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