Old favorite TV show is holding up in rewatch

Cafe Society
1

If people haven’t guessed from references in “TV Binge-watch,” I have been rewatching one of my favorite shows from high school, and it is holding up really well.

Cagney & Lacey

Lacey’s work to maintain an egalitarian marriage, and Cagney’s attempts to balance being “One of the guys” without getting to the point of spouting any of their sexist rhetoric herself are surprisingly relevant.

The main characters themselves are not dated, and the plots are not significantly so in that few of them hinge on things that don’t exist anymore. There are references to things like people losing insurance if they change jobs, and the Sergeant’s Exam is pencil and paper, but those are not major plot points.

There are times when people fail to connect, in a series of miss-fires that would never happen now with cell phones, sometimes news is hard to get, and there is just one computer for the whole squadroom, which apparently Cagney “hogs,” but if those things got in the way of shows being enjoyable, no one would ever make a period piece.

The production values were very high for this show when it was new, which helps it to look good among newer shows-- and this show is 40 years old.

I know there are people to whom visuals are so important that a show that is 4:3, and doesn’t have the 4-color palette of the newest shows, they won’t watch, no matter what, and reject out of hand classics like The Twilight Zone just for being black & white, but that doesn’t seem to be most people.

This show is available on Roku, and it’s also on Pluto, although the Pluto ones don’t look as good on my TVs.

Another old favorite of mine that holds up plot- & character-wise is Xena: Warrior Princess. The special FX have aged, naturally, but IMHO, not badly enough that the show isn’t still enjoyable, and some of them actually look pretty good. Once in a while something like a CGI centaur rearing up looks phony, but the work with Lucy Lawless in multiple roles on screen together still looks very good, the green screen shots look good.

What is significant about these two was that they were “never-miss” shows for me when I was young, but then didn’t see them again for a long time-- C&L I don’t think I had seen since the initial run until it popped up on Roku, and I binge-watched it over my last 3-day weekend.

Xena I saw scattered episodes of after the initial run, but didn’t sit down and watch the whole thing until the pandemic, when I bought it.

A show I used to like that has not held up, more for its treatment of women than its science, albeit, the science isn’t great, is Quincy, ME.

A show I used to love, that is even older than C&L, and was considered ahead of its time in its initial run, was Lou Grant. I know it tackled a lot of current topics, but I remember that it used the “slice of life” approach to storytelling, which made some people feel that the episodes “didn’t have endings.” But the writers stayed with this style, which is used a lot now, and even more often about 20 years ago.

I would love to binge-watch Lou Grant and see how it looks now, but the whole thing doesn’t seem to be available anywhere.

I was very disappointed to see how not-so-well my favorite tween-young teen show held up, but it really had more to do with the show being SO topical, and SO interfered with by censors, and not due to poor acting, or the fashions or the times, so I can be forgiving, and even manage to watch it through 12-yr-old eyes, and enjoy it again.

One Day at a Time

Badly aged, but again, mainly because it is so rooted in its time.

What beloved shows from your past have you seen recently, and how well did they hold up?

2

Did anyone ever work out what Lacey said to the flasher in the opening titles?

We seem to have quite a few “archive” channels, so plenty of old programmes I’m enjoying again - currently the 1985 version of Mapp and Lucia with Prunella Scales and Geraldine McEwan (feline oneupwomanship in a picturesque small town), and Lovejoy (Ian MacShane as a loveable rogue antique dealer, and Phyllis Logan as his aristocratic not quite love interest).

3

The pilot of “Cagney & Lacey” starred Loretta Swit as Cagney. Due to her contract limitations on “MASH” she was unable to continue the role when “Cagney & Lacey” was picked up as a series. Ms. Swit was replaced by Meg Foster. She was apparently viewed as being too aggressive and because of that and other reasons, was replaced by Sharon Gless. Even Lacey’s husband was played by a different actor in the pilot. Lastly, the fantastic theme song (one of my all time favorites!) was different in the pilot.

IMHO, all the changes made from the pilot were good ones and what made the series so great.

Here’s the 2 hour plus pilot.

4

Ha, couple things this comment made me think of…

Re: the treatment of women in older shows, I saw an amazingly dated scene when I was flipping channels just the other day and landed on an episode of The Brady Bunch (A show I dearly loved when I was maybe 7) on MeTV (a retro on-air station). Carol and her daughters were trying to build a girls’ clubhouse in the backyard, and having no luck at all. It was a messy pile of lumber. Mike and his sons stepped in and Mike said “we men will take over. Why don’t you girls go inside and make us some lemonade?” Then he said to Carol “honey, you’re a great wife and an excellent mother, but a carpenter you ain’t”. And she said something like “Thanks Mike! I’ll go in the kitchen and make myself useful”.

Next scene showed a perfectly built clubhouse. Apparently the ‘carpentry’ gene is exclusive to the ‘Y’ chromosone. My two sons somehow missed getting it, though :smirk:

Re: Quincy, just a fun fact: you know how in cheesy 80s movies, anybody who looks like a stereotypical punk is by default a scary thug who will rob and probably kill you if you encounter them on the street? The name for that trope was inspired by, guess which show? That’s right, it’s
The Quincy Punk.

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Actually, Barney Rosensweig, who wrote the pilot and designed the series, and eventually married Sharon Gless, always had her in mind for the part, but she wasn’t available when the script got picked up, because she was under contract with Universal, the last studio to use the studio system. (IIRC, Gless was actually among the very last actors to be under contract as part of the studio system.)

Loretta Swit was hired for her name recognition, with the knowledge that if the series were picked up, she wouldn’t be able to appear in it, but it actually wasn’t picked up right away. When it finally was, Meg Foster had just appeared in The Scarlet Letter on PBS, produced by WGBH Boston. She looked a little like Gless, and had some name recognition of her own. The show was cancelled after the first season, though.

Gloria Steinem spearheaded a letter-writing campaign to bring the show back, which was successful (my mother and I wrote a letter). When the second season began preparation, Sharon Gless’s contract with Universal had expired, and the previous actors from season 1 had been released. They were all invited back, except for Foster, but it wasn’t because of any shortcomings, it was just because Gless was available, and she’d been the one the producer wanted in the first place.

I’ve heard the story that Foster was perceived by some viewers as being masculine-- I’ve also heard “dykey.” But she wasn’t fired for that. She wasn’t fired all. Just released from her contract when the show was cancelled, and then not asked back, because the actress they’d wanted in the first place was available.

6

It was made available on DVD some years ago. I grabbed all five seasons, and have them now. Look a bit; you should be able to find them.

IMHO, it holds up, even today. There are a few episodes that seem a little dated (is the IRA still running American guns to Ireland? Are the Hare Krishnas still recruiting new cultists?), but a lot of the issues presented can be just as relevant today. Adoption rackets with babies for sale, illegal immigration, a suicide caused by questioning one’s sexuality, a veteran’s PTSD, union troubles, advances in technology … they’re still around.

Worth looking for, and I think you’ll find, as I did, that it is worth the search.

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I watched a bunch of Law & Order episodes (from seasons 8 and 9) this past week; I haven’t watched it since it was on the air, apart from a few reruns on A&E back in the day. It’s still a pretty great show!

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I remember adopted all those, let’s say, fashion accessories, but not all of them at once, maybe. It’s like if you tried to dress as a soldier by putting on every possible piece of uniform for every possible mission-- like wearing a dress cap over a battle helmet.

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Thank you for clearing up my misunderstanding.

Here’s more about what happened which helped give me further insight into the situation:

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Yes, The Brady Bunch was sexist but in this case, Mike Brady was an architect, so presumably with him guiding the boys, you’d expect the clubhouse to come out OK. Presumably if he had guided or at least advised Carol similarly, they might have done better. Perhaps the sexism is in assuming that she’s incompetent simply because of her gender.

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For me, I started getting annoyed at Quincy (both the show and the Dr.) before it even left the air. We started calling him Quincy the Qrusader. He was always about ready to blow a gasket over everything, whatever his latest cause was that week. Shut UP, Quince! He was even wrong in some eps, but the show couldn’t tell.

Though it wasn’t without its moments: whenever i see a show like L&O with Dr Rogers doing an autopsy, I want to ask if she uses “the lazy S”.

Speaking of Sharon Gless, I wish Switch was available somewhere. I remember liking it at the time. Wonder if it holds up.

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I guess you have to see it. It was so ridiculously blatant it was funny. “We MEN will take it from here! You girls go in and make us some lemonade.”

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It was those damn creepy eyes, right? If they were any paler she’d look like Master Po from “Kung Fu”.

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Here’s a related thread from last month:

“Barney Miller”, mentioned there a few times, holds up for the most part. There are a few dated references, like the Pope being Polish.

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I agree on Barney Miller. I’ve watched a fair number of episodes over the last year (while visiting my parents), and even if a few references are dated, the humor, overall, is pretty timeless.

I rewatched most of WKRP in Cincinnati (one of my all-time favorites) a few years back, and it, too, generally holds up, IMO, even if you have to accept that some of the music which was in the original run of the series had to be replaced, due to rights issues.

That said, WKRP has a few scenes and episodes that do now feel dated and awkward; they tend to center on the female characters: Bailey and Jennifer.

  • Bailey is sometimes discriminated against by some of her male co-workers (especially Herb, Les, and Mr. Carlson), as they don’t think that a woman can only do “woman’s work” (especially once she moves into reporting); on the other hand, to be fair to the show, the guys who were discriminating against Bailey were portrayed as fools, and it was demonstrated that she was fully capable of her job.
  • Jennifer lives far beyond her means as a receptionist (though she is actually the highest-paid employee at the station), because she dates rich elderly men who give her lavish gifts in return for her companionship. While the character isn’t necessarily two-dimensional – she’s highly intelligent, usually unflappable, and was the focus of some excellent episodes – that aspect of her makes her come across as a golddigger.
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That’s interesting, because I distinctly remember the letter-writing campaign, and Gloria Steinem writing an article for TV Guide calling Cagney & Lacey "The most important show on TV.*

But I just looked at the list of episodes: season 3 is very short. It must have been canceled after season 2, and the letter-writing campaign followed that, bringing it back for a short season 3. It may have felt like season 2, since 1 & 2 were also short.

I was personally disappointed at the loss of Meg Foster, because I was a big fan of hers, but I never perceived “two street” as opposed to the two of them being from different classes. Only Cagney’s father had been introduced, and he was working class-- it was Cagney’s mother who was upper class and had money. I could hear their different accents, but I’d lived in Manhattan, and I knew that lots of people native to Manhattan didn’t have a Bronx-Brookyn type accent. There are plenty of white neighborhoods in Manhattan that are working class, and there are mixed neighborhoods-- I lived in Morningside Heights until I was 4.

At any rate, they were different enough for me, and didn’t need to represent different types.

That was hilarious about Susan Clark-- she’s the sophisticated man’s Marcia Wallace. Sharon Gless is good at wisecracks in a Lenny Briscoe way, but she’s not a comedian, and Susan Clark is.

Oh well-- I remember being in an early adolescent pique over the loss of Meg Foster, and swearing not to watch the show ever again. I did, of course, and fell in love with Sharon Gless. I could never decide which of them I liked more.

17

There’s nothing dated about gold diggers or sugar baby/sugar daddy relationships.

I see that going on around here every day.

Ordinary real women sure have lots more options to earn their own way in 2025 than in 1975. But there are plenty of women pulling a Jennifer today.

What might have changed, present political ructions aside, is the willingness of current Hollywood to portray that as something other than shameful tragedy, if they’ll admit it exists at all. Whereas back in the day it was treated matter-of-factly.

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I love Quincy, then and now, and thought the show did a great job of addressing social issues, even if they got some of them wrong (from our perspective 50 years later).

I’ve mentioned in earlier threads that “Crusader Quincy” wasn’t just poorly executed stories - it was the entire reason for the show. When Jack Klugman was approached for the role, he agreed to take it only if he could use the show to support causes he believed in.

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“Not now, Harvey, I’m working”

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I’ve mentioned Seinfeld multiple times but since this thread is specifically about old TV shows, I’ll mention it again here. Some opinions to the contrary notwithstanding, I think it holds up just fine.

I’ve re-watched Newhart several times (the one about the Vermont inn). I have lots of old British comedies on rotation. You Rang M’Lord? is a favourite, created and written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft. Hi-de-Hi! is from the same pair and many of the same cast; it was much more popular than the former but I prefer M’Lord. Only Fools and Horses is very good but I’m not tempted to binge-watch – it sometimes gets a little too serious and even maudlin. Fawlty Towers is a gem that I watch constantly. I occasionally (not often) re-watch The Twilight Zone (the original 30-minute series). Probably many others that I don’t recall right now.