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!