Rerun Junkie

Rerun Junkie Episode–“The Christmas Story”

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 (Edit: Mr. Coopersmith’s daughter graciously provided the answer in the comments of this post). 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…?

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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.

The Laws of (TV Gunshot) Physics

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Television takes liberties with reality for the purpose of storytelling. It requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief. As a result, it ends up creating its own set of rules. My favorite set of these TV laws relates to being shot.

The real-life physics of gunshot wounds is too wild to properly translate to television. First of all, dying instantly isn’t something people do under most circumstances, let alone gunshots. We simply don’t have time for the necessary lingering unless there’s a confession or plot point to convey. Second of all, millimeters and luck play into the survival rate in such a way that people would likely struggle to find it believable if they saw it on their favorite procedural.

However, what does translate to screen is somehow easier for viewers to swallow. In addition to the prevalence of instant deaths, there’s also the understood notion that getting shot blows you off of your feet depending on the weapon used. I think it’s generally known that this doesn’t happen (more fascinating is the range of physical reactions gunshots survivors describe), but it’s something we as an audience have come to expect, especially when it’s the bad guy getting blown away. We prefer that dramatic liberty.

When it comes to the survivability of a gunshot, it’s guaranteed that our good guys will survive any wound inflicted unless they’re leaving the show. Bad guys, unless they’re a recurring threat, are probably dying instantly no matter where they’re hit. Westerns are my favorite example of this. Bad guys do not survive gut shots; good guys do. In reality, surviving a gunshot wound to the abdomen is a toss-up. There’s a lot of organs, arteries, and blood vessels packed in there. If you don’t bleed to death because the bullet nicked an artery or hit an organ, you just might die of sepsis, peritonitis, or some other kind of infection due to a perforated bowel. And then of course, the bullet might miss everything vital and you’ll be just fine.

Speaking of our good guys surviving their gunshot wounds, they rarely suffer any negative aftereffects unless the plot calls for it. So often they’re shot in one episode and then right back to work the next episode with nary a mention. When it comes to older reruns, this is more a matter of treating each episode as its own thing rather than adhering to any serious continuity. Look no further than our Five-O heroes for an example of this. In one episode, Steve McGarrett is shot three times and left for dead. In the next, he’s back to work and well-enough to be stabbed.

Or perhaps we can consider the interesting gunshot wound continuity of Eric Delko on CSI: Miami. He was shot twice at the end of the first part of a two-parter in the fifth season. During a firefight in a parking lot, he was shot once in the right thigh. Horatio Caine dragged him behind a car where Delko was then shot in the back of the head by a different, unseen shooter. During the second part, Delko fought for his life, rallied, and lived. However, they couldn’t get all of the bullet fragment out of his head and Delko did suffer aftereffects from this head wound. He lost memories from around the time of the shooting, had some confusion issues regarding aspects of his job, and had transitory hallucinations. In the eighth season, the fragment jarred lose during a shooting/car chase/car crash and he ended up on the operating table yet again to have it finally removed. He recovered from that without any issues. So, that one incident had long-lasting implications.

However, the gunshot wound in his leg was literally only addressed once…when he was initially shot. It was never mentioned again: not when Delko was in surgery, not when he returned to work a few weeks after getting shot, nada. It was as though it never happened. Setting aside the fact that it was dubious at best he’d be returning to work so soon after being shot in the head, Delko definitely would have been limping if he had. He’d probably know every time it was going to rain for the rest of his life, too.

Many of our law enforcement leads could find themselves in a similar situation, especially if they’ve been shot in the shoulder, which is a favorite target of the writers and bad guys it seems. Shoulder wounds are notoriously nasty as there’s a lot that can go wrong in that region and not much room for it not to. There’s the subclavian artery, which could easily have someone bleeding out in minutes, not to mention all of the muscles, tendons, and bones in that area that work together to move the arm. Starsky got shot in the shoulder on the first season of Starsky and Hutch, nearly died, was back to work in the next episode without a bandage, and never had a problem using his arm to enforce the law for the rest of the series. Heroes don’t get arthritis from traumatic injuries.

Rumor has it that the best place to get shot (aside from nowhere) is in the backside. The abundance of fatty tissue is ready-made for high-impact projectiles (good luck if you have a flat ass, I suppose), but rarely do shows, cop shows in particular, have one of their mains take one for the team in this fashion. I guess there’s something less dramatic about spending the week on their stomach than taking one in the gut or the shoulder and still managing to chase down and arrest/kill the bad guy. Or maybe spending most of the episode in a coma while their besties get justice for them for maximum viewer angst.

No matter where they get shot, we all know they’ll be back and better than ever in the next episode anyway.

How To Replace the Dearly Departed Character

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The Two Darrins.

It’s become a pop culture touchstone. Rather than get rid of the character of Darrin Stephens on Bewitched when Dick York’s back health began to decline, the show simply hired Dick Sergeant to replace him for the rest of the series. However, this sort of swap happened earlier in the show’s run. Alice Pearce originated the role of nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz, however sadly died of cancer after only two seasons. She was replaced by Sandra Gould, who remained Gladys for the rest of the show.

Replacing departing characters can be a challenge for a show, especially if the show is riding high in the ratings. One false move and the popularity can tank. Pick the wrong actor or create the wrong character, and the chemistry of the show is forever altered in a way that renders it unwatchable. But get the right person combined with the right character, and it’s like finding gold all over again.

Not all actor departures can be helped. Death is inevitable. It comes for us all and it comes at the most inconvenient times. It can leave shows in the lurch about what to do.

One of the earliest instances of death taking out a major player happened on Wagon Train when Ward Bond died. His Major Seth Adams had been leading that wagon train for years. Then one day he was gone and Christopher Hale, played by John McIntire, was in his place, and nobody said anything about the missing major. This approach would also become a tactic to deal with the departure of living actors as well. See Gutterman (James Whitmore Jr), TJ (Robert Ginty), and Anderson (John Laroquette) on Baa Baa Black Sheep.

But it’s not always handled that way.

Dan Blocker died suddenly just prior to the final season of Bonanza. The season premier was to feature his character Hoss and as a result had to be rewritten. Hoss wasn’t just a main character, but a beloved one, and there was no way his character could just disappear from the show without remark. So it was said that Hoss died in an accident.

Jack Soo’s death from cancer was not sudden or unexpected. As his illness worsened, his character Nick Yemana showed up less and less. The show broke form after Jack Soo’s death for the retrospective episode, with the ensemble highlighting their co-star’s best moments while also offering some words about him as a person and a friend. It was never expressly stated that Nick died, but it was definitely implied, and though the character of Care Levitt, played by Ron Carey, was seen more often in the squad room in a detective role, I don’t think it would be accurate to say that Nick Yemana was ever replaced.

Some actors do leave of their own accord and their characters are either killed off or sent off, creating a void that must be filled.

This did happen on Bonanza when Pernell Roberts chose to leave the show. Logic dictated to replace one Cartwright with another and since it would be awkward to pull another half-brother out of the hat, they brought in cousin Will Cartwright, played by Guy Williams. He lasted all of five episodes before being cut loose from the show, supposedly due to Michael Landon’s insecurities surrounding Williams’s good looks.

But usually, the replacement characters stick around a little bit longer.

Frequently, shows would attempt to replace one character with a similar character, sometimes in appearance, usually in personality. The idea was understandable: don’t shake up the vibe too much. They knew what worked and wanted to stick with it. And sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t.

If you ask my opinion (and you’re reading my blog, so clearly you’re here for my thoughts), M*A*S*H* set the gold standard when it came to character replacement.

Between the third and fourth season, the show lost two major players: McLean Stevenson’s Henry Blake was shipped home on an ill-fated trip in the third season finale, and Wayne Roger’s Trapper John McIntyre was shipped home in one piece before the fourth season premier and while Hawkeye was on R&R.

Instead of replacing these two popular characters with ones of a similar ilk, they chose to replace them with characters that were very different from their predecessors.

Colonel Henry Blake, whose leadership was once described by Hawkeye as being on a sinking ship and running to the front of the ship to find the captain was Daffy Duck, was a good doctor, but a lousy military man and struggled to be effective in a leadership role, and ended up being replaced by Colonel Sherman Potter, surgeon and career military man. Meanwhile, lady’s man Trapper John was replaced by dedicated family man BJ Hunnicutt.

Bringing in two new characters is a big challenge, but to make them quite different from the ones they replaced feels like something of a gamble. One that, of course, paid off. Sure there were some growing pains, as is natural when new people come into an established setting, but it wasn’t long before they found their places in the scheme of things.

This was repeated when Larry Linville’s Major Frank Burns was sent home when he kinda lost his head when Margaret got married and was replaced by Major Charles Emerson Winchester III, played by David Ogden Stiers, who was literally assigned to the 4077th because he beat a colonel at cribbage.

Frank Burns was a unique weasel of a character that loved the authority because of the importance it gave him, but whose plans to acquire it backfired typically through his own incompetence or because of Hawkeye, Trapper, and/or BJ. Not to mention he was a lousy doctor. Though he had his moments of humanity, Burns was a largely insufferable, irredeemable character and Larry Linville portrayed him brilliantly for five seasons.

On the flip side, Winchester was a much more formidable adversary against Hawkeye and BJ when it came to shenanigans, as he was just a smart, and he was a gifted surgeon as well. He, too, could be insufferable, his arrogance usually getting the best of him, but he was much more human than Burns could ever be. Winchester was also more frequently an ally to Hawkeye and BJ. Though Charles was often the foil, there was a mutual respect at play, something that never would have happened with Burns.

One replacement that kind of wasn’t a replacement served to be a very interesting replacement. If you follow me.

Usually when we think of replacements, we think of one character leaving and a whole new character coming in. However, when Gary Burghoff left the show, his character Radar O’Reilly going home to take care of his mother and the family farm after his Uncle Ed died, the 4077th didn’t get a brand new company clerk. They got Klinger.

In-house promotions happen and we got to see that adjustment in real time, with Klinger struggling to learn a new job and the rest of the camp to struggling to to deal with Klinger’s struggles. The change got Klinger out of the dresses for the most part, but allowed his character to grow in an unanticipated way without losing the guy we’d come to know and love, the guy who’d had a friendship with the character he replaced.

M*A*S*H did a lot of things right -it’s got the 11 seasons and Emmy awards to prove it- but the way the show replaced characters in a way that reflected how people come and go in life, with new personalities replacing old, dynamics shifting, and new normals being established, was supreme. Like I said -the show set the standard.

Replacing dearly departed characters is a challenge and every show meets that challenge differently. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes we’re gifted in with characters that exceed our expectations and steal our hearts. And sometimes we wish they’d never been written.

But I guess that’s a little like how life works, too.

Rerun Junkie Guest Star–Peggy Pope

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When I was writing about Don Calfa and Oliver Clark on Barney Miller, I made the note that I needed to write about Peggy Pope. She was another frequent guest star on the show (she did six episodes) and one of my favorites. Though Ms. Pope doesn’t have the robust guest star resume like some of the other actors I’ve profiled, she more than makes up for it with quality.

Given her talent, it’s unfortunate that her only regular roles were on short-lived series. She was Alice Fisher on Billy with Steve Guttenberg and Elain Fusco on Calucci’s Department with James Coco and fellow Barney Miller frequent flyer Candy Azzara. She also had a short five episode stint on Soap.

As I said, I know her best from Barney Miller and though I usually pick one appearance on a show when I do guest star posts like this, I can’t pick just one for Peggy Pope. She played a variety of wonderfully idiosyncratic characters in her six episodes.

She played a woman who fell victim to a romeo who then robbed her. But this didn’t deter her or her lovelorn ways and when the thief was apprehended, she still pursued a love connection. She then played a cat burglar’s widow who took up the family business after her husband’s demise. She followed that up by playing a woman who reported crimes that were occurring on soap operas. In her penultimate appearance, she held the 12th precinct hostage with a bomb she made in a pressure cooker, demanding a hospital’s nuclear medical department that she felt was responsible for her husband’s intimacy issues be brought to justice. And in her final appearance, she played a woman looking for her husband who’d run out on her and ended up finding a different one with the same name who’d been mistakenly reported as dead. It turns out she liked the reportedly dead one much more than the her actual husband.

Her sweet voice and sweeter face allowed Ms. Pope to play characters that were unsuspectingly devious.

The one guest spot I’m thinking of came on The Golden Girls. She played Gladys Barton, wife to Leonard (played by Gordon Jump) who decided to be an ass about his tree falling into the girls’ yard, leading to Sophia putting an evil eye curse on him. Ms. Pope is only in the episode briefly, but our first encounter with her leads us to believe that she’s helpless in the face of her loud, bullying husband. However, when Leonard returns after suffering a string of bad luck, including flat tires, missing golf clubs, and a boil on his butt, it’s revealed that Sophia’s curse had a lot of help from Gladys, something you wouldn’t suspect from such a meek lady. Well, except for the boil, of course. That was just her good luck.

Ms. Pope also appeared on The Golden Girls spin-off Empty Nest and the Empty Nest spin-off Nurses; got soapy on Knot’s Landing and Santa Barbara; tangled with the law on The Trials of O’Brien, Hill Street Blues, Tough Cookies, and Night Court; found religion on Highway to Heaven and Have Faith; privately investigated on The Outsider, Barnaby Jones, and Hart to Hart; checked in on St. Elsewhere and ER; made a name for herself on Rhoda, Hope and Faith, Amanda’s, and Kate & Allie; found family on Eight is Enough, Too Close for Comfort, and Sisters; went into the office on Nine to Five and Anything But Love; got a little unreal on Bewitched, Mork and Mindy, and the ’80s Twilight Zone; and ran the L&O gamut on Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Whenever Peggy Pope pops up in one of my reruns, I immediately think of an angel. An angel that’s a little off-beat and sometimes a little devious, but still an angel. She’s a delight and we’re all blessed by her work.

Rerun Junkie Episodes–“Out of Time”

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There’s a genre of TV show episode that I like to think of as “How the Band Got Together”. It’s basically a flashback episode (not a clip show) showing how characters that we’ve always seen to have known each other first met. A great example of this is the first season finale of The Golden Girls. It literally shows how Blanch, Rose, Dorothy, and Sophia all came to live together.

The eighth season premier of CSI: Miami, “Out of Time”, is one of these episodes, but it does a lot more and I love it.

Season 7 ends with Delko helping his Russian mob connected father escape from a shootout and in the process gets shot at by Calleigh (which put a damper on their relationship). Delko ends up wrecking the car and goes wading off in a marsh, leaving his unconscious father inside, and Horatio and the team searching for him.

Season 8 opens with them finding an unconscious Delko on a road by the marsh. The bullet shrapnel left in his head from being shot in Season 5 has shifted and put his life in danger. As Delko fights for his life, we see how the band got together back in 1997.

We see the lab before it was The Lab, before CSI was actually a thing. It was literally a broom closet. We meet Detective Horatio Caine without his trademark sunglasses and his partner Detective Sullivan. We meet the fresh-faced, enthusiastic lateral transfer Calleigh Duquense. We meet Jesse Cardoza on his last day as he’s transferring to L.A. We meet Officer Frank Tripp in uniform and sporting an amazing mustache. We meet Dr. Alexx Woods working in a much less nifty basement morgue. We meet Eric Delko…who’s not in law enforcement. He’s driving a tow truck and recovering items he finds that people have ditched. When he goes to pull an old stove out of the marsh -yes, the same marsh where Horatio found him unconscious at the beginning of the episode- he finds a submerged car. He tows it out, sees bloody water pouring out of the trunk, and calls it in. From the way Delko greets Sully and Horatio, and teases Horatio about not having sunglasses with Horatio coming right back by saying he’s supposed to find some for him, it’s clear that they’re not strangers. But at the same time, this case will be the first time Horatio and Calleigh meet.

The case of the murdered woman found in the trunk illustrates how far the team and CSI and forensics as a whole has come as we go between the past and the present of Delko fighting for his life and the rest of the team keeping watch. While old school Sully prefers the obvious suspect -the husband- Horatio, Jesse, and Calleigh follow the evidence to the killer -the gardener. With Delko’s help. At the conclusion of the case, Jesse leaves for L.A., recommending a guy by the name of Tim Speedle who’s working in St. Petersburg for Horatio’s newly established CSI department. Horatio, recognizing talent when he sees it, also encourages Delko to become a police officer and then come find him.

We’re also gifted with the beginnings of Horatio’s style as he ditches his tie and accepts a pair of sunglasses that Delko recovered during one of his salvages. They are THE sunglasses famed in gif and meme and they’re made even more special knowing that they came from Delko. And Delko’s life becomes even more precious knowing that it was Horatio who got him started in law enforcement.

Because this episode does more than just show how the band got together. It’s always been clear that Horatio has a special relationship with his team, but here it’s established just how special his relationship with Eric is. One of the few present day scenes is Horatio talking to a comatose Eric after brain surgery, begging him to stick around and fight because he can’t lose him after losing Marisol, Ray, and Speed. It’s an unexpectedly tender scene that I love and makes the final scene of Delko waking up surrounded by the entire team even sweeter.

The episode also establishes the groundwork for the season despite spending most of the time in the past.

Delko’s injury paves the way for him to take a leave of absence from the team as post-surgery he feels less enthusiastic about the job. Obviously, he doesn’t stay away, but it was a convenient storyline for Adam Rodriguez to step away from the show for most of the season. At the same time, it introduces us to Jesse Cardoza as his character is first leaving for L.A. in the past and returns in the present of the next episode with Eddie Cibrian joining the cast for the season. And Sully, who could have been a one-off past character, ends up being a familiar face who returns a few times later in the season.

Now does the ep have its faults and fudge the facts and timeline some? Yeah. Whatever de-aging they did to David Caruso makes him look like he escaped Whoville part of the time (I said what I said). I also feel they could have gone more late ’90s with everyone’s wardrobe, particularly Calleigh’s, but that’s neither here nor there.

It’s said that Horatio is going to head up the newly established CSI at the end of the 1997 portion of the episode, but as the first episode established, Megan Donner was actually in charge until she took a leave of absence due to her husband’s death and Horatio ended up with that job (Horatio does mention her in this episode, though, saying she’s out in the field and that’s why he needs Jesse’s help on the case). There’s also the insinuation that Horatio went right from the bomb squad to CSI, but during the course of the series, he also spent some time being a detective in NYC, but was working Miami at least in 1987. He has a very interesting career history.

Also, the 1997 start date is questionable. Horatio and Megan both worked the ValuJet crash of ’96 and it’s insinuated that CSI was a thing then. Also, Delko mentions playing baseball for the Miami Hurricanes for a couple of seasons (consistent with something said in a first season episode), but if you go by the birth year on older sister Marisol’s headstone, 1978, then Delko is at most 18 in ’97. So, either he graduated high school early, or I’m paying more attention than I’m supposed to.

I’m also not fond of them putting Natalia in the flashback. They could have just kept her in the present like Ryan and it would have be fine. But I recognize that this complaint is a me-thing, not an actual issue.

But obviously, none of this detracts from my enjoyment of the episode or how well it was done. Seeing the team come together and the birth of the Horatio that we know is terrific. Getting to see Calleigh at her most bubbly, which by this point in the show had decreased in the face of her lived experience, is so wonderful. Also the hilarious wink wink nudge nudge when she says that she’d never even think of socializing with anyone remotely connected with her work when the three men we actually see her in romantic relationships with -Hagen, Berkeley, and Delko- are her coworkers. And that instead of this episode being a stand alone emotional gut punch, it actually puts in place multiple pieces for the season is clever and well-done.

Also the fact that they used Chumbawumba’s “Tubthumping” to establish the 1997 vibe is nothing short of magical.

horatio new 1997