and Frank to get what was coming to them.

Or maybe they felt just as torn about it then as we do now. Or at least I do.

Then there’s the flip side. When the victim isn’t that great and you’re kind of not sorry they’re dead.

In the CSI: Miami episode “Forced Entry” a burglar/rapist gets what he gives in the exact fashion that he gave it. Only, he didn’t kill his victims. Instead, one of them kills herself and it looks very much like the grieving husband might have exacted revenge. Who else would know how the victims were bound, gagged, and assaulted so that they could recreate it with such detail?

The husband in question points out how cruel it is that the police are more concerned with finding the killer of his wife’s rapist than they are with his wife’s assault, which led to her suicide. And it is a cruel. Even Speed says that killing this piece of shit should earn the husband a medal if he did it. I’m on Speed’s side here. My guy played around and lost big. Oh well.

But that’s not how these sorts of episodes work. We might be on the side of the killer, but as it’s pointed out, it’s not the killer’s job to dispense justice. I don’t know about that. I think they didn’t a pretty good job here.

Okay, yes, there’s the whole concept that nobody deserves to die, and maybe that’s true, but that doesn’t mean we have to feel bad when some vile garbage gets their comeuppance. We’re not in the wrong to save our sympathy for the killer when justice is served because it feels like it’s being served to the wrong person.

These sort of muddy moral waters are interesting because of how they age. Some are timeless. Some switches the sympathies, swinging them around from the original, intended person to someone else. Just look at hippies. They were the villains in many cop shows back in the day, particularly Dragnet. Nowadays, though, you’d probably find more people on their side than on Joe Friday’s. Especially when it comes to marijuana.

I love exploring these moral grey episodes. They make me angry and they make me uncomfortable and they make me think and it’s fascinating to see how that shade of grey can turn black or white over time.

In the end, I find it quite colorful.

Five More Favorite Couples

/ Kiki Writes / Leave a comment

I pinky swore before that I would come up with five more favorite couples and here I am, still needing to put couples in quotes because this list doesn’t have a single romantic pairing on it. It is bromance heavy, though. I’d apologize for that, but I’m not sorry.

Once again, these couples are listed in no particular order; I’m not saying they’re objectively the best couples ever, they’re just my favorites; and if you wanna argue, make your own damn list.

Jim West and Artemus Gordon, The Wild Wild West– It could be argued that I should have included this pair in my first list, but let’s not argue. My brain works in mysterious ways. Anyway! Jim and Artie are secret service agents in the steampunk wild west and that sort of situation creates a bond. These are dangerous assignments and Jim West frequently found himself in trouble. When that happens, your only hope is a guy willing to put on a dress or a fake mustache and a wig. Fun, smart, and witty, these are the guys you want to go on an adventure with. You know they’re going to save the day…and each other. There is something magical about these two together. I love their chemistry and their banter. Jim West is a suave, masculine hero and Artemus Gordon is a suave, charming master of disguise. They are a dynamic duo of heart eyes. Okay, maybe that’s just me.

Lenny and Squiggy, Laverne & Shirley– Hello! As much as I love Laverne and Shirley, Lenny and Squiggy are my bromance goals. Two compatible weirdos coming together to make a life. It’s a beautiful thing. Sure their behavior towards women can sometimes be problematic, but their behavior towards each other is pure. Mostly. These two have their arguments (Squiggy did kind of push Lenny out of a window during one), but they are better together and everyone knows it. These two men go to extremes to protect and uplift each other, like Lenny playing into Squiggy’s sleepwalking behavior to keep him safe. Like Laverne and Shirley, there’s no doubt that Lenny and Squiggy love each other even while getting on each other’s nerves. Not to mention that Lenny and the Squiggtones is one of the greatest bands ever.

Ryan and Natalia, CSI: Miami– I said before that I have several favorite couples from this show, but I’m once again picking another couple featuring Ryan. He makes a good partner. What I really like about Ryan and Natalia is that they have a beautifully platonic relationship. It starts off with Ryan having a thing for Natalia and they go on at least one date, but after that, it’s bestie city, population two. The best part is that removing the romantic element (while leaving the occasionally flirty banter) doesn’t diminish the relationship. These two people care about each other and they’re not afraid to tell each other the hard truth, like Ryan confronting Natalia about denying her hearing loss or Natalia telling Ryan he needs to step away from the camera to get his life together. Considering that Ryan at one time didn’t like Natalia due to a betrayal, the friendship coming back from that makes it even more solid and real.

Blanche and Rose, The Golden Girls– I could honestly put any combination of these four women together -Dorothy and Sophia, Blanche and Dorothy, Dorothy and Rose, Rose and Sophia, Sophia and Blanche- but there’s just something about Blanche and Rose that makes my day. Sweet Rose and sexy Blanche couldn’t be more different, yet they compliment each other so well. Blanche bringing Rose to her senses while waiting for the results of her AIDS test with her own experience and education is one of my favorite scenes with the two of them. It takes a lot of love to straighten your friend out during a dark moment. Even when they find themselves at odds, like when Rose thought Blanche had slept with her husband, you know the make-up is going to be hilariously sweet. Whether they’re cutting a rug doing a tap routine or dirty dancing in the living room, these two have all the right moves.

Roy DeSoto and Johnny Gage, Emergency!– I’ve got a lot of bromances on my list this time around, but this one is probably one of my favorite ones when it comes to coworkers. You know how it is with your work bestie. You might not hang with them outside of your place of employment, but on the job, you’re thick as thieves. That’s like Roy and Johnny, only they do hang out away from the firehouse. The practical married man and the slightly impractical bachelor, these two opposites probably wouldn’t have become friends if they hadn’t worked together, and I think that’s what makes their friendship so great. These two men will butt heads over where Roy should take the family on vacation or how Johnny should fix a paycheck mishap, but there always on the same page when it comes to a rescue or a patient. They’re a solid team, even when Johnny should keep his spaghetti recipes to himself.

Will I come up with five more favorite couples at a later date? Maybe.

Okay, yeah probably. There are so many great duos that I love.

“What Do You Recommend?”

/ Kiki Writes / Leave a comment

As a day job, I work as a clerk at the local library. We have something called Reader’s Advisory, which is one of the stats we keep to show our usefulness to the community and therefore justify our existence and budget and financial requests. Specifically, Reader’s Advisory is when we recommend books or movies or TV shows or other items in our collection to our patrons. This sometimes comes from us knowing our regular patrons and their reading/viewing habits well enough that when we see a new item come in, we automatically recommend it to them. Or in the case of certain patrons (or former coworkers) we just put it on hold for them.

Most often a Reader’s Advisory comes from patrons asking us to recommend something. They’re looking for cozy mysteries or beach reads or werewolf fiction or ’80s comedies or sci-fi shows or whatever. It’s our job to recommend specifics. This is part of my job that I’ve struggled with because rarely do people ask me to recommend stuff I regularly indulge in, like queer romances or books on decomposition. I’ve made great strides in the past couple of years, but it’s still something that gives me split-second brain freeze when people ask me to recommend something.

I said all of this just to point to the subject line and say that I don’t think I’ve ever been asked to recommend reruns to people, at least not that I can remember and not in the context I described above in which I’m asked to recommend specific types of reruns like cop shows or sitcoms or cozy mysteries featuring a priest. I tend to force those recommendations onto unsuspecting people who wander into my sphere and dare to broach the subject (like my coworker April mentioning that she didn’t like CSI: Miami when it first aired and me championing it to the extent that she said she’d give it another try just so I would shut up). But nobody has specifically asked me to recommend a certain kind of show for them to watch.

Honestly, it’s probably for the best. I’m not sure how I would respond to having that much influence. My brain would probably fritz with the possibility of turning people on to David Cassidy: Man Undercover or Tales of the Gold Monkey or Baa Baa Black Sheep.

Also, even though I’ve not seen all of the reruns in the world, I still have strong opinions. Very strong opinions. There are some shows I’d be more likely to push and some I’d be reluctant to promote due to my own preferences. Not very objective of me.

However, I do believe that my library clerk training has prepared me for the unlikely occurrence that someone might come to me for a recommendation. Even if I haven’t seen every rerun in the world, I do know a great deal about many of them. So, I have the knowledge necessary to make informed recommendations. But working in the library has taught me the neutrality required to make good recommendations. I have to recommend what the patron is looking for, not what I think they should read or watch or what I like or prefer.

Will I be able to utilize this training when I’m not getting paid to be neutral?

Well, I suppose someone will have to ask me what I recommend so we can find out.

Rerun Junkie Episode–“The Christmas Story”

/ Kiki Writes / 2 Comments

I’m not the biggest fan of Christmas (though I do love a holiday with a theme), but I do have my favorite Christmas episodes of shows, which I’ve listed before. On that list is the Season 2 episode of Dragnet called “The Christmas Story”.

The plot is pretty simple. Friday and Gannon are working right before Christmas when they get a call about a theft at a church. The baby Jesus (Friday keeps calling the child Jesus and for some reason that makes my eye twitch) has been stolen from the nativity scene. The nativity scene was bought by the parishioners years ago and the baby Jesus doesn’t have much in the way of monetary value, but it’s important to the congregation. For some who’ve been coming to that church since they were children, this is the only Jesus they’ve ever known. And for some children who’ve passed away, this was the only Jesus they ever knew.

Do I instantly tear up at that line? Yes. Yes, I do. My Grinchy heart isn’t entirely made of stone. But the takeaway from this is that it’s really important to have that statue back for Christmas mass.

If you’re at all familiar with Dragnet, then you know how serious business and methodical Friday and Gannon are when it comes to investigating a crime. Even though they’re just looking for a baby Jesus statue, the men, knowing how important it is to the church, take the investigation very seriously.

They start by questioning the altar boys and checking in with religious art shops to see if the statue might have been sold. This is Dragnet, so the shop owner we see them converse with is an absolute trip. One altar boy saw nothing, but the other altar boy, who’s played by a pre-Brady Bunch Barry Williams, saw a man leaving the church with a bundle that could have contained the baby Jesus.

They follow this lead to where the man works as the altar boy didn’t know his name, and this leads them to a name and an address at men’s hotel. The man they’re looking for, Claude –played by Jack Webb regular Bobby Troup- is out, but the front desk man expects him back since they can’t do their annual Christmas show without him.

While they wait for the call from the front desk man that Claude has returned, Friday and Gannon continue to check pawn shops in the hopes of finding the baby Jesus.

The Bah Humbug of this episode comes in the form of their captain. Friday and Gannon have been waiting to hear about a suspect in another case and when he’s pinched, the captain orders Friday and Gannon to run up and fetch him, which will take several hours. They plead their case –or rather Father Rojas’s case- about the missing baby Jesus, but the captain feels that’s something the Foothills Division can do. Friday then whips out a manipulation Uno reverse by asking the captain to call Father Rojas and explain to him that they won’t be able to look for the baby Jesus statue until after Christmas. The captain wisely relents rather than risk the disappointment of a priest.

Friday and Gannon finally get their opportunity to interrogate Claude in sort of a sad scene. Claude thinks they’re questioning him about a car he was allowed to borrow, but this time he didn’t ask first. When questioned about the bundle he was taking out of the church, he explains that it was his other pair of pants that he had fixed for the Christmas show at the men’s hotel. It’s established early on that Claude has a rap sheet, but it’s made pretty clear that this guy has given up his criminal ways (minus taking a car without explicit permission) and has fallen into what Friday and Gannon might consider a pathetic life, though there’s something sweet about how much the Christmas show means to him and the other men at the hotel.

Out of leads, out of luck, and out of time, Friday and Gannon have no choice but to go to Father Rojas and say they won’t be able to get the baby Jesus back in time for Christmas mass. Father Rojas is understanding, but disappointed.

But since this is a Christmas episode, it’s only right to have a miracle. Or in this case, a Paco.

As the men are standing there feeling sad about the lack of baby Jesus in the manager, a little boy by the name of Paco comes up the aisle pulling the missing statue in his red wagon. It seems that Paco has been asking for a red wagon from Santa for years, but this year he prayed to the baby Jesus for one and promised that if he got a red wagon, baby Jesus would get the first ride. Thanks to the local fireman who collect and refurbish old toys, Paco got his red wagon and kept his promise.

christmas story paco

Do I cry at this ending scene every time I watch it? Yes, I do. Did I tear up while writing about it? I absolutely did.

As someone who isn’t religious, this Christmas episode about a missing statue of baby Jesus might be considered an odd choice as a favorite for me. I do tend to avoid the overly religious aspect of the holiday season as Christianity has effectively alienated me, particularly in recent years. But this one is just too good for me to dislike. It’s a wonderfully weird melding on the “just the facts, ma’am” Dragnet episode and a sweet story about a little boy getting his Christmas wish and keeping his promise.

This episode carries the innocent spirit of the holiday season, stripped of tinsel and preachiness. The baby Jesus at the heart of the story is so much more than some religious symbol. The sentimental value attached to it is so much deeper not because of the religion, but because of the community surrounding it. And it’s a member of that community that ends up honoring his faith in such a sweet and unique way.

Merry Christmas, Paco.

Rerun Junkie Guest Star–Candice Azzara

/ Kiki Writes / Leave a comment

There’s something about a pretty woman with a Brooklyn accent that catches the attention. Or at least my attention. Candice Azzara fits this bill perfectly. Her sweet face and sweet voice makes for a perfect combo, especially when she’s a tough cookie.

Of her 89 credits listed on IMDB dating back to 1969, many of them are TV roles, but not too many regular or recurring roles, which is a shame. Her only regular role was as Shirley Balukis on the short-lived 1973 series Calucci’s Department. Her few recurring roles were short-lived as well. She played Millie in six episodes of Soap, Fran Thomopolous in 5 episodes of the final season of Who’s the Boss?, and Angie Spadaro in fourteen episodes of Caroline in the City.

I probably know Ms. Azzara best from Barney Miller. She popped up as different characters three times: a manicurist who stabbed an unruly client in “The Layoff”; the victim of a bus robbery and crash who also happened to be the mistress of one of the other passengers in “Bus Stop”; and the recent wife of a recent lotto winner who wasn’t too thrilled he was giving it all away in “Dietrich’s Arrest: Part 1”.

She also played a money-focused woman in an episode of Murder, She Wrote as well. In the episode “Mr. Penroy’s Vacation”, which also happened to be Ron Masak’s first episode as Sheriff Metzger, Ms. Azzara plays the “wife” of dead man Mr. Penroy. Yes, wife is in quotes for a reason. As it turns out, she’s actually the wife of a train robber who ran out on her. He was in Cabot Cove to get his split of the money, and she was there to make sure she got her cut, too. Fun fact: despite her three appearances on Barney Miller and her onscreen husband Don Calfa’s seven appearances, they never crossed paths on that show. (She did appear with the other Barney Miller frequent flyer Oliver Clark in an episode, though.)

Another favorite guest appearance that found her on the wrong side of the law was in an episode of CHiPs called “Satan’s Angels”, in which Bonnie is taken captive by members of a motorcycle gang, which include William Smith and Mickey Jones. Ms. Azzara is one of their old ladies who forms something of a bond with Bonnie.

She also tangled with the law on Baretta, Kojak, Ohara, Rizzoli & Isles, and N.Y.P.D. (her first listed credit on IMDB); checked in on Strong Medicine, The Practice (a ’70s Danny Thomas series), Trapper John MD, House Calls (reprising her character from the movie version), ER, and E/R (yes, there were two of them and both starred George Clooney); privately investigated on Remington Steele and Tenspeed and Brownshoe; got family friendly on Shake It Up, One Day at a Time, Diff’rent Strokes, The Wonder Years, and Doogie Howser MD; was short-lived on Downtown, Mama Malone, The Two of Us, Roomies, and The Montefuscos; went to court on LA Law and Night Court; showed up on Married…with Children and it’s short-lived spin-off Top of the Heap; named names on Maggie, Pearl, Rhoda, and Alex, Inc.; got a little strange on Medium, Joan of Arcadia, and the ’80s version of The Twilight Zone; and of course, she once set sail on The Love Boat.

I know that actors don’t like to be typecast, and I certainly don’t like to typecast them, but sometimes an actor plays a role so well that you can’t help but associate them with it. Candice Azzara’s gift for playing women with a certain kind of attitude -spicy sweet- is memorable and that’s a fabulous thing. And so is she.

In the Line of Duty

/ Kiki Writes / Leave a comment

We all know how enamored I am with cops shows, particularly cop shows from the ’70s, but there’s a certain genre of copaganda episode, which seemed to be done often in the ’70s, that just hits me the wrong way every time.

An officer killed in the line of duty.

Here’s how this particular variety of copaganda episode typically plays out. We meet a cop, usually a uniformed officer, that we’ve never seen before and will likely never been mentioned again after this episode. We get to know this cop for about five minutes. He’s usually a very likeable guy and he’s usually good friends with one of our faves. Then our new cop friend gets killed in the line of duty, usually by someone who refers to cops as “pigs” and has an all-out hate on for the police. If not, then someone in the episode does and they are very, very vocal about it. It’s all very anvil about showing the audience how thankless the job is because people hate them even though they put their lives on the line every day. It’s an efficient delivery system for some unquestioned stats on the number of cops killed in the line of duty every year.

Now, the whole point of copaganda is to help normalize and valorize the shit cops do that shouldn’t be normalized or valorized, like roughing up a suspect for information or getting pissy when a suspect knows their rights and won’t speak without a lawyer. But this particular genre of copaganda is incredibly and unnecessarily emotionally manipulative.

The point is to highlight how dangerous and thankless police work can be. I’m not arguing that being a police officer can’t be dangerous. My police officer father ended up with a broken knee incurred while handling a domestic violence call (and the guy later apologized for it; such is life in a small town). But when it comes to dangerous jobs in America, law enforcement doesn’t crack the top ten list. According to some lists, they don’t even make the top 25. In fact, police officers kill more people in the line of duty then they themselves are killed. They may end up in some dangerous situations, but the odds are in their favor.

Something that cop shows in general, particularly with these kinds of episodes, don’t acknowledge.

And if you wanna talk thankless, look at any customer service job.

My biggest issue with these episodes, outside of the inaccuracies I’ve already mentioned, is how it’s implied that a cop’s life has more value than anyone else’s simply because of the job they do. And that is bullshit. Not just because of the inaccuracies I’ve already point out, but also because nobody’s life is inherently more or less valuable than anybody else’s.

To drive home the point that these cops’ lives are so much more valuable than the average citizen, they have the cop hater right there to highlight just how derided and misunderstood the police are. Nothing gets the audience more on the side of law enforcement than some asshole screaming “pig” at our heroes. Especially after they’ve lost one of their dear uniformed friends whose name we don’t bother to learn.

It all ends up being overwrought and grating and, like I said, unnecessary. In the context of the show, we already ride with the idea that a cop’s job is dangerous and their work is thankless because of how many dangerous situations we see our favorites in (some of which they don’t survive) and how often they’re disrespected in the course of their investigations. We already know.

This very special episode isn’t required.

Rerun Junkie Confession–I Love a Woman Who Takes Care of Business

/ Kiki Writes / Leave a comment

I was initially inspired to write this post by Miss Simpson in the Season 5 Hawaii Five-O episode “Death Is a Company Policy”, and what I was actually going to confess was that I liked ruthless women. Miss Simpson was a representative of a criminal enterprise so vast it oversaw the work of numerous smaller scale criminal bosses. It’s at first thought that Miss Simpson is nothing more than an accountant sent to audit the criminal books of one of their branch managers, Piro Manoa. However, as the episode progresses, we come to understand that Miss Simpson is more than just an accountant. She’s an important part of their organization and makes the tough, crucial decisions when she has to.

And then just two episodes later came Joyce Hensley in “You Don’t Have To Kill To Get Rich, But It Helps”. The only female exec in a blackmail insurance business, she has a keen eye for good insurance prospects. She also reads Sam Tolliver for filth after only a five minute chat. Cool, calculating, and, well, ruthless.

But in that same episode is a character named Dollie. She’s a madam with amazing fashion sense who takes no shit from Ben. You get the sense that she’s good at her job and she takes care of her girls, but she’s no soft touch. She’s not ruthless. She’s just takes care of business.

And that’s what I really like. A woman who can take care of business. Miss Simpson and Joyce Hensley both displayed that even though their business is on the criminal side of the tracks.

So, let’s flip the script. What about Callie Duquense on CSI: Miami? Here is a woman who brings down the bad guys with same sort of efficiency and ruthlessness as her criminal counterparts I just mentioned. She’s not intimidated when challenged and she has remarkable emotional control even in the most stressful situations. She gets shit done.

Della Street on Perry Mason also comes to mind when it comes to efficient women on the right side of the law. To the untrained eye, she’s just a secretary. But Perry wouldn’t be able to vex Hamilton Burger by beating him in court if Della wasn’t on top of her game. She even keeps Paul Drake in check and that’s no easy task.

Women don’t have to be in law enforcement -or on the opposite side of it- to take care of business. When I was thinking of all of the women I admire, two nurses immediately popped into my mind: Major Margaret Houlihan on M*A*S*H and Dixie McCall on Emergency!.

Dixie is the head ER nurse. There were actually episodes that showed how things went to shit without Dixie in charge. She’s the one choreographing intricate dances of life or death with her staff. Doctors might be running the show, but it’s the nurses who have to anticipate their needs. Dixie got shit done because lives depended on it. And she was good at it.

The same can be said for Major Margaret Houlihan. A career army nurse. She’s in charge of a group of nurses in a war zone. She’s orchestrating order in devastating chaos. Even when taking into consideration her early season shenanigans, Margaret never messed around when it came to nursing. Taking care of those soldiers was her job and she took care of business.

What’s interesting about most of the women I’ve listed in this post (as guest stars we didn’t really see enough of Miss Simpson, Dollie, and Joyce Hensley) is that even though they could be considered strong women because of how effectively they got their shit done, it didn’t preclude them from having emotions. Sometimes the stress or the situations got to them, but they handled it, just like they handle everything. And they handled it in such a way that it didn’t stop them from taking care of business.

And I unabashedly love women like that.

Rerun Junkie Writer–Jerome Coopersmith

/ Kiki Writes / 4 Comments

I’ve written quite a few posts in my Rerun Junkie Guest Star series, so I’m obviously long overdue to begin a series about the Rerun Junkie Writers. After all, without the writers, those guest stars that I love and adore have nothing to say.

It’s a shame that I was motivated to finally begin the series due to the recent passing of one of those writers.

Jerome Coopersmith only has 36 writing credits on IMDB, but most of them are for TV shows. He’s got a creator credit as well as writing credits (he wrote every episode) for the short-lived 1977 series The Andros Targets. He wrote 20 episodes of Armstrong Circle Theater and 18 episodes of Johnny Jupiter. I had to look that latter up. It’s a show about a general store clerk who invents an inter-planetary TV and befriends a puppet named Johnny Jupiter. This could be a kids’ show. Or it could just be 1950’s TV on the Dupont network.

He wrote for other anthology shows like Kraft Theatre and The Alcoa Hour; early crime-fighting series like Brenner and Harbormaster; and later popular shows like Combat!, Doctors and Nurses, and Medical Center. I’m sure I’ve seen his episodes of The Streets of San Francisco, Spenser: For Hire, and A Man Called Hawk.

But most of the TV episodes he wrote -and the work I’m most familiar with- was Hawaii Five-O.

Of the 32 episodes he wrote for the show, 3 of them I picked to be my favorites of their season. Considering there’s 12 seasons and a quite a few writers, it’s pretty impressive that he wrote a quarter of my favorites.

But he also wrote several of my runners up and other memorable ones.

He’s responsible for the excellent episode “Samurai” (but I doubt he’s responsible for Ricardo Montalban’s yellow face); put McGarrett’s life in jeopardy twice in the same season with “A Bullet for McGarrett” and “Blind Tiger”; came up with some brilliant and fun plots in “Didn’t We Meet at a Murder?”, “Death is a Company Policy”, and “Welcome to Our Branch Office”; did a little PSA-ing with “Chain of Events” and “Diary of a Gun”; and revisited a character from the second season episode “Just Lucky, I Guess” in the eighth season episode “McGarrett is Missing”.

And these are just a few of the terrific episodes he wrote for the show. The man never had a dud, at least as far as I’m concerned.

For some reason, he sometimes wrote under different names. He has several TV episodes, including multiple episodes of Hawaii Five-O, credited as Jay Roberts and several TV movies credited as Ken August.

As if his resume wasn’t impressive enough, he also wrote plays and musicals that ended up on Broadway, and even earned a Tony nomination for his Sherlock Holmes musical Baker Street.

But no matter the name, the stage, or the screen, the result Jerome Coopersmith produced when he put pen to paper was always the same.

Fantastic viewing.

Thanks to Chris for linking me to Jerome Coopersmith’s obituary article.

Have You Watched…?

/ Kiki Writes / 6 Comments

I’ve not watched all the reruns in the world, but it’s still a fair question to ask someone who proclaims themselves to be a rerun junkie if they’ve watched a certain rerun.

Frequently, my answer is yes, but not for a long time or I watched it back in the day, but haven’t watched it since, or I’ve seen a few episodes years ago. I consumed an unlikely amount of reruns as a child and many of them, I haven’t seen since. I don’t think I’ve watched a full episode of Bewitched or I Dream of Jeannie in years, maybe not since grade school, but I know I’ve seen the entire run of both series while getting ready for school in the morning in the long, long ago of the ’80s.

I probably haven’t watched Airwolf since it first aired, but that was can’t miss TV for me back in the day. With the exception of a few episodes, I probably haven’t watched TJ Hooker or MacGyver since junior high. But I know I’ve seen almost every (if not every) episode of those shows, too.

So when I say I’ve seen something, I probably have. But it’s more than likely that it’s been so long that I don’t remember specifics about episodes.

Of course, there are series that I’ve heard of, but have never seen for one reason or another. The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet come to mind. Sure it was one of those black and white reruns that tended to get early morning play around here, but I never watched an episode of it. Never really had the interest. Not every show that I have knowledge of and access to is going to be something I want to devote my time to watching, even for a rerun junkie like me. And that’s okay! It has nothing to do with the quality of the show. It’s just personal preference. You don’t have to watch everything to be a rerun aficionado.

Because there are shows that we know about, but don’t have access to.

And there are shows that we don’t know about yet.

It was only in the last few years that two of the shows I talked about on Eventually Supertrain came into my awareness –Automan and Tales of the Gold Monkey. I enjoyed both series and never would have known about either of them if it weren’t for a little happenstance -being a fan of David Hewlett since Stargate: Atlantis and learning through following him on Twitter that he’d starred in an Automan parody short called Hewlogram, and being absurdly smitten with Jeff MacKay and seeking out shows he’s been in for my viewing pleasure.

Speaking of Eventually Supertrain, how many short-lived shows that I’ve never heard of has Dan introduced me to and put on my watch list? The Immortal, Lucan, Shadowchasers, Cliffhangers…he’s doing the TV Lord’s work putting these sorts of shows on people’s radar.

So many shows I’ve never heard of came into my awareness through Book ’em, Danno guest star research. I don’t think I ever would have known of David Cassidy -Man Undercover otherwise. It became a Holy Grail Show for me, one of those shows that I just had to see, but there didn’t seem to be a way to view it. I lucked out big time when it was made available on Crackle.

My other Holy Grail Show is Trauma Center, which was the fourth Glen A. Larson show released in 1983 (the other three being Manimal, Masquerade, and Automan, all of which have been covered on Eventually Supertrain). It doesn’t seem to be available anywhere, but one day, I will find it. And I will watch it. And it will be glorious.

There’s no telling how many shows there are that I haven’t discovered yet. And my list of shows to watch is growing. But I have seen quite a few now.

So go ahead. Ask me if I’ve watched a show.

We might all discover something.