Douglas Spain | Through the Shattered Lens

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network! It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.

This week, Victor gets a plot.

Episode 2.4 “Bangers”

(Dir by Charles Siebert, originally aired on September 14th, 1996)

Victor del Toro, who often doesn’t get to do much on this show, finally gets a storyline of his very own. Unfortunately, it involves trying to keep a young man for his old neighborhood from joining a gang. One thing that you can always count on whenever you watch any sort of cop show from the 90s, if there’s a Latino cop in the cast, he’s going to have to keep someone from joining a gang. It was one of the biggest cliches on the 90s.

And don’t get me wrong. Gangs are a reality in America and they are a problem. At the same time, though, is there a reason why every time a Latino appeared on a show like this, they always seemed to either be in a gang or on the verge of joining a gang? Not every Latino family is poor, not every young Latino male is struggling with the pressure to join a gang, and for that matter, not every Latino with a tattoo is a member of a street gang.

While Victor dealt with the gangs moving into the neighborhood, Chris and Corey decided to rent an apartment together. Needless to say, things didn’t go well. Corey reveals that she is hyperorganized and likes to keep every surface in the apartment clean and spotless. (I don’t really see what that’s a problem.) Chris is revealed to be a slob who hangs her clothes around the kitchen and who pours a box of cereal out on the floor because she’s tired of Corey always cleaning. Isn’t Chris supposed to be a hotshot fighter pilot? I mean, up until this episode, there was absolutely nothing about her character that would suggest that she was incapable of picking up her clothes. I would think that, being a member of the Air Force, she would actually have had some sort of discipline drilled into her. It’s kind of like how soldiers still tend to stand at attention even while visiting their families. Anyway, this storyline ends with Chris throwing food around the apartment and Corey grabbing a pair of scissors and attacking Chris’s laundry …. wait, what? I’m sorry, this is psychotic behavior.

Don’t worry, though. Chris and Corey share a laugh about it and agree to remain friends but not roommates. Uhm, Chris …. Corey took a pair of scissors to your clothes. I mean, I don’t like sloppy people either but I generally don’t try to destroy their possessions.

Of course, the main problem with this episode is the same problem that all of the episodes have had. They’re cops on bikes! They wear shorts and polo shirts and they spend all of their time insisting that they’re real cops even though it’s obvious that they aren’t. Real cops don’t ride bicycles with baskets on the back.

This episode did not leave me with much confidence in California law enforcement.

As a part of my continuing effort to get caught up with reviewing all of the movies that I’ve seen this year, here’s two courtroom dramas that I recently caught on This TV.

Suspect
Released in 1987
Directed by Peter Yates
Starring Cher, Dennis Quaid, Liam Neeson, John Mahoney, Joe Mantegna, Philip Bosco, Fred Melamed, Bernie McInerney, Bill Cobbs, Richard Gant, Jim Walton, Michael Beach, Ralph Cosham, Djanet Sears

Suspect is a hilariously dumb movie. How dumb is it? Let me count the ways.

First off, Cher plays a highly successful if rather stressed public defender. And don’t get me wrong. It’s not that Cher is a bad actress or anything. She’s actually pretty good when she’s playing Cher. But, in this movie, she’s playing someone who managed to graduate from law school and pass the DC bar.

Secondly, Cher is assigned to defend a homeless man when he’s accused of murdering a clerk who works for the Justice Department. The homeless man is deaf and mute, which isn’t funny. What is funny is when he gets a shave and a shower and he’s magically revealed to be a rather handsome and fresh-faced Liam Neeson. Liam doesn’t give a bad performance in the role. In fact, he probably gives the best performance in the film. But still, it’s hard to escape the fact that he’s Liam Neeson and he basically looks like he just arrived for a weekend at Cannes.

Third, during the trial, one of the jurors (Dennis Quaid) decides to investigate the case on his own. Cher even helps him do it, which is the type of thing that would get a real-life attorney disbarred. However, I guess Cher thinks that it’s worth the risk. I guess that’s the power of Dennis Quaid’s smile.

Fourth, the prosecuting attorney is played by Joe Mantegna and he gives such a good performance that you find yourself hoping that he wins the case.

Fifth, while it’s true that real-life attorneys are rarely as slick or well-dressed as they are portrayed in the movies, one would think that Cher would at least take off her leather jacket before cross-examining a witness.

Sixth, it’s not a spoiler to tell you that the homeless man is innocent. We know he’s innocent from the minute that we see he’s Liam Neeson. Liam only kills who people deserve it. The real murderer is revealed at the end of the film and it turns out to be the last person you would suspect, mostly because we haven’t been given any reason to suspect him. The ending is less of a twist and more an extended middle finger to any viewer actually trying to solve the damn mystery.

I usually enjoy a good courtroom drama but bad courtroom dramas put me to sleep. Guess which one Suspect was.

12 Angry Men
Released 1997
Directed by William Friedkin
Starring Courtney B. Vance, Ossie Davis, George C. Scott, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Dorian Harewood, James Gandolfini, Tony Danza, Jack Lemmon, Hume Cronyn, Mykelti Williamson, Edward James Olmos, William Petersen, Mary McDonnell, Tyrees Allen, Douglas Spain

The 12 Angry Men are back!

Well, no, not actually. This is a remake of the classic 1957 film and it was produced for Showtime. It’s updated in that not all of the jurors are white and bigoted Juror #10 (Mykelti Williamson) is now a member of the Nation of Islam. Otherwise, it’s the same script, with Juror #8 (Jack Lemmon) trying to convince the other jurors not to send a young man to Death Row while Juror #3 (George C. Scott) deals with his family issues.

I really wanted to like this production, as it had a strong cast and a strong director and it was a remake of one of my favorite films. Unfortunately, the remake just didn’t work for me. As good an actor as Jack Lemmon was, he just didn’t project the same moral authority as Henry Fonda did the original. If Fonda seemed to be the voice of truth and integrity, Lemmon just came across like an old man who had too much time on his hands. Without Fonda’s moral certitude, 12 Angry Men simply becomes a story about how 12 men acquitted a boy of murder because they assumed that a woman would be too vain to wear her glasses to court. The brilliance of the original is that it keeps you from dwelling on the fact that the accused was probably guilty. The remake, however, feels like almost an argument for abandoning the jury system.