The Golden Girls

Five TV Tropes I Love

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Since I already ran off at the mouth about five tropes I hate (with the promise of more), it’s only fair that I give the tropes I love the same treatment. As with the hated tropes, these are in no particular order because you can’t rank love.

Elaborate Schemes- If you’ve ever listened to Book ’em, Danno, you already know this. I adore elaborate schemes, the wilder the better. They don’t have to make sense. They don’t have to be practical. They just have to be bold. That’s why Wo Fat is one of my favorite villains. The man has a gift for theatrics. I’ve raved about his long-game frame job. But Hawaii Five-O is full of great plans and grand schemes. Elaborate plans to rob banks and steal diamonds and commit murders. There are times they border on ridiculous and unnecessary. There are times they absolutely cross that line. Sometimes they end up an absolute mess and don’t make much sense at all. None of that matters to me. A for effort. Get complicated. Get weird. I’m in.

Doppelgangers- That Wo Fat frame up included a doppelganger and that is also my joy. A doppelganger plot, regardless of what kind of show it’s on, is going to be ridiculous. Sitcoms frequently use the Prince and the Pauper set-up, sometimes literally. Davy took the place of a shy prince in order to win him the girl. Ginger’s doppelganger Eva Grub ended up on the island with the castaways and after a make-over, went back to civilization to take over Ginger’s career. Gilligan also came face to face with a spy with his face. And Mr. Howell had his own dealings with an imposter bearing his likeness. In retrospect, there were a lot of doppelgangers on Gilligan’s Island. Of course, it’s said that everyone has one. Naturally occurring doppelgangers are great; created doppelgangers are better. These happen a lot on dramas. People impossibly surgically altered to look like someone else for nefarious purposes. It’s absolutely unlikely and totally ridiculous, which makes it that much better.

Improbable Countdowns- You know the drill. There’s five minutes, two minutes, thirty seconds left before the big terrible thing happens but somehow our heroes are able to beat the clock despite the fact that they ran out of time three times over easy and we all know it. Rarely are shows able to do what needs to be done in the allotted time and that’s fine. We’re not expecting 100% accuracy here. But there are times when it’s so egregious it’s laughable and those are the one I love the most. There’s an episode of Baywatch Nights in which Mitch, Ryan, and guest character Claire have to get off a rig that’s going to explode in 90 seconds and they use half of that time sitting and dialoguing. There’s no way they got to the railing in the time they had, but thanks to the law of TV countdowns, they had time to spare. And I’m not mad about it.

It Was All a Dream- I admit this is a controversial love, but stick with me here. There’s an episode of The Golden Girls where Blanche’s husband George appears to have faked his death, meanwhile, Sonny Bono and Lyle Waggoner are pursuing Dorothy relentlessly, straight up fighting over her. It’s a wacky episode and funny as hell. And it’s not until the end that’s it’s revealed that it’s all a dream, a recurring one that Blanche has which is rooted in some unresolved feelings she has surrounding her husband’s sudden death. It’s quite bittersweet when she reveals that this dream was different because she finally got to hug her husband as she usually wakes up before then, suggesting that she’s come to terms with an aspect of her grief. So, there are times in which those dreams episodes can be well done. But they don’t have to be for me to enjoy them. Saying an entire season of Dallas was a dream just to get Patrick Duffy back on the show and therefore fucking up canon across that universe is amazing for the chaos alone and I’ll ride with it. Also, St. Elsewhere‘s series finale? Come on. Some dreams are legendary.

The Rashomon Effect- Quick refresher: this is the device of telling the same story from the viewpoint of different characters and because people tend to interpret and remember their realities differently for various reasons, it can get pretty entertaining and messy. One of my favorite instances of this is in a Mama’s Family episode actually called “Rashomama”. Thelma ends up in the hospital thanks to a cookpot to the head and Ellen, Naomi, and Eunice all give their versions of what happened, which naturally paints each teller as a saint without fault. We never do learn exactly what happened and who put Thelma in the hospital. Gilligan’s Island uses the Rashomon Effect to retell the events of an episode we’ve already seen, painting each teller as the hero when we all know that Gilligan was the one who saved them, which is a pretty unique spin. CSI: Miami did a fun version of this having Ryan, Calleigh, and Eric investigate the same murder, each coming to a different conclusion from their evidence. Naturally, Horatio straightens things out and the correct killer is caught in the end. So, give me all of the viewpoints. I won’t get bored.

I admit that my love of some of these tropes is rooted purely in my love of the ridiculous and there’s no doubt that all of these have the potential to go off the rails. But I never said they were necessarily good or that they could be (and probably are) overused. I said that I loved them.

And I do.

Make It Fashion

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It’s no secret that one of the things that caught my interest when I started watching Hawaii Five-O was the fashion. Sure, our team is typically dressed in conservative suits, but their personal and undercover fits are a sight to behold. Not to mention that you’re dealing with an island vacation spot in the late ’60s and throughout the ’70s. So many bright colors, bold patterns, and a broad assortment of people wearing them.

It’s a glorious time capsule.

In fact, it covers the end of one decade, the entirety of the next decade, and the very beginning of a third decade, which shows off the evolution of fashion during that particular time period. In that time span, dresses are going from short shifts to waist-defined and below the knees; the skirts go from minis to maxis; bell bottoms grow and waist-lines lower; even the suits change, with the widths of lapels and ties changing.

Not only that, this is Hawai’i fashion. In addition to what you might find on TV at the time, the standard styles and the styles indicative of certain groups like hippies, you also got island fashion, both residential and vacation. Yes, there are a lot of Aloha shirts and matching Aloha outfits and other threads common to vacationers and required of those working in the tourist trade. And the colors and patterns are glorious. But there’s also what the average, everyday people wear while working in the markets or on boats or doing their shopping. And there are muumuus. So many glorious muumuus.

That’s what’s so great about Rerun Fashion: it tells us so much.

Iris Apfel once talked about fashion as being a sort of record for history. You can tell what was going on in the world at the time by what people wore.

I feel that way about TV fashion as well (however I’m not nearly as cool or as well-dressed as Iris Apfel). We’re not only getting a glimpse into the fashion and styles of the time, which provides its own little insight into what the world was like, but we’re also getting that all filtered through the characters that are wearing it.

Obviously, Steve McGarrett is my favorite example of this.

While the Five-O team wore their conservative suits at work, they’re off-duty attire was much more relaxed for the most part, polos and Aloha shirts. And then there was Steve. Conservative, by-the-book Steve had an affinity for ascots, whites suits, pops of color, and some pretty fab hats. You never would have thought it from a man like him, but he was a bit of a fashionista. While some hard-nosed cops have a softer side off-duty, Steve McGarrett had a stylish side.

There’s something especially fab about characters you’re used to seeing in uniform in their street clothes. When the guys at Station 51 on Emergency! change into their street gear, you not only get a glimpse into their off-duty personalities, you also get a glimpse into their off-duty personalities as filtered through the ’70s. That’s why Johnny Gage is sporting these patchwork jeans. Of which I had a similar pair in high school in the ’90s when some ’70s styles had a resurgence.

I would wear them again today, no hesitation.

Speaking of out of uniform, given how infrequently everyone on Stargate Atlantis gets to don street clothes, it feels particularly monumental when they show up in those duds of the aughts.

If you want to look for character definition through wardrobe, look no further than The A-Team. Each character is defined by their clothes. Hannibal with his safari jacket, Face with his leather jacket, BA with his gold chains and perpetual lack of sleeves. A ball cap, bomber jacket, and pair of Chuck Taylors is Murdock. You can see that from space.

There was a similar situation on the ’60s Dragnet. Joe Friday and Bill Gannon wore the same suits every episode.

One other thing that I find fun to look out for is how the wardrobe department of shows not only dress characters for their personalities, but also how they coordinate the characters with each other.

One of my favorite things about CSI:Miami is that starting in the second season, wardrobe started doing a little color matchy-matchy between characters. Calleigh’s shirt matching Frank’s tie. Delko and Speed wearing similar colored shirts. By the fourth season, it was full-tilt coordination. It seems like at least one character in each episode is guaranteed to match Frank’s tie. And there are some episodes when there’s obviously a color theme. Everybody sporting a shade of one color. It’s glorious.

On the flip side of that, wardrobe on The Golden Girls did their best to make each woman stand out on their own. Not much in the way of matchy-matchy unless there was a specific reason. There’s one episode that sticks out in my mind in which Dorothy, Rose, and Blanche are sitting on the couch looking like a stoplight -red, yellow, green.

Just like the plots and slang, the fashion of reruns can either be dated or timeless, however it never fails to deliver some sort of statement.

Just pay closer attention to the threads.

Rerun Junkie Episodes–Favorite Christmas Episodes

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Bah humbug.

Yes, we’re all very aware that Christmas isn’t my favorite time of the year. Too many years working retail and running the holiday gauntlet have put a permanent crimp in my holiday spirit. And that goes for my reruns, too. I find most Christmas episodes to be too saccharine and overly-sentimental. They run that commercialized holly jolly through the society-approval filter and trim it with some moral lessons and it’s just enough to be nauseating.

However, there are a few episodes that have captured my heart, either because they forego these tropes, skewer them, or dress them in a silver pantsuit that’s absolutely to-die-for.

“‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”, The Golden Girls– The women are all planning on spending Christmas with their families. The bemoaning of the commercialization of Christmas leads them to exchanging homemade gifts, including Rose’s whittled maple syrup spigots and Blanche’s “Men of Blanche’s Boudoir” calendar, opened the night before they leave. On Christmas Eve, Blanche and Dorothy show up at the counseling center to pick up Rose, who is working a morning shift, only to be held up by a Santa (Terry Kiser), who demands they all celebrate Christmas together. Thanks to Sophia, they’re able to get out of that jam and to the airport, only to see their flights home cancelled. Later, at a diner, the women realize that they already are spending Christmas with family.

The ending is a bit sweet, what with it snowing in Miami and all, but Rose hitting “Surfin’ Safari” on the jukebox instead of a Christmas song saves it. Though I’ve always found it bizarre that they decorated the house, tree included, even though they wouldn’t be there for Christmas, I’m glad they did. They have some really lovely decorations and the tree is gorgeous. And Blanche’s pantsuit is fabulous.

“The Christmas Show”, The Monkees– The Monkees, in their forever pursuit of the next gig, end up getting hired to mind Melvin (Butch Patrick), a disgruntled forty-year old trapped in a twelve-year old’s body, while his aunt is away on a Christmas cruise. Turns out, Melvin isn’t much for Christmas. When the boys try to get him into the holiday spirit, they end up blowing through all of their money and aggravating Melvin to the point that he goes home. It’s only then that Mike realizes what’s been missing the whole time.

It could be a typical “lesson of Christmas” episode, but it’s The Monkees. They don’t do typical. Instead, they do madcap that involves them chopping down their own tree (while apparently stoned), Peter wrecking a department store while shopping for toys, Micky and Davy dressing as Santa and his elf and going down the chimney, a happy ending, and capping the whole thing off with an a capella version of “Riu Chiu”. It’s zany and sweet and the crew getting their time in front of the camera during the credits is a lovely gesture.

“Dear Sis”, M*A*S*H– In a letter home to his sister, Father Mulcahy expresses his frustration in not feeling very useful. Most everyone in camp has the holiday blues, but it seems that it’s hitting Father Mulcahy the hardest as nothing he does is really helpful. He even ends up decking a combative patient (who hit him first, so he had it coming). It’s only during the Christmas party in the mess tent that Father Mulcahy realizes that he has made something of a good impact, first when Charles thanks him for having his mother send him his old toboggan cap, and then later when Hawkeye singles him out during a toast.

M*A*S*H did several Christmas episodes during its eleven year run, but this one stands out to me for several reasons. One, it centers much of the episode on Father Mulcahy, which didn’t happen very often. Two, instead of singing a traditional Christmas song, Hawkeye leads everyone in singing a lovely version of “Dona Nobis Pacem”. And three, the episode ends with one of my favorite lines from the series. As the party is broken up by incoming casualties, the voiceover reading of Father Mulcahy’s letter to his sister says, “You know, sis, it doesn’t matter whether or not you feel useful when you’re moving from one disaster to another. The trick, I guess, is to just keep moving.”

“The Christmas Story”, Dragnet– A local church’s baby Jesus has gone missing from its nativity scene and Friday and Gannon are on the case. The statue has little monetary value, but it’s sentimental value can’t be measured and the parishioners would be very sad to go a Christmas without it. Being diligent detectives, Friday and Gannon follow a tip provided by an altar boy (Barry Williams) that leads them to a suspect (Bobby Troup), but he only borrowed a friend’s car and got into a little fender bender; he didn’t take any baby Jesus. Dejected, Joe and Bill go to the church to let the padre know they didn’t find the baby Jesus, but they’d keep looking. Just as they start to leave, a little boy pulling baby Jesus in a wagon comes into the church. It turns out that he’d prayed to baby Jesus for a new wagon and promised Him that if he got it, he’d give Him the first ride.

I’m not one for religion. I tend to cringe and shy away when people ram home the “Christ” in Christmas. But this episode is an exception and it’s all in the handling of the case and the ending. Our detectives are pursuing this matter seriously, as they usually do, but the justice is less nabbing a thief and more doing right for a congregation. The little boy who took the statue was fulfilling a promise, something that is more in tune with the holiday spirit than any of the sappy treacle that often gets splattered on the screen.

“Christmas with the Addam’s Family”, The Addam’s Family– It’s the common holiday problem that all sitcom parents face at one point or another: Santa. Pugsley and Wednesday are told by the Addams’s unkind neighbor that Santa doesn’t exist. The family bands together and elects Uncle Fester to play the role to restore the children’s faith. When he gets stuck in the chimney, each member of the clan takes it upon themselves to prove that there really is a Santa.

This could easily be a mediocre, overly-sweet episode, but this is the Addams family. This delightfully loving family is weird and wonderful and only they could pull off a Santa overload with such sincerity.

“Operation: Silent Night”, Magnum P.I.– While ferrying Magnum, Rick, and Higgins to their various destinations before he catches a flight home to New Orleans, T.C.’s chopper crashes on a deserted island that the Navy uses for target practice. Though Rick is convinced they’re all going to die, everyone else is pretty confident that they’ll get off the island soon enough. T.C. works on the chopper while Higgins forages for food and Rick and Magnum gather firewood for a signal fire. They end up discovering a downed Japanese WWII plane, which Higgins salvages to create a boat, which later sinks. Rick falls in a bog that he thinks is quicksand, which causes him to imagine his own funeral. T.C. despairs over his inability to fix the chopper and as such, he’ll miss his flight home. And Magnum, who was going to play Santa to some orphans, dons the outfit once again and provides the group with a Christmas tree to boost their spirits. All the while, the guys are unaware that off-shore, a Navy commander (Ed Lauter) with no Christmas spirit is about to bombard the island for practice.

What I love about this Christmas episode is how it’s so tangentially related to Christmas. There are obvious Christmas references and elements (Magnum dressed as Santa is hard to ignore), and there’s even a Scrooge in the form of the Navy commander insisting that his crew do drills on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day. But the episode isn’t dressed up in garland and lights and bows. There’s no heavy-handed true Christmas spirit bashing us over our heads. It’s four friends coming together in a difficult situation not because of some of magical holiday emotion but because that’s just what they do. There’s also the nod to another December holiday celebration. In addition to Christmas, T.C. also celebrates Kwanzaa, which he educates Higgins (and the audience) about.

Okay, I might have gone on a little long, but don’t for a minute think that’s because I’m having a change of heart about Christmas or Christmas episodes.

Oh no. Does my heart look three sizes bigger to you?

Rerun Junkie Show–The Golden Girls

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This is one of my reruns that I watched during its first run. I was a kid then, of course, but I found those four old women really funny. Now that I’m older, I find them funnier since I get all of the innuendo and adult humor. And the theme song is still catchy.

I shouldn’t have to go into the details of this show, but I’m going to for my own amusement.

The premise is simple and something that probably wouldn’t have gotten the greenlight from NBC today: four women over 50 live together and eat cheesecake. The women possessed four distinct personalities designed to give viewers a favorite, if they could possibly settle on a favorite. Blanche (Rue Mc was the saucy sexpot. Dorothy was the sarcastic intellectual. Rose was the naive-to-the-point-of-nearly-stupid sweetheart. And Sophia was the wise-cracking old woman with no filter between her mouth and her brain.

Not pictured: cheesecake

The women as a group were lively, fun, caring, kind, and a little naughty. Together they faced the perils of aging while maintaining a mature, but youthful outlook. It wasn’t four old women sitting around talking about grandchildren and knitting things. It was four older women living life. They dated, they worked, they vactioned, they struggled, they laughed, they solved problems, they dealt with family, they ate a lot, and they dressed liek it was October in Wisconsin instead of any time in Miami.

Why the long sleeves, ladies?

The show had its share of recurring characters and guest stars. Stan was my favorite. Herb Edleman was both fun and fantastic as Dorothy’s ex. Nancy Walker and Bill Dana as Sophia’s siblings, Sid Melton as Sophia’s husband, Debra Engle as Blanche’s daughter Rebecca, Scott Jacoby as Dorothy’s son, and Monte Markham as Blanche’s gay brother were also great. And, of course, who didn’t love Harold Gould as Miles Webber? (Side note: Harold Gould played a member of a mob family on Hawaii 5-0, which made his revelation that he was a mob informant on The Golden Girls that much better for me.)

Other notable guest stars included Leslie Nielsen, Robert Culp,  Anne Francis, Debbie Reynolds, Steve Landesberg, Phil Leeds, George Clooney, Rita Moreno, and of course the cast of their spin-off, Empty Nest.

The plots were sometimes questionable (like Miles being in the witness protection program), but hey, it’s a sitcom. They’re supposed to be wacky. They did a decent enough job with continuity, which is more than you can say for most shows.

Besides, most of the time the show was too funny to notice any mistakes. The dialogue was always snappy and well done with some really memorable deliveries. It’s what makes watching the episodes over and over again so worth it.

Yes, I can quote large chunks of dialogue. Why do you ask?

Where I Watch It