Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! This Thursday, I will be reviewing Twin Detectives, which was produced for ABC in 1990. The show can be found on YouTube!
Twin Detectives
(Dir by Robert Day, Originally aired on May 1st, 1976)
Tony (Jim Hager) and Shep Thomas (Jon Hager) are identical twins who long ago gave up on other people ever being able to tell them apart. Instead, they just pretend to be one person. They own a detective agency. Their clients think that they’re hiring one detective, but little do they know that they’re actually hiring two detectives who look exactly alike! I’m not sure exactly why the Thomas brothers have decided this is a good idea, other than the fact that I guess they each only have to work half a day. It does lead to some complications, like when one of the brothers gets into debt to some gangsters and the other brother ends up getting beaten up. To be honest, I’m not sure whether Tony was the irresponsible one or if it was Shep. All I know is that both of them spent this entire made-for-TV movie getting into trouble because of the decisions made by the other sibling.
As for why I’m reviewing this in October, there actually is a supernatural angle here. Leonard (Patrick O’Neal) and Sheila Rainier (Barbara Rhoades) are running an institute that claims to study psychic phenomena. The elderly and rich Billy Jo Haskins (Lillian Gish) has been funding the Rainiers and is convinced that they can communicate with her dead husband. Billy Jo’s attorney, Marvin Telford (David White), hires the brothers to investigate the institute. At first, it seems like Leonard’s assistant (Lynda Day George) is on the verge of revealing the truth about the scam, but then she’s murdered. The Thomas brothers have to solve the murder and also resolve the question of whether the Rainiers are truly talking to the dead.
Twin Detectives was obviously meant to be a pilot for a weekly show. The Hager brothers were so bereft of charisma and acting ability that I actually felt the need to do some research to try to discover why they were given a pilot in the first place. Apparently, the Hagers were country music performers who had appeared on several variety shows and had a following in middle America. This pilot was obviously designed to appeal to the older folks in the audience, but it didn’t work because, again, the Hagers weren’t very good actors and the whole idea of them pretending to be one person just didn’t make much sense.
Sadly, the film wastes its guest stars. Lillian Gish was one of the first film stars, but she’s not given much to do as Billy Jo Haskins. Wherever D. W. Griffith may have been, he wasn’t watching.
