Lowell Conrad | Through the Shattered Lens

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on Tubi!

This week, T.S. investigates a shooting involving a retired police officer. I wonder what Amy would think of all this.

Episode 3.2 “Hargrove’s Call”

(Dir by Don McCutcheon, originally aired on January 13th, 1990)

Bitter, retired cop E.V. Richter (J. Winston Carroll) lives alone, in a house that sits in a neighborhood that has seen better days. He spends his days drinking and his nights fighting with the teenagers who live in the neighborhood. One night, the teens are setting off firecrackers in an alley behind Richter’s house. When Richter yells at them, one of the teens starts to approach his house with a firecracker. Richter shoots him and then tries to plant a gun on the body. However, by the time the police arrive, the gun has disappeared.

The wounded teen’s mother recruits Terri and Turner to prove that her son wasn’t carrying a gun when he was shot. While Turner investigates and tries to discover what happened to the gun, Detective Dick Hargrove (David Hemblen) most deal with his own suspicion that his former colleague is not being honest about what happened.

This was an interesting episode, in that Richter was definitely the bad guy but he also had a legitimate reason to be upset. Setting off firecrackers behind someone’s house is pretty obnoxious and responding to homeowner’s complaint by trying to toss a firecracker at him is …. well, actually, it’s kind of illegal. At least, it is down here. Maybe it’s different up in Canada. Maybe in Canada, they settle disagreements with firecrackers all the time, I don’t know. That said, when Richter tries to plant the gun, he reveals that he’s gone over the edge and it becomes apparent that if he hadn’t shot the kid over the firecrackers, he would have shot him over something else. T and T will never be known as a nuanced or particularly thoughtful show but at least this episode tried to do something more than just follow the standard “Mr. T growls and beats people up” plot.

That said, I still find it weird and distracting that everyone on the show acts as if Terri has always lived in the neighborhood and has always been some sort of crusader. Two episodes into season three and there’s still been no mention of what happened to Amy or why Terri is now suddenly the one in charge. Are we meant to assume that Terri was always around but not just seen during the first two seasons? Or did something happen to Amy that required Terri to move to Toronto or wherever this show is supposed to take place? The lack of even the most rudimentary of explanations feels weird and distracting. Obviously, T and T was never a stickler for continuity but having a major character just vanish without explanation is a big deal. Shouldn’t Turner be out looking for Amy or something?

Maybe that’ll happen next week. We’ll see!

This week’s episode begins in Manitoba but ends in Toronto.

Episode 2.5 “The Whole Truth”

(Dir by Allan Kroeker, originally aired on October 31st, 1988)

Apparently, with the start of the second season, the producers of T & T decided that the show no longer needed to begin with Mr. T telling us what was going to happen on “today’s episode.” That’s a shame, as Mr. T’s introductions were one of the highlights of the first season.

This episode begins with a title card telling us that the scene we’re about to watch is taking place in St. Louis. I’m going to assume that the show must be referring to the St. Louis in Manitoba because everyone knows that T & T totally takes place in Canada.

In St. Louis, Manitoba, a teenage pool player named Bobby (Lowell Conrad) is making a lot of money at the local pool hall. But when a man named Mike (James Purcell) steps into the pool hall, Bobby quickly puts away his pool cue and then makes a run for it.

Both Bobby and Mike end up in the city where T & T is set. A title card tells us that this city is apparently named “Metro County,” but again, the viewer only has to look at the snow on the ground and listen to accents of the inhabitants to realize that Metro County is actually Toronto.

Mike and Amy show up at Decker’s gym, where they have a meeting with T.S. (As opposed to the first season, in which Turner worked out of Amy’s law office, it now appears that T.S. works exclusively out of the gym.) Amy says that Mike is a client who needs help. Mike explains that he works for a St. Louis insurance company that is after a juvenile car thief named Bobby Slayton. Despite the fact that everything about Mike — from his suit to his smirk — radiates evil, T.S. agrees to help.

Joe Casper (Sean Roberge), who is apparently now like totally reformed from his flirtation with being a Neo-Nazi in the previous episode, is now living at Decker’s gym. He helps T.S. by walking around Toronto and asking random people, “Have you seen a 16 year-old, about 5’6?” Somehow, this vague description leads him to Bobby, who is once again making a living as a pool hustler.

As you probably already guessed, Mike is not an insurance agent and Bobby is not a car thief. Instead, Bobby is someone who has been on the run ever since he saw Mike murder a convenience store clerk during a robbery. When Mike comes after Bobby, he finds T.S. waiting for him.

“You’re outta gas, brother!” T.S. yells before grabbing Mike.

The episodes ends on a curious note, with T.S., Amy, and Bobby leaving a courtroom and lamenting that Mike was found not guilty on the robbery charge. Bobby says that the system failed to do its job but T.S. tells him that “sometimes, that’s what happens, little brother.” But, T.S. also assures Bobby that Mike will be going to jail on the attempted murder charge. Well, let’s hope so.

So far, this season of T&T seems like it’s attempting to be a bit more serious than the first season. If this episode had aired during the first season, Mr. T would have picked up Mike by his ankles and carried him around Toronto while inviting all of the citizens to jeer him and throw hockey pucks at him. Instead, in this episode, we just get Mr. T grabbing Mike and then waiting for the police to show up. That’s a shame as the first season was at its best whenever it acknowledged the absurdity of Mr. T working as a private detective in Toronto. This is really not a show that has any business taking itself seriously.

As with the previous second season episodes, there was a serious lack of Mr. T quirkiness in this episode. There was no talk of his love for cookies or gospel music. So far, about the only personality that T.S. Turner retains from the first season is his habit of calling everyone “brother.” Otherwise, T.S. has been turned into a typical, streetwise private eye. Seriously, why would you cast Mr. T and then not let him be Mr. T?