Episode 37: The Bird + The Desk + The Judge

Welcome to the Life and Times of Captain Barney Miller podcast. I'm your host. Mike White joined me, of course, is the rookie mister Chris Dash. You and I don't want to sign your release form. I don't want to sign it.

Get that out of here. Release forms? Should we have release words for this podcast? I you know, it's a question that it comes up a lot in my mind. I just don't worry about it because everybody's handshaking each other and we're all good.

Existential crisis being had on a recorder. On this episode, we were talking about three episodes of the awesome show Barney Miller. We're talking about three episodes from the sixth season. We're talking about The Bird, which was released November eighth, nineteen seventy nine, The Desk, which was released November twenty second, nineteen seventy nine, just in tight for Thanksgiving, and The Judge, which came out December sixth, nineteen seventy nine. Of course, all directed by Nome Pitlick.

This is the season of pitlick. You've had the summer of George. This is the season of Pitlick. A lot of pitlick that pitlick. You guys heard about that Pitlick.

That Pitlick's really burning it up. I mean, look, he's he's a welcome even keel to this show, like in good hands or we are with Nome Pitlick, right, Like, I feel like that could be said for almost anybody who worked on this show. But just knowing how much in the sixth season people had to step up because of Danny Arnold, like Nome Pitlick rose to the occasion. Because spoilers everybody, these episodes are really good. Yeah, that's funny because I almost said spoiler alert.

These are solid episode So we're very much on the same the same page here. Yeah, the bird, Well, before we even start to talk about the bird, I just want to say something that I've been breaking down on all of these stories in terms of A, B and C plots. Just remember, everybody listening, this show is half an hour worth commercials. They're balancing three stories that they tell pretty well every single time, time and time out, and able to take those three stories from beginning to middle to end every single episode. It just impresses me a lot.

And we have had occasions where one of the plots is lesser than the others and that's okay, because most of the time the A plot or the B plot ends up being the standout. But to your point, we know because of Otto Bruno's book Barty Miller in the Files The Old One two, which you can get on Amazon and published by Bear Manner, we know that they spent an inordinate amount of time getting all of these jokes constantly right and spending three or four in the morning refilming this stuff. Like the show is as good as it is because the people behind it were literal perfectionist psychotics, which is perfectly fine. Those are the people you want making your television. I mean, Norman lear A is a force to be reckoned with still as like a ninety year old man, because he knows what he wants, he knows how to get it and he and his track record speaks to that.

And Danny Arnold's the same thing. And I mean, there's a reason this show from nineteen seventy nine, the season we're in now is still so well regarded by police today in twenty twenty three because it speaks to timeless themes that I think most people in this area of the service industry of our or you know, however, you want to you what police and firefighters do. It speaks to them in a way that's like, you know, not Chicago Blue and White or any of those horseshit shows that are more about the fun stuff. But the fun stuff is like, it doesn't happen every week. If it happens at once a month type thing, it's seems mundane.

And that's what Barney Miller traffics in. And that's what makes this show so smart with the plots is that it never leaves the station and that allows it to constantly while it does feel saney from time to time, the stories of the people coming in can kind of just be whatever. And we're a captive audience held in a bottle constantly with everything, and that bottle sometimes builds up pressure and cracks, but for the most part, it's just those A and B plots, and then the sea plot rears its head from time to time. Well, The Bird definitely has all three plots. We've got two things going on with the guys in the one.

Two we've got Woejoe buying a parrot which soon becomes an ex parrot. I'm not sure if it's a Norwegian blue or not, but it does have lovely plumage that's going on. We've got Harris trying to get releases signed for his new book, Blood on the Badge. It's an folks, it's here. We're going to be hearing a lot about Blood on the Badge for the next few years, I think.

And then we've got the suicide hotline operator who tries to commit suicide and is visited by one of his frequent flyers or frequent callers. I know my wife and my mom both worked it's like hospitals, and when patients would come back, they would call them their frequent flyers. So I think she might qualify all three very strong stories. And I really like what they're doing on this episode. Yeah, no, I'm I'm with you.

Obviously, we've seen the actor who plays the jumper, Michael Lombard. We saw him last season in an episode. I don't remember what he was doing in that episode. It was the Harris incident, so that episode had a lot of other things going on that had nothing to do with him. But he's really good here, and so is Miriam byrden Ethie.

Because what they're doing I think works in a way that this show tends to work which is, yes, it's kind of trivializing suicide, but it's also nineteen seventy nine. Folks like it. Just take it for what it is. I mean, this show had an episode titled rape. We're lucky this episode wasn't called suicide, like in a lot of ways, because it is the A plot, the bird thing is, I would say, the B plot, maybe even the C plot.

It's it's the it is this season's Max Gale doing kung fu, you know what I mean. It's like, if you were to show me a still of Max Gale standing next to a parrot in the one two, I would genuinely ask, what the fuck are we watching here? And that little cutaway of him doing the kung fu in the first like three seasons or four whatever it is, before they replaced it is feels the same way. It's like, what is the point of this? This at least is kind of a sustained gag.

That is a nice payoff to it, but it is a little out of left field. Yeah, like very far left field. Ernie coming into the office and there is the parrot just there, No Wojoe, just the parrot. Yeah, that was like, what the hell's going on here. It's yeah, it's bizarre.

It does work because Wojoe is an eccentric, weirdo like, and so it works as far as I'm concerned. But I think what's better is Martin Garner coming into the Precinct playing essentially a similar version of the character we've already seen him play and just being like, I assumed that you're trying to extort me. It's great, you know. And then they get into Pittsburgh, jab because because fluck Pittsburgh apparently going in to Barney Miller, is it Philadelphia? I guess it's Philadelphia.

It was Philadelphia. Yeah, yeah, the City of Brotherly Love. Yeah, that was strange. Yeah, his whole like assumed you were ripping me off kind of thing, and then Barty has to be like, no, no, no, we're not those kind of people, to the point where Wojoe doesn't get the refund and ends up giving the money back to the pet store run art. It is a great line though, and he's like I think I screwed up here.

Yeah, he ends the envelope back and like Max, I mean, look, Max Gale when he's on is really funny. I think this season he's been really good in a lot of ways to contrast how not great he was in season five. I think almost across the board, it was weird. Season five was a low was a low point for the Wojahoet's character. I wonder if it's because they were just like, hey, Steve Landisburg, do you want to just like do everything right right?

Which I mean, if you're going to ingratiate yourself to the audience, no better way to do it than just run the run the ball, as it were through Steve Landisburg on literally every single gag, because I feel like in season five they were putting a button on every gag with Steve Landisburg, and that was Max Gale and like the second season of the show type thing, like all those at back and forth with a Vagoda and the second season it was like constantly Wojahoets and Fish going back and forth. I was like, that was there, that was their thing. So it's interesting to see people people take a back seat. I'm glad Wojahoitz is not taking back seat this season. It seems like it's going to be Harris Woejohoitz and then Levitt, who's not in this episode at all.

No, No, and we'll definitely be talking a lot more about him as we move on, but before we do that, I just really want to shout out again Michael Lombard. He is so good and I always enjoy whenever he shows up. He always kind of reminds me of the gentleman that played boss Hog when he didn't look like boss Hog, when he was just kind of normal looking. He had that very similar paint. I think Michael Lombard might be a little bit taller than him, but he plays flustered so well.

I really enjoy somebody that can. You just want to see them angry or upset, and he does that great the jowls, he's got those great Oh yeah, he's got those great jowls, and he looks the part. You know. He's like I said, he's been on Barney Miller one other time and he's going to show up two more times. Yeah he's I mean, look, that's the thing we always say almost every episode like this show is just for the character actors, And yeah it is because there it's it's like whenever Rutger Howard would be the lead in something, it's like, I get that.

You want to think he's an action star. But this guy's like a character actor, and I love that this show is like we're gonna highlight great character actors and just give them something interesting to do for you know, a thirty minute episode. And for the most part, I don't think we've had a lot of complaints in this show. It's more on the other shows that we do where it's like this is the only time they show up. What a waste.

Like we've said that on Twilight Zone eighty five and Midnight Viewing before, but here because people do tend to show up several times, Like even someone like James Cromwell's shown up a couple times. Like even if they didn't have a necessarily great showing the first time, more than likely they're going to come back a second or third time and have you know, have a really fun, compelling storyline. Like I mean, someone that I think of immediately is like Stuart Pankin that I'm waiting to see him again where we don't where it's not just like self a grand rising fat man. So yeah, but you know, again it in a lot of ways, the character actors are just they're the highlight of the show. And Barney Miller and Woe Joe and all those other characters.

They're just kind of there to interact with them, I mean, and that's the beauty of this show for someone like me and you who really appreciate and watch a lot of seventies TV show like these people have shown up on plenty of things that we've talked about, not just Barney Miller, and getting to see them here in a comedy setting. I appreciate that as well, obviously. So the other thing I really like about this episode is just how they continue to stoke that resentment of Harris and Dietrich, and that Dietrich refuses to sign that release form. He gets Barney to sign it no problem after it lays on a little bit of at Harris charm, but cannot crack Dietrick until the very end of the episode. And I like that back and forth at the end of the episode.

I mean, I like the two of them. I'm hoping and I know that it will get there that they will not end up being antagonist Dick towards the end of the show, and I don't see that being the thing, but I like that there's even though we kind of saw them soften to one another at the beginning of this season. At the end of last season, they still I think they're diametrically opposed as human beings, but I think they're I think they have more in common than either one of them like to admit, because they're both very idiosyncratic. I mean Harris obviously in Landisburg, I mean, you know, I mean that character is so its own weird thing. But like so is Harris, Like it's it's a very those are both very atypical characters.

So so, speaking of character actors, we have the return of one of our favorite character actors and the Desk episode, which, by the way, and we'll talk a little bit more about the Desk. I thought that this episode was called the Deck. I must have completely misread it on Plex and I was like, the Deek, what the hell? And I was I guess I was thinking Deacon like the Jeff Grey character Jeff Gorey. The Deek like a hockey moved, Is that right?

I think? So it's like a hockey move. Yeah, all of a sudden, they go play hockey together. Barney Miller and friends take a trip to watch the Islanders play. Okay, sure, Jeff Corey, one of the best actors just period end of sentence.

He if memory serves, Jeff Corey was blacklisted, and then rather than giving up acting, he started his own acting company basically and was teaching acting, and then finally he was able to kind of come back into regular Hollywood stuff, you know, seventies, late sixties going on to the seventies, and it feels like the guy never stopped working. Does you even look at like his fifties sixties work? He was managing to sneak in all over the place. One of there's a lot of blacklisted actors on the film Seconds, which is a great one if you've never seen it. I mean, this just was so busy all the time.

And I just love when he shows up in anything. And here him showing up as this very harsh, amish guy, and I have to ask you, Chris, how or why is he in New York? That's the one thing I kept missing. He was mugg okay, but like, but why I get I don't know why he was in New York? Yeah, I don't.

Did we miss it? Like, I don't feel like we're both We're not that like we're we're sometimes we're dense, but we're not that funn we were both smoking pot. We're well, one of us might have been smoking it, been eating it. I don't know. He was a mugging victim, that's all they say.

He's just a mugging victim. And Harris and Dietrich bring him in and the Levitt is like, oh, I was just I was fair and they booked it. But yeah, I don't think they ever mentioned why there's just like an amish dude hanging out in New York City. My child I got lost, Okay, yeah, all the way from Pennsylvania again a Pennsylvania thing. Yeah, it's and then he kind of starts calling him scallywags and ne'er do wells and oh, and it's so he's so good.

Jeff Corey is just I just and and and Levitt the folksy ways. It's like he's you know, I kind of want to say this, Richard, if you're listening, Levitt is getting short shrived. And I don't think I'm not a fan of it. Yeah, it's fucked up, right, it's pretty fucked up, like and they have I love how they don't really have an answer, Like Barney just goes, there will be a desk here for you when it is needed, when you are needed. Guess what you're not fucking needed right now.

It's it's fucked up in a way that like, it makes me really empathize with the Levitt character in a way I was not expecting. Oh yeah, and it makes me empathize with Barney a little bit more because Levitt feels like one of my employees where it's just like, hey, this thing is wrong and it should be fixed. And it's like, yeah, you're right, it should be, but I'm completely powerless to do anything about it. So yeah, you can continue to complain to me. I can try to do something, but there's not a whole lot I can do, and ultimately it's probably not going to change anything either.

So I mean again, like that's the thing, Like, I don't even if Barney went to Bath or Levitt, I don't think it would change anything. And that's I mean, that's kind of what he's getting at. It's like, but Richard was right. Levitt is a much better character now that they've given him some time to be around the other characters. And this, I mean, this episode feels like a pretty big character moment for him standing up for himself to Barney of all people, like, of all people for him to stand up to, he like stands up to Barney and he's like, I don't fucking get it.

I'm just gonna fucking leave and go transfer fuck you guys, and he's like, do it then, and he again, Like I like that arc that they take the character with. I think it's weird that Jack Seue's desk is part of this plotline. I find that to be strange. Well, is I think that Nick's desk is in this episode? I think you're thinking of the next episode, The Judge, even though this one is called the Desk.

Wait, what, yeah, do I have them swapped mentally? Yeah. Like if you go to IMDb and you look at the picture that's represented there, don Kalfa is sitting at Nick's desk. And that's the trivia on IMDb is that, despite this being called the Desk, the desk doesn't actually play into the episode until the next episode. Oh my god, it's bizarre.

Well I got I mean, it's like I got the c plots fucking conveinused. Well, it's it's insane because it is it is the thing with Levin happens in this episode, right, I don't think the desk is missing in this episode. I think it's next episode. So next episode is when the whole thing happens with Levitt and Barney screaming at each other, right exactly. Yeah, and Levitt is in the office with Bernie and that's when Woejoe comes in and interrupts, and he's like, oh, I understand, captain, take the important stuff right.

Yeah ayah, because that's when the judge is going crazy out in the bullpen and Wojo's all dressed up when it comes into see Barney. Wow, I can't uplive, Like, well, the titles are very misleading. Well and also what's what's funny is, if you think about it, the sea plots in both of them are effectively interchangeable. Yeah. Yeah, it's god, okay, huh yeah, I don't good Lord, It's like the Mandela effect right now.

Like I'm I genuinely sitting here remembering the episode. I had to put it on now just to like, I know you're right, but like now that I'm seeing it, it's like I do huh right, Because Alex Antelhoff is in this episode, yes, as ripping her Yeah, because he shows up for Kalfa. Yes, who's the best part of this episode? Yeah, oh my show. I mean, look, the character he's playing is uh something.

Yeah, he's had a not a lobotomy, but something similar. It sounds like, Yeah, I love Don Kalfa. I mean he's shown up one time before, is it? I think twice? Why is okay?

Two other times because it was Yeah, the hostage was one of those episodes, and then I can't remember what else. I mean because he almost always plays a bad guy. He's that look, he's got that look. I love that. He's he's a great character actor.

He's the he is as good as Jeff Corey is in this episode. That's the thing, Like, you have two really good character actors competing with one another in this episode. Oh yeah, Well, and then you know our lawyer friend isn't too much of a slouchy there. And even the guy that plays the doctor of Fred Sadoff he does a great job as well. I mean, everybody's doing a great job.

But yeah, Calfa and Corey they're just they're the tops. Don Calfa, They're both beyond frog. Don Calfa has been in seven episodeven Okay, up until this point, we've seen him four times, and this is his fifth time, so there are two more times. I'm season seven, in season eight, get a Don Calpa episode. But it's crazy that he's been on this show that many times.

That would I think that would put him up there with the people who been on it the most outside of the main kind of body of actors, even like Hinteloff only has shut up like Drive two or three times, like a handful of that? All right? Does does Otto Bruno's book include the most to the least appearances or at least like the top appearances? It does? I don't remember who, it says though, Okay, all right, so another good reason to pick up Auto Bruno's book, guys, Yeah, because don't trust me.

Yeah I did. We didn't know that it was seven appearances my calpha or five up to this point. Well that's that's crazy because it doesn't even feel like that many. Because I mean, the one that stands out to me is the hostage. That is the one that one stands out to me because I guess for me that I don't know, I mean, him playing I don't know, him playing this character is probably better than that episode.

Yeah, I mean, because you really feel for him. He was a recidivist criminal and he ends up getting this procedure done to him so that he won't be a criminal anymore. But then at what cost. Now he's essentially a zombie. And there's all those just little slide jokes, that whole thing about getting Perry Mason as a lawyer, and then there's ironside gag.

Yeah, yeah, probably after the accident. Yeah, that that made me laugh and that was good to answer the question. Alex Hendelhoff has been on this show seven times, six times as Arnold Ripner, So he's been on the show quite a lot, including the first season where he showed up in the first season of the show as Alex rip so right, was one of the first episodes. Yeah, which is crazy that he should. I mean, you know, say what you will about what we've talked about before.

We're like, oh, you have people show up playing I mean Don Calva plays like three different there seven different characters. I said. Alex Anteloff has been one of the few people who's only portrayed one other character other than Arnold Ripner. He portrayed I think a different character in like season three, and I think we mentioned it on that episode, We're like, Hey, that's the guy who plays Ripner. But he plays the same character through the entire show, which is kind of crazy because I want to say it's him, and then the two gay characters are probably in that same conversation.

But he's great here. He plays that I don't know, he plays a seventies dickhead attorney perfect. Oh yeah, yeah. Though I'm still kind of disappointed that I have yet to see transparent aluminum after he discovered that and start CORECT four The Voyage Home. So eventually maybe we'll get that invention.

I have to there are so many movies that I have not watched as an adult that I'm going to eventually get around to watching that I watched as like a child, that I will watch it and be like, oh my fucking god, look at all these like and I haven't seen Star Trek The Voyage Home since I was a teenager, Like oh yeah, And I'm sure when I watch those be like, oh on, look at all these people that I literally have been spending ten years talking about their combined bodies of work. Like That's what I thought when I watched Hallndon in Daddy or Grandpa Daycare. Oh no, I don't know. I thought about it and I was like, there's no way, there's no way that this isn't just like very bizarre, like Granddaddy Daycare feels like, yeah, any tree house in that movie.

It's funny. He I thought that he was in a ton of episodes of Mash, but he was only at one episode. But he just made such an impression that I thought he was in more alex Antlaw Yeah, yeah, he I mean he's a he's a great actor. I just I don't know him from anything else. I haven't seen him in anything else.

But if you look at his credits, I mean it's just like TV out the Ass, Oh God, Like you mentioned MASH. I mean I Spies is his first credit Forretta Like, I mean he if you have a body of ones, yeah, like Barnaby Jones, Trapper, John iron Side, McCloud man, Yeah, Like it's yeah. And that's the thing, like people like Alex Hendelhoff are. I mean, it's the reason the screen actors are striking right now because people like him fill in so much of what other people like Max Gale and how Lyndon laid down as being the foundation is that those character actors. And that's again to go back to what I said before, I love how many character actors just show up in the show and like Kenneth Tigar just knocks it out of the park every time he shows up.

Alex Hendeloff at Jeff Corey, like, you know, I think Fred Sadof showed up before two? Hasn't he am I mistaken? Or is I am? I just no? Yeah, He's shown up six times?

So this is this is like the This is like the episode of the reoccurring characters. Last time we saw Fred Sadof was in the Rankin and Bass Marco, which is why I recognize Oh boy, yeah, a classic, a true cinematic jem. Yes, Zero Mostel as Kublai Khan. That's all I'll say. I don't know how many people listening to this have tracked down the ranking of Bess movie Marco, but worth the shot.

We get to see Desi Ernez Junior on a kite, yeah, and Zero Mostel playing Kubla Khan, which is really really what you're there for. But uh, yeah, a lot I mean in this, I mean this episode is literally like the six and seven Timers Club because everybody in the in the character actor Camp has been on the show a fair amount so and that's why this is a really fun episode. And that's why Don Calpa's character it's not as problematic as I was kind of expecting it to be, right right, Well, it does seem to bring up this whole idea of free will and you know, well, what are we doing to people in order to prevent prevent them from doing these crimes? What kind of person is he? And him wanting to go off on the farm to the farm with Jeff Corey, it feels like what you do to a dog, you know, just like, yeah, let him go to the farm, sure, going upstate?

Yeah, yeah, I like. I like that though, where he's like, you mean, I could work with my hands till the land and then we have breakfast, right Jeff? I mean, Jeff Corey is just he is dry as dry could be, but it's perfect. Like he's so good. I mean, this is a really this is a really fun episode this season.

I really enjoyed this episode. Yeah, and the interactions that he has with Hal Lyndon, I'm talking about Jeff Corey, those are priceless. The back and forth between those two actors is so great. Let me look at your hands, doughey hands. Yeah, you've been counting money all of your life, mister Hooper, Yeah, he's ah, this is this is a good one, you know, getting confused about when nick nick Yamana's desk disappears a side.

Yeah, I mean, look, all these episodes are really good, which is not a surprise, but this season so far has been across the board, just like pretty good, pretty good, pretty good. Yeah. Well, you're talking about repeating people, and I swear Peggy Pop must have been on the show before because she just has one of these very distinct voices. So when she showed up in the Desk episode well, which is called the Judge, she just I was like, oh wow, Like I mostly know her from The Last Starfighter. I think she's one of the neighbors of Lance.

Oh I can't remember the actor's name, but one of the neighbors of the main character. And then of course she was in twoth or Consequences, one of our favorite not really episodes of right of starting She's a Twilight Zone nineteen eighty five. Yeah, she was in six episodes of Barney Miller, so no wonder she seems pretty familiar. She comes in and is reporting all of these crimes, all of these horrible things that she's seeing next door. And that is who is it, Dietrich and Harris, I think pick her up.

Yeah, And meanwhile, Woe Joe was at court and that's where he runs into Philip Sterling as Judge Philip Paul Gibson, who is completely off his rocker. I mean it's basically what we just saw with uh, with Michael Lombard as the suicide prevention person. I mean he snapped. Well, so is this judge. This judge is completely snapped.

Yeah, he's he's lost it, as they would say, like in a way that like he's one of the more abrasive characters that I think I've ever seen on this show. And I'm talking and I'm talking about even including someone like Scandling like this a character that he portrays in this episode is comes into the precinct as a ball of fire and still more or less leaves a ball of fire. Yeah, sixth episode for mister Phillip Sterling as well. We're to the point now where they're just like bringing in all the people that just have been doing it so well. Peggy Pope and nine to five.

That's when I saw her in earlier this Oh okay, yeah, she's so great movie, so good. She just has that look, you know, I don't know, like she looks she does looking pathetic really well, like that's I don't know, And she could put a button on a scene like nobody's business. You know, you're just like, she will give you that last little bit to just take that joke over the line, because she usually plays clueless very very well. Yeah, speaking of playing clueless really well, I like the idea that Max not Max Scale, but you know the character that Max Scale plays well. Jehoeitz gets really bent out of shape and Barney's like, hey, you look really nice.

He's like, what, I can't look nice. I can't dress up. I can't just look nice for once. He's like, I didn't say that. I'm going to court though.

It's like, bro, You're like, oh my god, Bojahowitz has finally come back around as a kid. I'm so glad because I got I was getting really tired of complaining about how much of a ding dong he was acting last season because it was just it was insufferable how kind of much he had regressed from season four into season five. Oh yeah, well, it's so funny to me to go back to the bird episode. He basically he wants this animal to live in a cage at his house, and when he comes to work, he just puts people in cage. Yeah, it's like, oh, okay, you got a thing here, all right.

I'm surprised they didn't call that bird a sex worker as well. Yea, to mean, to demean it. That's why he's it's either go out and rent a sex worker or buy a bird. Right, Well, he made his choice this time. This time.

Yeah, this Sime. I do like how he's in his suit the entire episode. He does not work. He looks, he looks ridiculous, he does see especially that wide tie that that wins or not is so big. Oh and the vest and the vest he looks.

He looks more like he would be I don't know, like a like a background character in The Untouchables. That's what he looks. He looks out of place, like really out of place. And I don't know, maybe it's just because like I feel like when he's wearing a suit, I can't take him seriously, right right, And that's what it is obviously, but like it's just because I don't know, I don't know. I just can't take it.

Every time I look at him, it's like I can't take you seriously while you're wearing that suit, right. I do love thus seeing where he's arresting or taking the information from the judge and the judge is taking the information from him, And especially we get a name joke. We haven't had a Wochah it's name joke in forever, and here we are finally where he's trying to give his name and the judge is just like, you don't scare me. It's I did appreciate. I did appreciate we finally got a name joke for the first Christmas.

But can we talk about the from last episode titular desk? Yes, it's bizarre. Well, the station house looks so different without that desk there. I've grown so used to it being there that when I saw it without, I was like, what the hell's going on? Yeah, it's it's permanent, right, the desk going away?

Yeah? No, they bring it back at the end, but like, is it gonna Like what is the reason for it to stay? That's my point, Like it's weird that it comes back, but like it should just stay gone. I'm very curious if now Levitt's going to be coming up here. I mean it's almost like we're left on a cliffhanger, That's what I mean.

Like they it bring they bring it back, but like it why they come back, because like it doesn't narratively, it doesn't make any sense unless it's like this is where Levitt sits. But then it just feels like, well, what you're forgetting that yamanas at there, Like, I mean, I guess it doesn't. I guess it's different than Vagoda though, because Vagoda left the show. I mean, Jack Sue would still be on the show if not for the fact that he passed away. Yeah yeah.

And the way that Harris is so happy to have Dietrick away from him with Yeah, they're back and forth. I like it. I'm like I said, I'm assuming it will eventually right itself. But I do like that they just keep playing up the animosity between the two, but it's really one sided. Oh yeah, yeah, it's just Harris.

Oh yeah, yeah. I don't think Dietrich has any problems with anybody really, that's sure. Dietrich cares enough. No, that's sure. Dietrich is grounded enough to care.

So yeah, and I like that Peggy Pope's character is kind of I don't know, and I wouldn't say nuts, but they kind of. I mean, yeah, she and the judge are nuts basically, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess so like, yeah, different shades and nuts, right. Dietrich and Harris go over to or place. They find hundreds upon hundreds of TV guides and start reading some of the soap opera listings and realize that she's been It's very much like the episode with Nick Specame Nick, where there was somebody who is performing the crimes of whatever the detective shows were. It was like a TV guide thief.

That's right, she know, but she's she's really good. She plays that character that kind of like oh I didn't know there, you know wa, or like she plays that perfectly. I mean that's she does. Yeah, she's great. But then I mean in nine to five, I want to say, she's like the character that's like ratting on everybody, so like she can play both of those kind of that spectrum really well, of like an unstable character.

I don't know. I think it's her eyes it's got to be like she just has those really big eyes, but she's yeah, hurt. She's great. And obviously all of the praise that I gave to Ron carry at the last episode that I thought was this episode is still applicable here. He's really good in this episode.

He might actually be one of the best parts of this episode. I think he is. Yeah, I think you're totally right. And I think it's because we finally get to see the character have not a backbone, per se, but a little bit of a back Oh yeah, he absolutely stands up for himself in this Yeah. Now again, I don't it all feels very hollow and Barney feels very patronizing.

And so it's like there is like you mentioned, it's kind of a cliffhanger. There isn't really a conclusion. And I don't think that the people who made this show necessarily cared about having a conclusion, because conclusions mean people aren't watching anymore. Right, Yeah, it's like moonlighting the moment they were together, it's like fucking cares anymore. Like it's the chase, not the destination.

So and that's what it feels like here. And I don't think he'll ever become anything, and he'll just be the guy who shows up, because that's that's the only thing that I think really ultimately makes sense. I think you're right. Yeah, and really we have we are halfway through this first season, I think, or yeah, somewhere around there, and then we will have two more seasons of this, and so I think they can keep that joke going for two and a half seasons well. And I think also given the fact that like they lean on it, but they don't lean on it all the time like they did.

I mean, he didn't even show up in the first episode the Bird, so it you know, like it's sometimes they don't even have to have him, which he is missed when he doesn't show up. I'll tell you that much. At this point, I do miss him as a as a character actor and as a character presence. I do miss him when he's not there. Listen to you, I now shill that I am.

I did it, folks, I came full circle. Richard and Otto and everybody else who told us that that was going to be the case, they're just smirky and they're right. They're right because they did a good job. Luger. Now they like, yeah, yeah, look, hey, you know, I think that's the success of the writing team and the people who work on this show is to really make some of these lesser characters that are introduced in maybe not the most palatable ways more palatable by making them real characters as opposed to just a short joke.

And whatever James Gregory's character was doing that first season, I still am not quite sure what he was doing. Well, hopefully we'll get some luger when we come back around next time. We're going to be talking about the DNA story, the dentist and no article People's Court, and I think this is definitely way before Judge Wakner's People's Court, So just so you know, Judge Watkner will not be showing up in this episode. Is that I thought it was Judge? Is Judge Joe Brown a similar thing?

Yes? Yeah? After People's Court they started popping up all over with Judge Judy Joe Brown. Gosh, I can't even remember all the Steve Carvey isn't he a judge? And something?

I wanted to make the joke that I was disappointed this episode wasn't about Judge Reinhold, but I figured not enough people would care about Judge Reinhold Frank's a good joke, though. I like it. I mean, I love the Taxi Barney Miller crossover that we never got, right, boy, that is a weird saying we never got is that? Can you imagine just them hauland Chris Lloyd from taxi in to Barney Millard, Like, you're ruined my life. I have to work in a taxi stand now, and this really short guy.

Can you imagine Louis de Palma in the cage then? Yeah, amazing, fucking great. That's my point. Like, that's the thing now that we live in a time of like everything is everywhere else all the time. Like, yeah, it's just like it would be It would be nice for these things have existed.

And look, I mean plenty of these shows were crossover shows or spinoff shows. This show had its own spinoff show. You couldn't convince me. It almost didn't try to do too but I mean, wojo, It's episode I will never be convinced was a genuine attempt tennis but self sabotage. Yeah, this show has its own spinoff.

It had fish like it was very much of the seventies. It's kind of surprising that Jeffersons didn't show up in this show in a lot of ways, like because that was a thing that did happen on other things. Yeah, yeah, there's gotta be an excuse. I mean, obviously, somebody gets into Alex's taxi and as crazy, so he has to take them to you know, the nearest police station was here at the twelfth pre sanct or. You know, somebody mugs George Jefferson and he oh nearest police station twelve presects right, like you have you have the in universe cops.

Like if I were making this show now, the show that I would make would be like CBS or ABC. I would just get the actors from the other shows just show up from time to time because a people like that and be the people who like the other show would like that because it's just a thing you don't get to see, and that would have been fun. But to be fair, the show has enough character actors. The stable of character actors is deep enough that they don't need to resort to anybody else's shows. They've got their own, which I think is just as exciting and entertaining.

So until we come back next month, Chris, what are you working on? These days, it's podcasting Weirdingwaymedia dot com. The show here, the shows that you're welcome goodbye. That's where everything that you and I work on, this show, the finished Cold Jack Tapes, Dreams for Sale, which is coming to a close. We work on that with father Malone Colombo.

All all the good things that you and I work on together, you can find that at weirdingwaymedia dot com. What about you, Mike, What's what's keeping you busy? Well? Pretty much a lot of the same stuff. All my stuff is over at weirdingwaymedia dot com, including the show that I'll work on called The Projection Booth, and that keeps me very busy.

But I'm really glad that we can talk about other things such as seventies detectives and horror shows. So what I mean, OHM? What is best in life? Night Gallery? Barney Miller, Colombo and to see their women driven before them?

Yeah? Yeah, he nailed it. Good place to stop? I think good places pretty Wait, do you want to do the outro? The John Walker thing?

Oh yeah, special thanks to John Walker for doing our theme. Thank you so much for listening to the show's rate and review us wherever you get the show. I guess they're now doing ratings at like pod addict and other things, so check your podcast player might be able to read our show through there. That would be very cool and you should