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Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > Police > Crime > Telefilms > TV Movies > Cagney & Lacey – The Menopause Years (1994 – 1996/TV Movies/S’More Entertainment DVD)

Cagney & Lacey – The Menopause Years (1994 – 1996/TV Movies/S’More Entertainment DVD)

 

Picture: C     Sound: C     Extras: C+     Telefilms: B-

 

 

I was never the biggest fan of Cagney and Lacey, but the show is a classic of the genre and it is one of the very few shows I have more respect for than when it first arrived.  A while ago, MGM issued their Season One box set which featured the best-known actors in the title roles: Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly.  You can read more about it and the show at this link:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/5800/Cagney+&+Lacey+%E2%80%93+Seas

 

 

Though it lasted for seven seasons (1982 – 1988), no further seasons were issued or even licensed to another company for release.  From 1994 – 1996, the series had a revival in the form of four telefilms and in the end, CBS did not handle them well at all in the end as they turned to exploitation, fuddy duddy TV and even nationalist propaganda (a coma they are just starting to come out of) losing a revival that fared better than most.

 

This 4-DVD set has all four telefilms (all starting with “Cagney and Lacey –”) including:

 

The Return (1994) – Retired Lacey (Daly) has spoken little with Cagney (Gless) since she left the force, but they get back together as Cagney has been promoted and married, while Lacey handles home life the best she can.  Then her husband has a stroke and turns to Lacey for help.  Eventually, they are working on a murder case like old times, but some things have changed.  Also reprising their riles from the series are Martin Kove, Carl Lumbly and Paul Mantee, while guest stars include David Paymer, Susan Anspach, Vonetta McGee, Selma Archerd and Don Pedro Colley.

 

Together Again (1995) – Picking up with a “last time on Cagney & Lacey” tag, Cagney is chasing a bum who stole her dinner when they both come across a dead body.  This leads to a wall of immigration trouble and the ladies have more personal family troubles to boot.  Rose Marie also stars, while both David Paymer and James Naughton (who had been in the live action TV version of Planet Of The Apes) returns from the last telefilm.

 

The View Through The Glass Ceiling (1995) – The best of the four films offers a smart mediation on women on the force as Lacey spies on another precinct run by a smart Captain (the late, great Lynne Thigpen) as a strange murder becomes all the more strange when a dead body surfaces with odd differences.  Cagney is juggling personal issues, the return of alcoholism and hopes of getting special recognition so she can be further promoted.  Then there is the officer (Sandra Oh) who may have the key to solving the murder if Lacey can get her to talk.

 

True Convictions (1996) – The final pairing of the duo has Lacey finding her sick, estranged father under very ugly circumstance and Cagney finding what she hopes is a good man (Michael Moriarty), but a new case is twisting up her life and everyone else’s.  The final case turns out to be a good one for the duo to go out on, even if they had hoped for more.

 

 

Also helping are the work of four good directors (James Frawley, Reza Badiyi, John Patterson, Lynne Littman respectively) and they help deliver what amounts to one of the better short-run telefilm series.  All goes well despite the six year gap and the telefilms are worth rediscovering.  That they beat the rest of the season to DVD is odd, but if this does well enough, we may see those shows yet.

 

Though the films were shot in 35mm film, the 1.33 X 1 image throughout is soft and detail-challenged because this is yet another one of those many productions since the 1980s that were finished on analog videotape.  That includes the credits, obviously video-generated and all of it adds aliasing errors throughout all four transfers.  Hopefully, this will be corrected for Blu-ray.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is weak and definitely sounds second-generation throughout.

 

Extras include text essays on the back of the four separate DVD cases and box itself by producer Barney Rosenzweig, who also does an on-camera interview on DVD 1.  Gless, Daly and co-creator (with writing partner Barbara Avedon) Barbara Corday also show up in on camera interviews on DVDs 2, 3 & 4 respectively.  Each lasts about 20 minutes average and are worth seeing after you watch the films.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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