Cagney & Lacey and the 90s TV Babies

Welcome to Eighties TV Ladies, where we explored the fabulous female driven television shows of the nineteen eighties at your hosts, Susan Lambert HadAM and Sharon Johnson the City. Hello everyone, I'm Susan and I'm Sharon. And that was Melissa Roth, our producer who introduced us. We've been up in the business of exploring Cagney and Lacy. It starred two women detectives who were really cool ladies of the eighties and liked to solve crimes.

This groundbreaking police procedural drama aired on CBS from nineteen eighty two to nineteen eighty eight. It spawned several TV movies was nominated for thirty seven Emmys, one fourteen of them. In previous episodes, we have had the great play of talking with the creator of the show, Barney Rosensway, the show's stars, Miss Cagney herself, Sharon Gless, and of course Tyne Daily who played her partner Marybeth Lacey. We also interviewed director Karen Arthur. It has been a treasure trove of coolness and awesomeness and Cagney and laceness.

If you're just joining us for the first time. Welcome. You can absolutely start here with this amazing episode, or if you want to start the Cagney and Lacey series from the beginning, roll it on back to the episode entitled Barney ROSENSWYG Part One. Cagney and Lacy had two female leads, were well drawn individuals, distinguishing themselves in a male dominated field. They are the heroes of these stories and solving the crimes throughout the whole five seasons and four TV movies, as we have with Scarecrow and Missus King and Remington Steele.

It's now time to get the perspective of our nineties TV babies to hear what they have to say about this show. Please welcome back to eighties TV ladies, those smart and sassy, clever and classy nineties TV babies. Serta Fontanesi, Sergio Perez and Megan Ruble, welcome back. Thank you. It's been so long because we had a lot of episodes in between, so many it's really exciting, booked and busy.

As they say, yeah, all right, I want to hear from each of you, how how your guys are doing just some something lovely, that's that's happened to you? Recently, Sergio, do you want to start? Sure? Why not? This morning I made a kish Yeah?

What kind? Um? It was a mushroom pepper onion with a little bit of chicken sausage in there. It's my first ever keiche that I've ever made, and it was delicious. Oh my god, does there any left?

Are you gonna bring so much? Yeah? Oh my gosh, I could totally bring Okay, I want to taste. Yeah, okay, I'll do that. Well, congratulations, I don't think, I don't have to think.

I have never made a keyche so congratulations, I've never made a keyche Megan, have you made a quiche? I have made a keysh But I'm sure that Sergio's is excellent because he's an excellent chef. Stop that you stop that? Um my exciting. I'm booked through the end of the year for acting roles.

Yeah, awesome, fantastic. I was in a feature last week. No, two weeks ago. I've lost track of time. Um, and I have the like shakes on the rocks things that I do quarterly, and I'm doing forty eight hour film Festival again, and then I'm doing like a Polar Express experience through the end of the year.

Okay, do you want to booked? That is really fantastic. Congratulations. You're the busiest woman I know when you've gotten busier. Well, well, we'll see if I make it through this without another mental breakdown.

But why just schedule it for January exactly? You can schedule, Yeah, can schedule mental breakdowns. That works. Congratulations, that is fantastic. Tells about the feature.

Oh, it actually it's nothing crazy exciting. It was like a rom com. But I did an audition for it. It was a direct booking. The director liked me for something else, um and it didn't work out, and he's like, I just wanted to meet you, so I moved you over to this.

I was like, okay, hi, hello, if here, I am fantastic. That's that's pretty great. Congratulations it does the feature have a title? Yeah, but I can't even remember it. Okay, it's like it's it's a m com so much she can't be bothered.

It's it's like a rom com. So it's some dumb thing like Lucky Miss You Tomorrow. You know Lucky. It's Lucky something Lucky, Lucky stiff as a musical. So I don't know why I'm keen thinking of that, Um, lucky to meet you, Like, yeah, sure, yeah, something like that, lucky boy.

We should just come up with rom com names there you go, Yes, yeah, lucky in love, unlucky in love, something along those lines, Yes, lucky love. And after I watch any of these, Okay, all right, Serena Europe, I've discovered a new flavor of Lacroix that I very much enjoy. Hybiscus, mind it at your local grocery store. And two gus, my puppy has officially learned how to ring the bell to go out. Wow, we're very excited.

That's fantastic. I didn't know that was a thing he could make dogs do. Absolutely you can, which is very helpful for a large but oddly quiet dog. How did you teach him how to do that? So every time we opened the door for him to go outside, we would jingle the bell and then we'd open the door so that he would associate the bell with the door opening.

Then we hung the bell like at nose level, and we would jingle it at nose level in front of him, although he's blind so I don't watch that, really did gefy? And then we'd open the door so again associating the bell with the door, and then eventually he would just be curious and sort of hidden and it would noise immediately opened the door, so that he learned again ring that bell, that door is opening. So now we have to work on only using it to go out, because he likes to use it for in and outs, and as I've told him, I'm not air conditioning the outside. So you pick one. And we used to have a fly screen, but he destroyed it because he is still a puppy.

You guys, don't give him too much credit. I'm I'm impressed out. We're working on learning discernment. Well, sure what all dogs need to learn. Absolutely, I got this kind of lame like just it's like this furry cactus thing because I was standing in line and I'm a sucker at the pet store and I got it.

And it is now Luna's favorite thing that I've ever gotten her. She keeps taking it into her crate and then taking it out in the morning, and that she's never really gone more than like two days excited about something, and that's usually because Bowie has basically destroyed it within two days. But I got to bring my cactus it's you know, it's a furry soft cactus, not an actual cactus. It's a stuffed animal. But other things Gus does.

He sleeps with a ball in his mouth quite often. We also got his DNA results. He is twenty nine percent pit, twenty one percent husky, ten percent chow, and like seven percent Great Pyrenees and then a bunch of other stuff. So a giant I have a horse, right. We got Bowie, who is our big dude.

He looks like like almost like a polar bear mixed with a sea lion in terms of like he's all of Luna's. Yeah, Like Luna's the smallest of the bunch, their brother and sister from the same litter, and she was the runt, and he was like way bigger than everybody else. And he's got chihuahua. What this giant dog is part chihuahua? There was a lot, right, but to be in like the top on the top five the name Yaya Wild.

Yeah all right, Well anyway, well for our dog podcast, we'll save all that stuff. Meanwhile, we're here, we're going to talk about Cagney Lacy to take because you guys have thrown us on two shows in some ways, and you guys haven't agreed, and somewhat you have agreed, but it's been always a surprise. I'm very curious. Tell us, tell us what you had to watch. I'm gonna go for it, and somebody tell me if I'm wrong.

We were supposed to watch the TV film, which was the pilot, I guess originally season one, episode one, and then season two episode one, so three different three different actresses, three news one for each episode. And Heat. I was gonna say, did anybody do the bonus assignment of Heat? I didn't get to. Now I watched Heat Pluto TV Pluto, are you listening?

That's yeah, that's where I found episode season two, episodes two. I did not get a chance to watch Heat, but I get what I will say, and yes, maybe this will be my tank on it was. I am looking forward to watching Heat because I enjoyed Cagney Lacy, which this might be the first one that I've actually said, No, I liked it, all right, Well let's keep going. All right? So, so Serta, why don't you keep going with that?

And I'm curious about your takes on the Cagneys and the movie, the TV movie versus the show. Yeah, I mean I think overall, definitely pro two lady ladies, Right, that's great, that's fun. We're already off to a good start. No men next. I am a sucker for a like cop procedural.

Like I know that it's copaganda, I know that Olivia Vinson isn't real, but like I just really maybe it soothed me because it's predictable, but like you know, there's there's a crime to solve with some underlying drama, and everything sort of gets wrapped up at the end of the episode, and we've bought the classic dynamic of like shooting from the hip wild child and buttoned up like but there are rules, and it just I'm a sucker. I really am. Serta's inn. They got me all right, Who's next? I'm very similar to Certa actually, and that I love a procedural and they don't really or at least I don't watch any that are coming out right now, and so it's really refreshing to watch them.

Also love a cop procedural, especially set in New York, I don't. I watched a lot of NYPD Blue as a kid, so I feel like that's just sort of ingrained in me somewhere. UM, so yeah, very similar. Love that love that it was two women. UM, I will say for my first hot take, if it even is a hot take, I'm a really big Mash fan.

So UM, I have course loved um. Oh my gosh, I now I'm blanking on the actress's name. Yes, yeah, I loved her as Cadney, And apart from my deep love of Mash, I thought that the um, the dynamic between the two of them was the most um separate and therefore the most exciting. I like understood who each of them were a little pitted against each other and coming together within that dynamic UM. I also liked and kind of appreciated the honesty of the storyline that was going on with Lacey's husband in the in the original pilot, the like honesty of like things weren't.

He was trying to be supportive, but he had his own issues, and she was trying to be supportive of him, but she was also trying to like have a career um and like him. The storyline that was set up of him possibly slowly becoming more and more of an ally. I kind of liked that UM and when it transitioned to the TV show, I didn't see that quite as much. It seemed like he was just more on team Lacey, which love it, but I wanted to see that journey. So I really liked the TV movie the best from being even even with the theme song dropping in him every like thirty seconds, I think I still liked it best.

All right, Ain't that the way? Ain't that the way? I think? Um, you've got a pretty unanimous collection of folks here. I liked gagneon.

See. I will say I think my favorite of the Cagneys is actually Meg Foster. Interesting, Yeah, it is a hot take. Let's go actually Meg Foster. And I think it because even after like I did some like reading outside of like the stuff, and it was a lot of stuff about like, oh, network executives saw we're like watching each one and saying, oh, we don't want the audience to code or form Cagney to code is lesbian and tough, because that's going to be an issue and the audience is probably gonna have a tough time relating to her.

So we're going to recast her to be more of like a snobby, like you're feminine, like little like whatever. That's not that tough like lesbian woman, and so I don't know. There's something about just that dynamic between Meg Foster's, Cagney and um Lacy that I really enjoyed watching. So that's what I have. I love that.

How did you guys feel about Meg Foster? I was gonna say similar, Like I was like, Cagney is is a lesbian, Like I was saying, let's own lean into it, like I know that that was not the goal. I guess whatever, but she is clearly coded lesbian. So for me, the other Cagnis were quite hitting it because I was like, this is not this is not my mask lesbian queen. Yeah, I will say I enjoyed all three of them in their own separate ways, Like any love I have for Lauretta Switt is because if I just love her, But yeah I did.

I liked all three of them in different ways. I would have enjoyed the show with any of them. What an interesting exercise. I mean, as as an actress, I'm curious like watching each of them, which they made some similar choices and they also made some different choices. It was just really intriguing to me, the different Cagnies.

Yeah, and how also how to tie Daily's credit, how she kind of countered and adjusted while keeping the same character and being this person, how she like met each of them too. Like that's a very big compliment to her abilities to be able to just sort of become a new puzzle piece to meet the new puzzle piece that entered the TV show. I thought about that before, but that makes so much sense. Yeah, what Tye Daily had to do. And she talks about so she you know, she was really sad to lose Mick Foster.

She actually in the interview that we did with her, she talks about basically trying to go to whoever was in charge, like that decision was a higher than Barney, the creator of the show. And so she went and had lunch. She's like, what if I, you know, demanded that a stay Mic Foster, And they were like, why don't you just fire yourself, Like because she wasn't Tying Daily at that point, so they probably wouldn't have they were at any They were basically saying, yeah, they were basically saying you you better just keep your mouth shut and be happy you have a job, to a degree because it was happening. I guess this is so interesting, you know, I guess because Sharon Glass is so in grain to me and in that role.

I never really either knew or remember that there were any other Cagneyes. The other two just felt like sort of off isn't quite the right word, but just weren't quite Cagney, the Cagney I had in my head when I watched them. But so that's really interesting. That's really interesting. So I vaguely thought there were two Cagneyes, but not really.

I had no idea until we started down this path that there were three and a big lorettas wit fan and I love the TV movie in some way because it's pretty New York. It's more New York, and it almost feels like a late seventies TV movie. Yes, it really does. In fact, I had to keep reminding myself it was the eighties. Like even some of the like things that they're wearing.

I was like, ah, yeah, seventy no wrong decade, it's like eighty one, like eighty eighty one, so like, and I think for me, maybe this is like the costumer in me coming out where it's like to me like that made it feel even more eighties, because like they're cops, they're not gonna be like on trend and so like bees are thout fits that they always wear and maybe and like as you get further in this season, I'm part of it is just like you know, TV shows get more budget and can do more stuff. But like it made sense to me for everything to feel ever so slightly dated, because what government institution is like up to stand Dierk right, And that was something that I loved. I just laughed so hard at that.

Then Zoom asked me, too un mute. Here's one of the thoughts that I had when I was watching Mac Foster. We're gonna try to get Mac Foster on the phone on the phone. We're gonna get Let's get on the phone right now quick, Melissa eighties TV ladies phone. It would be interesting to talk to those actresses and see if they had any idea whatsoever that there might be a lesbian element to the character.

I would be very curious about that. And I want to talk about the word coded, because both you, Sergio and Serta use that word. Give me the definition of that word from your perspective. I'm about to give the most like gen z answer to what coded perhaps means. And it's really and I don't know how to explain this any better.

Just a vibe that you receive. It's just a vibe that you receive from the way that it's performed and the way that it's um like not so much as the way it's been written, but the way that the actor interprets what they've been given. And then like, yeah, I'm watching it, and I'm watching the way that these characters are interacting and just witnessing Meg Foster like navigating the first episode. There's just a vibe. And it's also like I think in like modern like TV and film, it has done a little more intentionally of like this character isn't explicitly it is most often seen like with queer characters, like this person isn't explicitly clear, but like, you know, they're talking about maybe going to like parties in certain neighborhoods and the types of friends that they have at like and it all becomes the like if you are paying attention or you know what, you're a kieri, right, the girls who get it will get it and the ones who don't won't.

And that's okay. I think a really recent like version of this that is sort of in the cultural zeitgeist is Velma we Do is officially a queer character in the like latest reboot, and she has been like a queer icon and like again coded as like it's I think of it as like, this person's identity might not be explicitly stated, but if someone told you Velma's gay, you'd be like, yeah, that makes sense. But it's not always written. It's usually in the acting, but sometimes now it is written. I was going to say, and please correct me if I'm wrong.

My understanding was always that it's um coded. Is sort of if someone is queer character is queer coded. It's that they were either written or performed as if they are queer without explicitly stating that they are. So so vibe back to Surgies, it's a vibe Abe. Well, I think I can say with a degree of certainty that that was never the intent at the time.

That was definitely not something that was in anybody's mind because it was almost forty years ago and they weren't thinking that way. So do you think maybe that's something that you're actually based on your experience in watching other content where something like this perhaps might be happening, that that that's something you're putting on the show that you're you're applying to the show as opposed to the show giving that to you. Does that make I'm not sure if that question makes any sense. It's like, what you what we know now? Based on what we know now, we can look back at this show and go, hey, Cagney might have been a lesbian.

And even though you know, they gave her all these other storylines in that original conceit of the show and the conceit of the characters, just as possible to write Caney as a lesbian, for sure, you could start at where they start with character, and if you like, and if you said, oh, in two seasons, you know, we're gonna have the coming out episode, you know, or the you know, oh it's revealed episode or never reveal it, but she would be us single and dating dating whoever. There's certainly in the early episodes Cagney could be by because she was so like so written as I am in charge of my own sexuality and I really am free to choose as much or little as I want of it. And the men in those early episodes that she's with are not relationships, their encounters in the way that a mail cop would have had a progression of sexual partners.

But the thing is, in this show, it's a woman. It's basically doing what we've seen and continue to see men doing, but nobody. So I'm sorry, it's no, it's because here's the question, because ultimately they did recast that role for reasons that everybody tells a slightly different story of Basically the network decided it because, hey, they just didn't like her. There's some that like, oh, they were both brunettes. It was really kind of hard to tell them apart.

I don't know, but can we just have a moment for the reality. But they look like completely different people. They are different people. That's exactly the kind of thing though you would expect somebody to say when they cannot completely articulate what it is that they just that they don't feel that this person is something that we're really used to experiencing within marginalized communities, right, Like you can't have two block leads because who gets to be the most diverse? Like you know, like just like dumb stuff that ultimately boils down to like these really heavy systemic things.

And so whether I think coming back to that question of like was she meant to be coded as queer or is it like our moderned understanding of like queer culture being put on her. Probably somewhere in the middle, But I very much could see like a character that's supposed to be like this tough, kind of more masculine woman in a traditionally male role to begin with, already challenging, played by an actor who was very firm about you know, her business, her life and her boundaries challenging, and then even someone is getting wind somewhere of like people might think she's gay, like in the time period, very easy to be like we gotta we gotta shut that down. Yeah, like we're gonna have a more thin am like, Oh, she's just a lady who's into her sexuality, which is cool and a vibe all inev of itself, but for that to be the thing to come after it, and it almost feels that they're like, look, she's with men, she's with men, she's with men.

That it's like me, thinks dof protest too much, you know, Honestly, I think it's more likely that it came down to somebody who is in a position to make a decision saying I'm not attracted to her, Therefore she has to go because I just don't think she's attractive. I do think that we are now realizing how many giant network decisions were made basically like that, So not impossible. Here's one of my theories. And I love Meg Foster. I think she's phenomenal and I think she's really she makes a very good Cagney for me.

I like them all actually a lot. I do think that Sharon Glesson it was probably because again that was the agne that I remember too, because Meg Foster has those incredible eyes. There's something really unique about her eyes. They're absolutely gorgeous, and yet they're also so unique that you almost can't stop looking at them. And she looks like she's looking at everyone in a particular way.

And that was something I was watching me, which I I was like, she looks like she would sleep with anyone she's speaking to right now, which I support. And also I will say that her eyes are a plot point through a season of Pretty Little Liars for all my PLL friends. She plays missus Griswold, the like tragically mysteriously like blind teacher who's got like secrets to help figure out who a is like, there's a huge thing about her eyes and how they look. I love that. Wow, that's amazing.

I didn't know that. Thank you. I'm on it now. I'm in. I gotta go catch that.

It's been on the queue. I justn't, you know, never got to it. Now I gotta go get to it. Fascinating anyway, So when I do think, I have no doubt that there was somebody there that again, like that what you were saying, the whiff of well, someone might think because two women working together, what else would they be doing? Right, Like the cover of you know, Miss magazine when this show came out was can two women work together?

Like it was really like a question, which is insane, right, Like it's insane, but it is also that TV thing of you know, oh, well we have to have one white cop and one black cop. You know, you couldn't possibly have two black cops. That's ridiculous. So I think whatever it was, they decided it was working, even though the show was kind of working, right the first couple episodes that were in a slot that was really bad, a TV slot, and then they moved them. They were after Magnum Pi, which was an eight o'clock like kids show basically because I was watching that because you know, Tom Sellick Ferrari, let's solve some crimes in Hawaii.

I forget the shorts. The shorts he swam every morning. That's all I wanted to do. And I was like, holy crap, I want to go swim in the ocean every morning of my life and walk back to work at my mansion that isn't even mine. I don't even have to take care of it.

I just lived there. We should all be magnum Pi. That sounds great. I'm in let's go sign me up. Anyway, the I don't even know what the point was.

You were talking about how it was on at eight o'clock. It so it was on the after Magnup. It was run on after magnum Pi. It was not the follow to that show. When it got canceled or they were like, yeah, no, we're going to cancel this, or we're gonna move it to another night because we're gonna dump it.

Then they had this other show they had just canceled called Simon and Simon, which had a terrible first few episodes or whatever it was, and they're like, oh, just dump the rest of those episodes behind Magnum Then it became a huge freaking hit because it was the perfect follow up to Magnum PI, because it was two guys running around solving crimes being cool. You guys probably don't remember Simon and Simon. We can't cover it, but you know, let me tell you it was adorable. Gerald McRaney, James and Parker. They were brothers.

They were brothers. They were just two crazy brothers. One was kind of straight laced, one wasn't exib an on vent wor cowboy hat. I mean, I think the thing we're kind of like circling around here is that, like you have a formula that works. You have two people that are inherently kind of different, that care about each other, that you have like a button the bottom line of a buddy comedy.

Right. They love each they sometimes disagree, they're forced to work together, and they have a new crime to solve every single week. That's a formula that just works. What I think we've struggled with societally sort of is that you can plug any two people into those roles and it still works. We're just have sexist and racist and all kinds of otherist issues and so we can't see that.

It's just the difference in personality that makes it work, that makes them clash and come together. And yeah, sure you can capitalize on like other societal or background things, but really what works is that you have two people that care about each other and are different and have a common goal that works. And so like you, like Sharon was saying, like, yeah, Cagney is filling a role that kind of is traditionally filled by a man, at least before this and kind of still now that is the like, yeah, I just I'm in charge of my sexuality and I have sexual encounters when I want to and I don't have them when I don't want to, And that works because it's the personality type, right, So I'm like plugging a woman into it is like yeah, okay, all right now this person goes that.

Alkay, So we're gonna take a little break and come back. We'll be rightly welcome back. I want to go to Sergio for a minute and talk about Sergio smiling, he knows he's up. Yeah, my box has been dinged ding ding. Talk more about the Sharon Glass, because you didn't talk a lot about whether the Sharon Glass Cagney because you liked the Meg Foster.

I liked the Meg Foster Kagney. I do think that Sharon Glass showing up season two, episode one very strong, like initial episode, and that's also just because of the plot, Like I I was expecting like procedure, like oh, every episode there's going to be somebody to shoot, or like there's gonna be a door to breakdown or something, but this one where it was really just like psychological between the two of them and like what their ideologies are and how different those two characters are. Like I thought that was really cool, And I mean I wasn't as focused on the performance so much as just the conflict between the two characters, because I watched the movie and then I watched episode one of the first season and there were just like a lot of things peppered throughout in those that like showed you exactly who they were where it was like, Oh, one of them is going to take the elevator, the other's going to take the stairs, but they're both going to get to the top floor at the same time.

Like that's It's it's something about that that just really tickles me because I really like that kind of thing. Like the formula works, like Megan was saying, like it you could plug any two people. You could plug in the person who takes the elevator, you can plug in the person who takes the stairs, and they're gonna get into conflict and they're gonna solve these crimes together, and it's going to be entertaining to watch. And it's really just bread and butter for the industry. I guess like they keep pumping them out.

Yeah, it's pretty it's pretty classic because it's it's it gives you conflict, but it also gives you a relationship to sort of hang on, and that relationship can break apart and come together. I think that the buddy part of this is so interesting because there are people that may not be friends if they weren't working together right, which is kind of interesting. So as Sergio, you also watched Heat. I did watch Heat. I'm curious because that comes that season.

So it's pretty deep and to the thing and it's a pretty unique episode. Won the Emmy for Directing for Karen Arthur, the director. She was the first woman. I'm not just going to shout out every episode first woman to win an Emmy for directing ever. Nineteen eighty five.

This episode the heat episode of Cagney Lazy. I'm curious your thoughts on that compared to the other show. And again, it's pretty unique. It's pretty bottle. Episode takes place kind of in one yiece.

I from the jump, I was like, okay, first shot straight dog in the ran them a lot pan up. You see the patrol car coming in. They're gonna get out and they're gonna set up like, oh their kids here, They're shooting out the windows of rocks or whatever. Just from that, there's like a lot of tension in a hostage situation. And I also think it's really cool how at the very beginning of the episode they established like, oh, we're in a heat wave.

It is hot, and throughout the entire thing everybody's sweating, and it's like, oh yeah, the way that we're gonna get him, we're gonna tell him there's air conditioning in that place over there, and he's gonna want to go there. And then they get him there, they're like, psych jokes on you. We didn't turn it on. It's not working well. Like to do that, you have to go out.

That I think really helped me, and it's funny because like when you watch like just one episode for each season, you miss everything in between, and you miss all of that. And so like seeing the jump from just season one, seven two to now season four, here I am, and Cagney's just like that's her friend in there, Like she's very very deeply affected by that. And it was just like like we were saying, these aren't people that we'd expect to be friends, and like that's her partner, and she keeps saying, like my partners in there. They get Harvey in like he's like my wife's in there, and they both just in crisis, and I there's something about that that's really tickling satisfying. I don't know if tickling is a word.

It's not, no, but you know what, I get it, and I you know, just to recap it, basically, Lacy has taken hostage, yes, in a train yard by a bad dude played by Michael Madson early Michael Manson, you know, from Diner and The Natural and then Kill Bill and all sorts of things. Now, but he's this is very early. It's right after Dinner, which was kind of the movie that broke him out. So he's the he's the hostage dagger guy and he's really freaking out bad dude who's also in a heatwave, and so they first a lot. He first locks her in with him in a train car sitting in the sun.

But it is it's very much It almost feels like it's shot with one shot or something. There's something very unique about how this movie, this movie, it feels like a movie. This episode is shot and it was one of the reasons was it was actually a new cinematographer came on to that episode. It was shot first. It was the episode was shot to be the first episode of season four, but then they decided not to launch because it was such an intense episode.

They basically cut it to not have the opening little we're jaunting through New York, you know, like we're cool ladies jaun through the New York. So they don't have it. They just start in the episode. You start with they're looking for somebody, and then suddenly they're an austage situation. And so it's shot very uniquely from the from you know, the earlier episodes.

Even though I like the way the show is shot. But the interesting thing is it was like a Karen Arthur had directed a couple of episodes. By then it was her first time working with Tom new Worth, who was a new DP they brought on. Ultimately they ended up getting married. They met on that show on that episode where she won on directing Emmy.

She also that same year directed a TV movie called The Rape of Richard Beck about a cop who gets raped and has to deal with that and the actor who I'm suddenly blanking on Richard. Krenna won an Emmy for that performance, directed by garn Arthur. So that year she was like, the OAPS, I can't say that we'll believe it on anyway. I just that's it a little sidebar because I love Karl now she's my new BF. There's a lot of restraint in the way that they think.

Something about heat, I'm sorry, um, something about heat that I really that really like makes me think about the other episodes. So it's just the fact that like Lacy's stuck in the train car and is being held hostage, and all the people who are negotiating with the hostage taker men, all these men in her life and she's just at the whim of all of them, and her life is literally hanging in the balance. And even just like the Plainclothes episode where they're like, okay, now go out onto the street where we know somebody's killing all these people. Just your life is going to hang in the balance, but we're going to sit here at our desks and just be nice and comfortable and also make like racist remarks for literally no reason.

That's when that one came up where they were like, yeah, this may take a while because you all look alike to a group of Asian folks. And then it's never addressed. They never are like, oh and this is the case that they're looking at. They just say it. I was like, what is going on?

Like, what is what was this choice? Who made this? All? Right? So let's talk about the progressive element of it.

We've talked a little bit about the feminist element of it. I'm curious if there were other things that popped out at you. I mean, you know, my first comment is always not enough black people. Yes, Carl Lumbley was putting in the work. Wait, yes, Marl Lumley.

I went to college and very good friends with his son Brandon. Oh it is fun, Brandon, like a couple of weeks ago to mutual friend's wedding. Oh my god, that's so funny because I've worked with Brandon yes, oh yeah, yeah you have. That's right for Homeward Away, which was funny because I should have put that together too in my head and I forgot because I got told at the time like, oh, this is Carlumble. I was like, well, that's cool, but that was that was in the before time, so I don't remember anything.

You tell him you had just been watching. Um but yes, so one Carl putting in the work as he always does too. It was also just like a very fun moment of like, that's my friend's dad. He's come to see our plays before. And I will say Carl Lumley is a very kind and sweet man, so everyone it is okay to love him.

Thank you. That's very very good too. Like an actor, you're like, yikes, not Carl Lumley. He's a sweetheart. Um but yes, my my go to is always not enough black people.

A sign of the time, and also even thinking of like modern though, like it is like rare that you're going to see a black lead, particularly in a cop procedural like iced tea husband working on SPU. I'm tired for him. Yeah, so I think this is one of the few times where I'm sort of like, yeah, there aren't enough black people, but also like it is hard to fit black people into this type of genre that isn't in a very like stereotype or like one dimensional way. So I'm sort of like, we don't need to be involved. I will say for like one or two, maybe three episodes as far as I know, and I haven't watched all the Cagney and Lacies, there's a lot of them.

There is a black female officer that comes in I believe the end of season one briefly and then again in season two, and so it's technically recurring but not really. There's not much. But I was like, oh, could could she could representation? What if we kept her? And I think there was supposed to be a remake of Cagney and Lacy, and um, Mary Beth was going to be played by a black woman.

I think. I don't know what happened with that, don't know. I don't remember hearing about that, but that would be great. I have no idea where we were. We were at the Cagney and Lacy reboots, Oh yeah, which I just looked up on the interwebs, and um, apparently Uh, there was one, So there was.

And of course this is written impossibly to figure out what denial, which was basically Cagney and Lacey on a different en. Yes, basically Cagney and Lacey for sure. Um, CBS is officially passes from twenty eighteen. CBS is officially passed on the proposed Cagney and Lacey reboot twenty eighteen. Wow, but come on, we gotta we gotta get more out of it.

Oh, there was a TV movie. That's that's the different way. Hold on, there's a Cagney and Lacey TV movie. Oh it is. They're set in Los Angeles.

Two female police detectives and friends keep the streets of Los Angeles safe. Sarah Drew ving Rames, Michelle heard, Oh my gosh, there you go. Michelle heard who I love speaking of long order, asked you and they passed on it. So it was like a TV movie directed by Rosemary Rodriguez, written by Bridget Carpenter. I knew that I remembered Sarah Drew had done a pilot for ABC and NBCCBS whatever, but I didn't remember it was Cagney and Lacy.

Interesting. What's kind of odd is there's no credit to the original show in this IMDb page, which seems like it would be hard to do without that, But who knows how the studios work, the great mystery of what doing whatever they want? But yeah, so yeah, that is weird that that reboot didn't go further. We were talking about representation in the early eighties and it's not somethingly not something I thought about at the time, and I'm not surprised that it's not there when I go back and watch old shows now, because frankly, there's not enough today. I was just thinking about the fact that the Law and Order reboot that's on right now, Anthony Anderson was playing one of the cops in the first season.

He left after the last season, and they brought in another black actor to play the partner of the white cop. And frankly, why wasn't it a woman? I Mean, I know that there there lieutenant is a woman, but so what why couldn't the cop have been a woman? Because you can only have so much diversity on the I have preached about this many times to friends of like, like, like I have a friend journey time, I'm like, oh, you should check out this show. They'll always ask how gay is it.

And I'm like, well, it's really like diverse racially, so I'm not that gay, very gay, very white like you, Like, we are not allowed like fully expansive representation that allows people to live in the multiple intersections of life that we do. TV is like, look, we gave you two ladies, no way, one of them is a lesbian, all right, they're both going to the upper middle class a white gals. Like, we gave you a black guy and a white guy. What more? And there's a lady somewhere else on set?

What more do you want from us? Like the bar is in hell? And you know, I don't expect I just want to live in that with that line for a minute, the bar is in hell. That explains where we are. Okay, go ahead, And there's no way that every show can can represent everything.

That's fine, But why couldn't Anthony Anderson have been replaced by a female Asian cop for goodness sake. I'm sure there must be some in the New York Police Department somewhere, I would think. So it's so funny because I went down this dive. I was like trying to figure out if Cagney and Lacy actually changed the amount of women that started working for the NYPD. Blue that's what I have to say now.

The TV cups and so I found this thing. Of course I don't have it pulled up because this was like two months ago when I started my Cagney Lazy Dive. But it was basically like, you know, we're a report card of the NYPD from nineteen eighty two, and they were listing like how many minorities and what races and gender, and they were then talking about what they were doing to recruit more and it was pretty interesting. The numbers were really small, so it was not surprising there, but it was clearly stating we need to have a police force that represents what our city looks like, but we're having trouble doing that. It was basically like they were like, well, I don't know why.

It's a puzzlement why we can't get all these women and people of color to come work for these white men. I don't want to turn me into a different podcast. Well, I'm glad that you all enjoyed it. I'm glad that you all liked it. I am quite fascinated by the reaction to the three Cagneys.

That's that's really interesting. But I'm k excited because Serge was right out front with I love Meg Foster, She's my favorite. Well, I think that's enough matter. Come on, we are really again, this is now, we really have lost you forget it's an end of the day for me. You're all on the way.

That's right, You're like it's like like my time wearing off. The sun is setting. Oh my god, your dogs are hungry. Okay, so just tell me your favorite Cagney. Yeah, mine's Meg Foster, Megan.

I guess I'll be the one that I just I gotta go go with my girl. I gotta go with Laretta Swit. Um, I love her. I've read a lot about like what Loretta Switt's role was on mash and like specifically how she helped shape the character and like how she got them to stop using the term hot lips, and like how she was responsible for a lot of the transition of that character and where that character ends up with at the end of the show is just like a plus. Um So like I don't know, I just love her well, and it just goes that whole thing just goes to show you that timing is everything.

If if the Cagney and Lacey movie had come around to year later and she played She probably would have played Cagney in the show because by that Mash would have been over. But Mash was not done yet, and there's no way CBS is going to let her out of her contract to go do another show, even for their network. They're not going to do that. Really, I really liked Lauretta Switt as well a lot. I think that the show would have been different and not as even because it was so clear that she was the star that movie.

She basically got to be the hero at the end of the movie. Yeah, lazy kind of disappears because it's Lauretta s Witt. She was a big, giant star. That actually is a really good point of that. Maybe I did enjoy her because it was only for that hour that I or hour plus that I spent with her versus like a recurring thing of that's supposed to be a buddy comedy and one person who is Coleerly the lead.

Yeah, that's a really good and I think, well, and again it may have worked out, but it was something I felt in the TV movie. I'm like, oh, this is this is become a Lauretta's Switt movie Tyne Daily is strong and great and awesome, and the first half of the movie is pretty shared, but the second half of the movie is not. It's not as much Cagney and Lacy. It's Cagney, yes, and Lacy dealing with marital issues. Yeah, and again, I'm one of the really interesting things about the show as you watch it over time is the Harvey character, Lacy's husband.

It is there's more story to the TV movie in terms of that character at the beginning of that character, but they continue to evolve the Harvey and their relationship, and there's a lot of discussion within their relationship about how he's feeling about what she's doing and how that affects him, and how what he thinks is affecting her. And I really thought that was pretty revolutionary for the time to be able to have those conversations and say, you can't tell me I can't do this job because it's making you uncomfortable, you know. And he's pretty idealized in the show for the most part, but there are still those moments where you get to be like, oh, these are people in a male feman relationship navigating the fact that her job is more typically male, but also in some ways more important than his job.

Sometimes he doesn't have a job. He's the super of the building, and that becomes you know, challenging when he wants to go back to construction work. But anyway, that was pretty Yeah. I don't think you guys got a lot of it outside the TV movie, but it's pretty interesting how they navigate that relationship in the show over time, especially since I can't think of another show there may be one I haven't seen everything, certainly on network television, where you have a husband like Harvey who is not the lead. It's his wife, the character who is the lead of the show, and she is the one that's the focus and not him.

I mean, I think in so many ways all over the board, they did a great job with all of that and the writers and everything. You're right, he has somewhat idealized, but still they gave us a picture of that relationship and a relationship that arguably started out in a very patriarchal, more traditional vein, and then through circumstance, became one where she became the bigger breadwinner, the more impactful career that impacted their lives more and where the story basically is him supporting her as a support personnel to their lives, to managing their lives. I don't know. It's sort of a part of the show that I didn't appreciate as much when I was watching it, and I was like, well, I'm never going to Mary and well, you know, I don't care about married people.

They're dumb. Eat my words. Okay, Um, can I ask just another question? Forgive me if I'm misremembering, but you all, I think said that you like procedurals sort of in general, despite some of their problematic issue situations. I mean, as I described, I'm a Law an Order fan, but you know, it's another story.

Um, what other procedurals can you think of that, either currently or in the past, that you've watched that you enjoyed Law and Order, SVU, Criminal minds uh and loved Spencer Read so much. You know, Uh, cis Bones, Bones, Ronica Mars is like kind of a procedural. Um, it's in a like a weird gray area. You know. I'm going to be all over the place with that answer.

Okay, so I already said NYPD Blue also grew up watching SPU. Streets of San Francisco un Gui Fivo the original. I have not seen the remake, And then I would argue that the earlier seasons of Buffy are also a procedural because you have a monster of the episode usually and then there's similar to Spu and some other things, there's like the other drama going on underneath, but like for the most part, you have a different monster that you're dealing with every episode, and then a big bad at the end, so that I don't mash is more a sitcom, i'd say than it is a procedural, although it sort of is in its own category. But yeah, those are the ones that come to mind. This one might be I don't know if this counts psych for sure, it's definitely yeah, yeah, yeah comedy from the same time period.

Monk too would have been a procedural. Yeah, is named after Burton Guster. That's an official name. So beautiful. That is so funny.

I love that. Yeah, the procedurals. You know. The other thing about this that you know you don't necessarily get from three episodes was they're not necessarily doing a great job because it's still the eighties. But they're at least doing episodes where they talk about racism and the police department, where they talk about abortion, where they talk about immigration in a fairly trying to be fairly progressive for the time.

And there was a great episode about domestic violence in which the perpetrator was a cop and how do they deal with that? That really was one of the episodes that surprised me that they actually went there. Yeah, and for the time, you're like, oh, no one's saying that, right, Like, no one's talking about that. So there were interesting things where they were really trying on a lot of levels and then you really can see where the blind spots are, right were you like, Oh, you're trying. But so one black man in the n I actually had a question for you too.

Sure. I don't know if you know the answer to but I was thinking about season two episode one. I was thinking specifically a lot about Brooklyn nine nine and how Brooklyn nine nine both made episodes that without anything specific in the news going on, that we're just like, we're going to talk about racism within the police department. We're going to talk about what prison is like and how that's not okay. And then they also had reactionary episodes that were very much like, this thing just happened, so we're going to make an episode and address it.

Yeah, where was that sort of what Kachee and Lacy was doing. Was there something culturally or within the US that happened and then they acted to it, or were they just going, we want to talk about this, and this is our vehicle to talk about it. I mean, I think that would be a really good question for Barney. Yeah, the TV movies of the seventies and eighties were actually really looking at some of these societal issues, right the rape of Richard Beck. I don't think you could green light today.

I feel like a lot of cagneying Lacy was actually doing that on a series level, because it's definitely like, oh and here's the abortion episode. Although they deal with it, I think more subtly than you would expect if you're like, we're going to do the abortion episode. It became storylines that were a little bit the trauma of the time that wasn't being talked about much, rather than one specific story. I know, like Law and Order was ripping from the headlines. I don't get the sense that it was doing that, but there was a big thing in the show where Cagney sort of famously over the course of the show didn't like wearing a seat belt, and finally, like some folks came and said, could could we stop having that because people are using it now as an excuse not to wear their seat belt, and we really want people to wear their seat belt.

So they sort of had to address it even more and basically sharing that, you know, Cagney was like, okay, fine, so that if Cagney buckled up, other people in the country would buckle up, you know, And so there was a little bit of back and forth that way they talked about in one interview from probably ten or more years ago. But the show was such a success that, you know, Tyne and Sharon were getting letters from women who were joining the police force and writing them and saying I joined the police force because of you, and you know, Less is quoted as saying you want to write to them and say are you crazy? And Daily was saying I did write to some and I said, please Reacon, consider this is make believe and the real job is something quite different.

But there was that sense that it was sort of writing this, the mood of the country is changing, the jobs of the country are changing. The doors were opening to non traditional jobs for a diverse group of people, including women. Slowly, they were very much, in some ways part of that conversation of the time, rather than kind of following it or leading it. I think it was both. Yeah, I was, I was thinking the same thing.

It was kind of both. Because one of the things that I'm not sure you guys can appreciate, because Susan and I remember the pre internet world people, Yeah, and there wasn't the level of saturation in terms of information that exists today. However, what was happening in the eighties is there was a lot of conversation in print and television news that most people consumed. I mean, most people got their information from a relatively small subset of places, So there was a good deal of conversation about various issues of the day, most of which still exists today. So I don't know to what degree how overtly the writers and producers of Cagney and Lacy took that information and pulled it into their shows.

I would imagine they felt like they had to to a certain extent, because I think a lot of shows did. But it wasn't the same kind of in your face, you know that it is today most of the time. One example of how it was fairly in your face is the Murphy Brown dan Quail situation, which I don't remember if you guys know anything about this, but second season or first season of Murphy Brown, the character becomes pregnant decides to have the baby. You would think that the folks on the right would be thrilled that this character did not end up having an abortion, but they weren't. They were unhappy that this unmarried woman was going to have a baby a fictional character, exactly to the point where the Vice President of the United States felt it necessary to comment on it quite loudly.

And I mean, but that was the exception and not the rule. But because again, fictional character, you know, fictional character, whatever, But there wasn't as much of that happening if you will today that then I think there is now to a certain center. Maybe I'm just conflating a lot of things that are happening. It's hard to say what's happening now, right. I think we're still not we're in the middle of something.

I mean, there's there's only forward, but I think we're like, what's that shadow and bone in the storyline? Some bad magic has created this giant sort of gulf of blackness in which monsters reside that in order to basically get from country to country, from one side of this world to the other, you have to pass through it. I think we're in it. That's why I'm like, oh, okay, we're on the ship. We're in the blackness.

There's monsters, just you know, please get us to the other side, the other side. So anyway, I hope that answers your question not to you know, no, it does. And I don't know if there is a direct way to answer that question. You know, it's hard to or it's impossible to read someone's intent in what they're writing, right. I love you guys so much, and I really appreciate your perspective and it brings so much to these shows and my understanding of the shows and to our podcast.

And it's always fascinating to have a chance to look at these shows we're talking about through the lens of a different generation who's coming to it with a completely different perspective. It's really fascinating. And really thank you guys for helping us with our discussion about these shows. Really appreciate it. Someday maybe we'll get to do one of these in person in Austin and Austin even Let's do it all right, all right, thank you, thank you until next time.

So for our eighties TV ladies salute. We want to acknowledge and honor the recent passing of some fabulous TV and film ladies. Roquel Welch an icon of the film industry. She started in the sixties with films such as Fantastic Voyage, One Million Years Be Bandoleero with James Stewart and Dan Martin, Myra Breckenridge, and the Roller Derby classic Kansas City Bomber. She did several TV movies in the eighties, including The Legend of Walks, Far Woman, Right to Die, and Scandal in a Small Town.

She starred in two episodes of Mork and Mindy in nineteen seventy nine and in The Muppet Show in nineteen seventy eight, where she sang I'm a woman with Miss Piggy. Stella Stevens was a well known film and television actress. She starred in The Nutty Professor opposite Jerry Lewis, Girls Girls Girls opposite Elvis Presley, and also in The Poseidon Adventure. She starred in primetime eighties soaps Flamingo Road and Santa Barbara. She guest starred on such eighties classics as Heart to Heart, Love Boat Murders.

She wrote Magnum p I, New Heart, and Matt Houston and Barbara Bosen, who played Fae for Rillo Captain Frank Farrillo's emotional quote unquote ex wife on Hill Street Blues. She was nominated for six Emmys. She also guest starred in Murder. She wrote La Law Hooperman, Crazy Like a Fox, and Hotel, and in the TV movie and television show Rockford Files spin off Richie Brockman Private Eye. And we want to shout out some fans that have been reaching out to us.

Thank you Dear Callie and Kathy and Rosario for reaching out to tell us how much you've enjoyed the Remington Steel episodes. We also heard from Josh who has been listening on YouTube and wrote into let us know his thoughts about Remington Steel. Please continue to send us messages on our website on Facebook, go to Eighties tv Ladies dot com and let us know what you think. Also reach out to us on Instagram and Twitter at Eighties TV Ladies. If you like our podcast, please rate and review us on your favorite listening platform.

It is a great help to us. On our next episode, it will be our wrap up for season one. I can't believe it. This is episode twenty one, twenty two. I don't know.

This season has been a blast. We've had so much fun. Please join us. We hope ADCV Ladies brings you joy and laughter and lots of fabulous new and old shows to watch, all of which will lead us forward toward being amazing ladies of the twenty first century and so pretty to the city. Hosted by weirding Way Media