blogging from a to z

Dragnet: The LSD Story

~ theveryspecialblog ~ 5 Comments

Oh, where do I even start with this? How about the facts?

  1. Joe Friday and Bill Gannon are out to stop a “a powerful new drug” that causes “weird and dangerous hallucinations” from ruining the youth of Los Angeles.
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  2. They get a report of about a teenager “painted up like an Indian” [sic] and “chewing the bark off a tree.” !! CHEWING THE BARK OFF A TREE. Now you might be getting the mental image of someone eating bark. That’s not what’s happening. This dude is chewing on a tree. Like taking a big bite out of an Oak.

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    Mmmm smells like enlightenment
  3. Friday and Gannon find the bark chewer, also known as “Blue Boy,” with his head buried in some dirt. In his pocket, they find some sugar cubes. Bill Gannon holds them in his sweaty hand for so long (in multiple scenes) that I’m kind of surprised he’s not tripping too.
  4. Today I learned that LSD can be found not only in liquid form, but also in powder form. Dragnet: an educational tool.
  5. “In every case so far, everyone of the individuals has had a psychological dependence on it,” according to the Dragnet medical examiner on the addictive nature of LSD.
  6. They call Blue Boy’s parents in to the station and they don’t really care: “You act like he was taking heroin or smoking marijuana,” his dad says before threatening legal action and throwing his money around.
  7. But this is 1967 and so Friday and Gannon hold Blue Boy on “section 601 of the welfare and institution code: in danger of leading an idle, dissolute, or immoral life.”
  8. Louisa from The Sound of Music buys LSD from Blue Boy and she seems totally fine to talk to the police except that she pukes and can’t read (the words are “swimmy”). But actually, if the guy from my intro to Social Work class who spent a large amount of a Saturday evening puking in the dorm kitchen back in 2009 is any anecdotal evidence, then this nausea thing is the real deal.
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    Before LSD

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    After LSD
  9. “Three bucks a cap. When it drops to 50 cents, the kids at grammar school will have a big time at recess, won’t they?” Hm, somehow I don’t see that ever being a thing of concern but all of the Dragnet cops nodded gravely when Bill Gannon made this announcement.
  10. While trying to track down Blue Boy, Friday and Gannon end up at an Acid Party in a run down house in the Hollywood Hills. There’s one lady climbing the walls and one dude eating paint. And one woman who actually just seems pissed off and not high at all, but apparently she’s also on acid. I watched this episode with my mom and found it gravely concerning that this man was most likely eating lead-based paint. She said something like, “people didn’t worry about things like that but people on acid sure did eat some weird stuff.” But I watched a lot of Bob Vila with my dad growing up, and I know that pre-1980 paint is a big no-no.
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  11. Blue Boy dies at the end of this episode. So I think we’re supposed to associate LSD with death, which like okay fine. But he actually died of a barbiturate overdose. I’m pretty confident that they shared props with Valley of the Dolls on this one because I know I’ve seen those red no. 5 capsules before.
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    Very Special Lesson    : Guys, seriously. Don’t eat paint, especially not paint that was manufacture before 1980.

Cagney and Lacey: Rules of the Game

~ theveryspecialblog ~ 3 Comments
    Before we get started, here are two useful pieces of information from the 30 second preview at the beginning of this episodes.

  1. Christine Cagney is in line to become 1st woman Chief of Detectives (or Chief of D’s as they say in every episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent)
  2. The guy who is her superior (or Captain, if you will) is also a major creep. He’s now trying to make her feel like she “owes him one.” But like if “one” was sex. He’s very creepy.

cagney-and-lacey1_2693110kAlso, can I just say that the theme song to Cagney and Lacey is just so enjoyable. It makes me want to skip down the streets of midtown Manhattan and say to the passersby, “I’m a New York City detective and I chase perpetrators down while wearing this wool tartan skirt and my thigh high dress boots!” But like if you can actually chase down a perp while wearing thigh high dress boots and a wool tartan skirt, then I’d argue that you’ve totally nailed the undercover thing.

bio_tmb_1Uh, no one told me that Sensei from The Karate Kid is a regular cast member in this. I’m now way more excited for this than I ever thought I could be. I’ve got to be honest, I thought I was going to phone it  in for letter “C” but here I am dedicated 100 words to the opening credits alone. This is the benefit of a blog challenge! I would NEVER have watched this otherwise! And now I have a new favorite skipping-down-the-street song!

Okay, so back to the Creepy Captain (or CC for short). He calls Cagney a “prima donna” and temperamental. But he also says she’s talented (and attractive) and that people called him temperamental when he was making his way up the ladder too. He asks her to dinner and says he “won’t take no for an answer.” My, how charming. (That’s sarcasm for any dudes out there who are erroneously taking dating advice from this blog.)

CC insults one of Lacey’s ideas on a case by telling her it’s just “woman’s intuition” and not actual detective work. He then calls Cagney into his office and is all like if you’re seeing someone else then I’ll just give you more work so you can never leave the precinct. Ughhhhh.

Let’s take a moment for some comedic relief: Lacey’s accent. What is going on here? She’s talking like she’s auditioning for a bit part in The Public Enemy. Am I supposed to believe this is Brooklynese? For reference:

Okay, CC tricks Cagney into going to a fancy restaurant under the guise of meeting a suspect. Cagney leaves as soon as she realizes that it’s just a roos. But she doesn’t have enough money to take a cab home, so she ends up at Lacey’s apartment to borrow the additional fare. Lacey’s kind of sympathetic but then she tells Cagney that she’s probably not being clear enough with the CC. You know, the good old blame the victim.

The next day at work the CC is pissed, so he starts giving Cagney a hard time. (I went through HR training at work a couple of months ago and this situation has red flags all over the place.) So she goes to her lieutenant, who tells her that with all of her professional experience she should “know already how to handle a guy who’s uh trying to work his way into the good graces of a good looking woman like yourself.” Barf.

mv5bmtg3oda5mzi4mv5bml5banbnxkftztgwndm2mtk0mje-_v1_uy268_cr870182268_al_But Cagney points out that this isn’t just an idle flirtation. On the one hand, I’m super glad I wasn’t a lady cop in the 80’s. But on the other hand, this all seems fairly familiar even though this episode is 30 years old. The lieutenant is ultimately sympathetic. He’s also incredibly unhelpful. He’s just kind of like hm, what a bad situation.

Once again, Lacey tells her to ignore him. AGH LACEY WHY??? YOU’RE HER PARTNER! Where is the support? I feel like Lacey is just naive because she’s not in this situation and so she thinks it’s easy to get out of and that’s so infuriating. Finally, Lacey gets on board. She tells Cagney to keep a diary of all of the times he came on to her. Lacey says that she and her husband can testify about the time Cagney ended up at their house looking for cab fair when she was trying to get away from CC.

Cagney is worried about getting a bad reputation for “busting one of [her] own.” Being a cop on this show sounds a lot tougher than the theme song implied.

The CC tries to work out a deal with Cagney. He’ll recommend her for the job she wants as long as she drops the complaint. But she sticks to her guns because she’s not going to be manipulated by a creepy dude.

Uh, and then roll credits.

What? You’re just gonna do me like that Cagney and Lacey??

I’m not going to let this be a repeat of the Baywatch incident. I’ve scoured the internet and we actually have to wait FIVE WHOLE EPISODES to find out how this works out! According to cagneyandlacey.com, in “Con Games,” Cagney manages to track down another woman that CC sexually harassed. She agrees to testify and this seals the CC’s fate.

Very Special Lesson: I mean, my real life advice here is to always have a good basic knowledge of employment law and a great attorney.
But like this episode made me sad and I’m sorry that Cagney had to deal with all that.
So maybe the very special lesson here is that I should pre-screen episodes before committing myself to a blogging challenge.

However, I’d like to say that the start of the A to Z Challenge has been very serious. And for that I blame the alphabet. But tomorrow, I promise you an episode of Dragnet and plenty of giggles.

Baywatch: Bash at the Beach

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It’d be easy enough for a show all about babes in bikinis to shirk social responsibility and never go deeper than eye candy. But that would be expecting too little from the people of Baywatch. I believe the writers must have felt a moral responsibility in writing this. You can only encourage so much excessive sun exposure before you start to feel a little guilty. And never ones to shy away form tough subjects, they brought us this cautionary tale of skin cancer.

And also Hulk Hogan and Randy “Macho Man” Savage. The lifeguards have to revive Hulk Hogan after he gets hit in the head by a jet ski. And Macho Man is there because he and Hulk are bffs, duh. 26055

There are a lot of characters in this show and I honestly can’t remember all of their names. There’s a brunette who also is a lieutenant (in the Baywatch, I guess). Since I don’t know her name, I’m going to call her Lt. It’s this lady:
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The Lt. has a hot date on a private beach with a doctor. But the doctor notices a sketchy looking mole on her leg. He tells her that there’s no such thing as a safe tan and orders her to come to his office first thing in the morning.

Lt. feels like she cannot ever go outside again, but the Hoff tells her she just needs to wear sunblock everyday and reapply frequently. (Actually, that’s solid advice and there was a time when I did think you could tan safely. So perhaps this Very Special Episode is on point. But now I actually never go outside for more than 15 minutes cumulatively every day and I probably have a Vitamin D deficiency…oops I’m not talking about the episode anymore…)

The Hoff goes straight to the doctor for some answers about the Lt.’s biopsy. So like. That’s kind of a strange thing to do, but okay. And the doctor keeps saying he absolutely cannot break doctor-patient privilege. But isn’t it also not cool to skin biopsy your girlfriend?
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OMG points to the Hoff! He asks the doctor that very question. Usually, I’m the only one asking these questions. I feel like I’ve underestimated Baywatch, you guys. Actually, this is highly informative. Like I’m learning the math behind SPFs. Yasmin Bleeth is only using SPF 8 so the Lt. tells her that if her skin burns in 10 minutes (sans sunscreen) then she’ll only have 80 minutes of protection with SPF 8. Yasmin works 8 to 10 hours at a time (and she’s getting in and out of the ocean during that time!) so she’s have to reapply at least 8 times a day. AND GUESS WHAT? She doesn’t reapply.

Yasmin probably doesn’t absorb all of this info though because she sees the bandage on Lt.’s leg and realizes what’s going on. Also, Lt. says that the most common spot for skin cancer is the back of the leg. Very Special Readers, is this true??? I’m going to need to pause for a moment while I obsessively look at the back of my legs. Okay, nothing but razor burn. We’re good!

Meanwhile, Hulk Hogan saves a drowning child. And Lt. yells at a bunch of burned teenagers slathering their skin with baby oil. And it turns out that this is just the first part of a sunscreen awareness spree. She grabs a bottle of tanning oil from a woman’s hand and tells a mother to put sunscreen on her baby. Then just starts approaching random people like a crazed lunatic obsessively repeating, “Excuse me. Are you wearing sunblock? Excuse me. Are you wearing sunblock? Excuse me. Are–” it’s like the most tragic moment of Baywatch probably ever.
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OMG. She actually has cancer. I seriously thought this was going to be a false alarm. Baywatch is serious business, team. I hope this is almost over because I need to get off of this emotional rollercoaster.

Meanwhile, Hulk Holgan volunteers at the “Bash at the Beach,” a wrestling fundraiser to save a local community center. Actually, the fundraiser goes on for so long that there’s two minutes left in the episode when we finally get back to the skin cancer thing.

OMG THE CANCER HAS SPREAD. I am so, so sorry because this is now the end of the episode. I accidentally picked out a multi-episode story arc…but I really, really cannot watch anymore Baywatch. So I’ll just leave you with today’s very special lesson: Reapply your sunblock. Seriously. Also, the Lt. started wearing a really cool windbreaker. Try to wear a windbreaker too if possible.

 

 

 

A, My Name Is Alex (Family Ties)

~ theveryspecialblog ~ 2 Comments

This episode opens with Jennifer explaining to the youngest Keaton son that Alex’s friend, Greg has died and that everyone else is at the funeral. So right from the beginning, it’s a downer. It’s not quite what I’d expect from Family Ties, but here we go.

Soon the rest of the Keaton’s arrive home and Alex is busy cracking jokes. He says how great the funeral was, which is important because “the dead have an image problem.” But we quickly learn that these jokes are all a thinly veiled coping mechanism for Alex’s guilt.  Alex would have been in the car accident with his friend, except that he was too selfish to help move a piano. Incidentally, this selfishness turned out to be a lifesaver.

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Oh Greg, we hardly/never knew ye

Apparently, Alex and Greg were so close that Alex delivered Greg’s eulogy. (That’s so interesting because I don’t remember ever hearing about Greg before.) Soon Alex begins hallucinating that Greg is back in ghost form. (Not only is he grieving, but he also stayed up all night writing that eulogy and hasn’t slept.)

Now, I would assume you might call a priest in a time like this, but Alex invites a monk into his home. I wouldn’t know where to find a monk if I tried. Are there monasteries just hanging out in suburban America and you can call them up and request that a monk come and sit with you? That appears to be the case here.

But Alex decides he doesn’t really want to be a monk (he’s not ready to give up the ladies) and soon he’s back to hallucinating conversations with Greg. He even makes him a sandwich. But when Mallory finds him talking to himself in the kitchen, he has a total meltdown. Michael J. Fox is such a good actor. He’s truly phenomenal and deserved so much better than the crappy writing on The Michael J. Fox Show. He makes this episode incredibly powerful when it could have easily been overwrought and clunky.

But that’s when things turn into experimental theater. And it’s like kind of weird for a family sitcom, even with Michael J. Fox’s exceptional skill. Actually, it’s like super weird. He’s just sitting in an arm chair in front of a free-hanging window talking straight to the camera (on off screen psychologist).
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And then things kind of turn into a really depressing “Carousel of Progress.” Little vignettes with Alex’s friends and family pop up behind him and he jumps into the scenes. This is not to say that the writing is bad– the two-part episode won an Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series–but rather that the change in the storytelling method is just as jarring (if not more so) than the subject matter itself.

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Although bizarre at first, I think that the change in narrative style works in this episode’s favor and keeps it from falling into trite “very special episode” pitfalls. It’s obvious that the Family Ties writers knew they could get away with this with Michael J. Fox carrying the show, so instead of an after-school special we get an emotional tour de force on grief and self-actualization.

“A, My Name is Alex” is best described as Family Ties re-imagining itself as a different kind of show for 1 random hour, which is kinda cool in it’s own right. Ultimately, Alex has to decide what he believes and what feels right to him about his place in the world now that he is alive and his friend isn’t. I feel like I cannot reiterate enough how terrible this episode could have been if carried out by a less capable cast. But luckily we have (national treasure) Michael J. Fox. And for Fox’s exceptional skill reason alone, this episode is totally worth the watch.

Very Special Lesson: Grief can cause us to lose our way or it can be an opportunity to find ourselves more deeply than we had before.