549 Cagney and Lacey

First  viewed  : 9  July  1982

You  could  see  it  as  progress  that  this  filled  the  Starsky  and  Hutch  slot  on  a  Friday  night   but  I  certainly  didn't  see  it  that  way  at  the  time.

Cagney  and  Lacey  was  the  anti-Charlie's  Angels. It  followed  two  female  detectives   in  New  York  battling  their  sexist  colleagues  as  much  as  the  criminal  element. Mary  Beth  Lacey  was  a  married  woman  with  kids  while  Chris  Cagney  was  a  career-minded  singleton. Lacey  was  played  by  Tyne  Daly,  previously  best  known  for  being  Clint  Eastwood's  customarily  doomed  partner  in  the  third  Dirty  Harry  film, The  Enforcer. Cagney  was  initially  played  ( though  not  in  the  pilot ) by  Meg  Foster  who'd  been  in  the  film  Carnie  with  Jodie  ( no  relation )  Foster. 
There  was  a  fair  sprinkling  of  propaganda  in  the  scripts with  lines  like  "We  don't  have  to  be  twice  as  good  to  be  treated  as  equal" tossed  into  everyday  conversations  between  the  pair. The  series  repeatedly  brushed  with  near-cancellation  but  in  the  end  lasted  seven  years  and  was  sprinkled  with  awards.

The  series  followed  the  new  orthodoxy  of  paying  as  much  attention  to  the  cops'  private  lives  as  much  as  their  work  but  took  it  a  step  further. Often  the  case  was  completely  secondary, resolved  in  an  off  hand  one  liner , sometimes  not  resolved  at  all. Instead  we  had  to  suffer  endless  scenes  documenting  Lacey's  married  life  with  terminally  boring  husband  Harvey  ( John  Karlen ).

As  you  may  already  have  guessed  I  didn't  like  it. I  know  this  is  terribly  sexist  but  I  couldn't see  the  point  of  having  female  protagonists  who  were  unattractive. Daly's  face  couldn't  be described  as  pretty,  she  was  chubby  and  her  nasal  caw  of  a  voice  was  even  uglier. Foster was  trimmer  but  you  were  freaked  out  by  her  basilisk  eyes. In  any  case  she  didn't  last  very long. The  show  was  faced  with  being  cancelled  after  just  six  episodes  and  she  had  to  be sacrificed  for  the  prettier, more  feminine  Sharon  Gless. Cagney  also  had  to  be  more promiscuous  to  allay  any  fears  she  might  be  a  lesbian.

I  decided  it  wasn't  for  me  after  a  couple  of  episodes  but  my  mum  loved  it  so  I  would occasionally  end  up  watching  an  episode  just  because  it  was  on. It  was  eventually  cancelled in  1988  but  there  have  been  four  TV  movies  reuniting  the  characters  since.