Ringside Report Looks Back at Cagney and Lacy…

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

Lockdown, lowdown…

She was the epitome of a female police officer in a duo that rocked our world when it arrived in the UK and became an icon for all women. Troubled and flaky, the role she played in the Ying/Yang double act when her partner was safe, secure and married whilst she was unstable, insecure, and single was enough for her legacy as an actor to be assured.

And then she pitched up as Michael’s mum.

Sharon Gless was iconic in Cagney and Lacey. Cagney and Lacey was, in itself, iconic. It took feminism and gave us a real life dose of it. It was not of its time but ahead of it and the association we had for characters and the people who played the were never stronger than when we all sat down, in the UK and watched this show. We had our own “feminist” characters in cop shows like in Juliet Bravo or Jane Tennyson in Prime Suspect but their appearance onscreen felt more sedate than the blasting on the TV that Cagney and Lacey gave us. Homicides, Harvey having a heart attack, Lacey getting to AA meetings – this was not rural Berkshire or the English village green – this was earthy and edgy.
And then they disappeared.

The proliferation of channels given to us by Sky and the terrestrial television, in turn, helped by the arrival of Channel Five widened our scope to find those actors who had been there, done that and left an indelible impression on our psyche – we were ready to rediscover time in any new role, people who were once never out our thoughts but then were lost as their shows were cancelled or let go by the networks. We wondered where they went to – some kind of TV graveyard? And then up she popped.

In Burn Notice.
The principle of the show was very simple. Michael Westen, one time spy had been burned by the CIA. It meant that he was persona non grata, cut loose, no longer welcome and to be ignored. He lost everything. He needed to get his life back, whilst in hiding and make a life for himself. With Fiona – oft time girlfriend – and Sam – hard nosed and embittered friend and compadre – Westen made a life and helped out people with his unlimited array of skills.

As a piece of TV what it did exceptionally well was give Westen a voiceover. He narrated much of the action himself, giving us an insight into his technique, the dirty tricks of his trade and how he was able to survive, with no work history, no access to cash and no identity – a technique copied or at least inspired by the likes of McGyver and Dragnet. It was high octane with issues each week seemingly able to find him no matter how anonymous he might be. His one wish remained to get back into the CIA and get his life back. Over 7 seasons, 111 episodes and one movie that was always tantalizingly close but never totally within grasp.

The ending was sheer genius.

SPOILER ALERT

Having been introduced to Jeffrey Donovan as Michael, Gabrielle Anwar as Fiona and Bruce Campbell as Sam – not to mention Coby Bell from seasons four as a former CIA operative Michael burns by mistake – I, ironically, found it hard and still do, to think of these actors as anyone else but these characters! Ironical as I had by now managed to see Sharon Gless as more than Lacey.
The desire is always to leave you wanting more but the show took out one of the principals in what was literally an explosive ending. The final season, truncated to 13 episodes – always a sign of something coming to an end, meant we had an overarching narrative to conclude the whole thing. Maddie (Sharon Gless) manages to provide the ultimate sacrifice in her attempt to save her own son as the final season weaved its way through unfamiliar waters with organizations dedicated to peace using dubious methods and Michael getting his woman, Fiona getting her dream and people getting left with the feeling, having watched it, that there should be far more to watch than what we had just witnessed.

Leaving you wanting more – what could be a better legacy!

British television is a curious affair. Begun through the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) it is funded through the universal license fee. In essence, if you wanted to watch the television , you had to pay the license fee. The BBC got it all and is state run, albeit at arms-length. Then came along commercial television in the form of the Independent Television (ITV) in 1955. Designed to bring a bit of competition to the BBC, it was paid for through advertising but still free to air… well they didn’t add another license fee to it. By the time that I was born, 1965, there was BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. And that was it. It was still years before Bruce Springsteen would moan that there were 55 channels and nothing on but here in the UK, we kept this going until in 1982, we added a fourth channel and in 1997, a fifth. With sparkling imagination, they were called Channel Four and ehm Channel Five… In between came Sky and we understood what Springsteen meant. And so, my childhood and leading up to early adulthood we had three options… But the programs made were exceptionally good. And so, here is some critical nostalgia as the lockdown has brought a plethora of reruns, new formats and platforms and old classics trying to make their way back into our consciousness as broadcasters flood their schedules with classics… or are they classics at all? Let me take you through an armchair critics’ view of what we have to see, to find out… Welcome to the Lockdown Lowdown…

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