Early Spelling: Honey West

I have mixed feelings about Aaron Spelling. On one hand I do love Charlies Angels (circa Farah Fawcett) and thought I might one day marry Jonathan Hart, but generally I don't like how the type of shows he produced (such as T J Hooker) came to dominate television in the 70s and 80s. The style is formulaic, action-packed, with storylines that fit neatly into their 40 minute or so time slot, with no depth. Spelling didn't produce them all, but he was probably the godfather of that genre that replaced grittier shows like Ironside and Kojak.

But having said all of this, I'm quite pleased at having just discovered one of Spelling's first shows, Honey West. There was just one series of 30 episodes made showing in 1965 to 1966. The show is black and white, has those Spelling trademark plots, but is possibly one of the first shows to feature a feisty independent female lead and was probably rather remarkable when it was first shown. Honey runs a detective agency with her less interesting male friend, who there are appears to be a will they/won't they type of relationship (in the style of Remingston Steele). She drives a sports car (rather like Penelope Pitstop!) and she owns a pet ocelot called Bruce (the only detective to do so, to my knowledge).

I've just watched two episodes and so far her investigations seem to involve rescuing less feisty heiress and actresses from the evil schemes of men. Besides the ocelot, there is a good dose of quirkiness to the show, and some amusing dialogue such as when Honey was rescued by her male associate and she asks him how he knew where to find her, and he replies "I'd already looked everywhere else".

So its easy on the brain but sometimes that is good. It makes a change from the utter misery-fest of SVU.

RIP Farrah Fawcett

Somewhat overshadowed by the news of Michael Jackson's death, I was saddened by the news of Farrah Fawcett's death. Although she wasn't my favourite Angel and I never wanted her iconic haircut, I only liked the show when she was in it.

Here is the opening credits from the pilot episode.

36 Hours of Crime & Flu

Still off work ill, but just about managing to crawl to the lounge to watch television and then to the computer to break up the day. The novelty of daytime detective watching has truly worn off and I'm regretting watching Criminal Minds so quickly.

In the last 36 hours, I've watched the following:

Crossing Jordan - I watched it but through my flu-haze I struggled to follow it properly. It was nearly over before I realised there were two separate crimes, which was why I was confused. Like I said, I'm ill.

Season 5, Disc 2 of The Shield - three episodes in total. I wasn't enjoying it but then as the plot moved away from the Strike Team and onto Dutch and Claudette instead, I started to get back into it. I had only just remarked how I would prefer it if they had their own spin-off series, when Claudette fell down and the episode ended. We now have to wait a couple of days for the next installment to arrive.

Law & Order SVU - the second episode about Olivia's brother and whether he is a rapist. I'd seen the first episode a while ago but missed the follow-on, but last night, all the loose ends were tied up.

Intelligence - the first ever episode of it - or rather the first twenty minutes of it before I crashed out. It looked quite good although a poor man's The Wire or Sopranos perhaps.

Ironside - another good episode about using a television show to trap a killer. The television show was part Crime Watch, part debate. It was interesting that the same worries about crumbling society and rising crime were issues in San Francisco in 1970s as they are in the UK today.

Charlies Angels - an episode from series 3 about a psychics. Not bad, but it is late period Angels where Farah has been replaced by Cheryl Ladd and its just not the same. I miss Farah's big hair. I attempted to watch a second episode involving 'the death of Charlie's favourite folk singer'. The plot involved drugs and laundrettes but even so I slept through it.

Cold Case - Whilst I've seen other cold case based programmes, I'd not seen this show before, perhaps because it is on Sky One, rarely a good sign. But it was ok. It was about the murder of a yuppie trader and although it was complete with 80s soundtrack and detail, it didn't get in the way of a pretty good plot. I liked the device of switching between how the person looked at the time of the murder and how they are in the present.

That's an awful lot of crime - no wonder I feel ill but at least I've managed to avoid Diagnosis Murder.

Anyway, I must get back under my duvet as Randall and Hopkirk will be starting soon.

Sick as a Detective

I was off work sick yesterday which in itself was a bad thing but it did mean I got to watch a lot of television. A huge amount in fact including lots of things I normally wouldn’t watch.

Cagney & Lacey
The plot involved an informant going undercover in a school to find out who was selling drugs to the pupils. The drug was PCP, not something you hear much about these days but obviously a big worry in Eighties New York. There was also a subplot involving Harvey Jr’s school project.

Starsky & Hutch
An improbable story of an old people who fill a car with dynamite in a plan to blow up their residential home, but the car is then stolen. I must admit I dozed off during this but it will seemed to work out fine in the end with the old folks being promised better food in their home.

Profiler
A beauty queen is murdered and suspicion falls on her uncooperative parents, but then similarities are noticed with other murders. It was pretty dark, taking in possible incest, voyeurism and piano tuning! The on-going storyline of Jack stalking the profiler reared its head at the end of the episode too.

The Rockford Files
An airhostess friend of Rockford (Sharon Gless of Cagney & Lacey in her younger days) gets into an argument with a passenger, a Coin Collector when she comments on his frequent flying. He later attempts to kill her. Rockford gets involved with some strange plan to get the Coin Collector arrested which seemed rather foolish and pointless. But it was an engaging episode and I’ll make a point of watching it again next time I’m ill.

Hart to Hart
Redhead prostitutes are being murdered and the police aren’t that interested in solving the crime. So Jonathan and Jennifer get involved, much to the police’s disdain, another girl is murdered, they solve the crime.

Charlie’s Angels
The Angels are sent to Mexico to trap a drug baron. They each adopt a persona that suits their varied talents – Sabrina pretends to be an air hostess because she speaks Spanish, Kelly attracts the drug baron by wearing a daring bikini and Jill becomes a swimming coach for his daughter – the latter two roles obviously based more on getting the girls in swimwear than furthering the plot. There was a plot twist at the end that I saw coming a mile off.


Plus a couple of episodes of Homicide Life on the Street to round the day off nicely.

Style File: Charlie's Angels

Like many programmes from the past, Charlie’s Angels is probably best left to nostalgia as re-watching tends to lead to disappointment. The plots are paper thin. Characterisation is weak. And don’t get me started on the sexism

But the one thing that it is worth watching Charlie’s Angels for is the fashion. The Angels remain undeniably stylish and for this very reason I’ll be watching more on the video on demand channel.

I have a weakness for retro clothing so I would probably always love the Angel’s style, but such is the cyclical nature of fashion, they actually look very ‘now’ anyway. The episode I watched yesterday featured high-waisted flared jeans with tight t-shirts (always a favourite look round my house). In particular, Jaclyn Smith was wearing a very cool white Monaco Grand Prix t-shirt with her flares. Their wardrobes also contain wide collared shirts, pussy bow blouses and cute knits. The cinema remake Angels were no where near this stylish.

Strangely though, Farah Fawcett (Majors) was the main idol at the time, but I actually find her the least attractive of the three (I still wouldn’t say no to looking like her and she married the Fall Guy!). I think it might be because her clothes are the most obvious, whereas I prefer the understated style of the other pair. The men’s fashion however has not faired so well – yesterday’s villain was wearing an mechanics overalls most of the time, but this being the 70’s they were unbuttoned to the waist to show his chest – not a good look, but then he was a baddie.

Last Week's Viewing

I had a very busy week last week, which included going to a fashion show, going away for work and on Saturday actually socialising with my friends all day. So this didn't leave much time for watching television and I didn't really watch anything until Sunday, when I tried to make up for lost time.

Saturday: I got home at 11 so watched the last bit of SVU then the start of Criminal Minds, where predictably I fell asleep, woke up 15 minutes before the end, dozed off again and woke up five minutes after it had finished.

Sunday: A bumper viewing day, but it didn't start until later. I had wanted to watch the episode of Columbo which involved a production of Macbeth, but the OH was watching sport so I had to wait until later.

I watched a quick episode of Charlie's Angels wihch involved female racing drivers, then a Perry Mason: The Case of the Poisoned Pen. This episode involved the death of a murder mystery writer and the other suspects were all other murder mystery writers. How postmodern! It was fairly predictable and the formulaic structure annoyed me a bit.

Then the OH and I watched two episodes of SVU that we'd recorded the other week. The first episode was very good - Olivia had found her half brother, fathered by the man who raped her mother. But then he was a suspect in a stalking case, raising the question of whether he has inherited this from their father. Meanwhile the captain questions whether Olivia and Elliot should remain partners. Honestly, I wish they'd just have sex with each other to get it over with!


The second episode wasn’t so interesting and annoyingly we’d missed one in between so have no idea if the brother situation was explored further or if that was it. Olivia and Elliot were still partners though although showing no signs of having consummated the relationship. This episode involved underage drinking, something that in the UK would more likely be a case for social services rather than the police. All of the teenagers involved were irritating and I’m glad I didn’t go to an American High School as its nothing like Sweet Valley High these days.

Next up was an episode of Criminal Intent, apparently the sixth ever episode, which seemed a strange landmark to announce. You could tell it was an early episode though as everyone is wary of Goran’s bizarre behaviour rather than accepting his genius. It involved priests, foster care and homeless shelters, and was suitably bleak.

Then I rounded the day off with Medium. The OH watched it with me for the first time, but seemed to struggle with the conventions of showing flashbacks and visions. He found the family life subplot boring and suggested the programme should be renamed ‘Tedium’. I enjoyed the episode despite his distractions although next week I think I’ll watch it on my own.

This Weekend's (Thwarted) Viewing

I attempted to watch Criminal Minds last night for the first time. Unfortunately it was on a bit late and I annoyingly fell asleep before it concluded. What I did see wasn't too bad - three bombs had gone off and the team were trying to find a link between the victims and looking at the explosive devices to find the culprit. The section with the bomb expert looking at how the devices were made was particularly interesting, as he explained how each bomb maker has a signature and what you can deduce about their character. Fascinating stuff, but the plot device used to allow him to explain this to the audience (because in real life he'd probably do this in silence) he was explaining his ideas to what appeared to be an intern! An intern in the FBI! Does that happen? It seemed rather a clunky way of doing it and as it is the first time I've seen this show, I don't know if they always have a dumb person to explain stuff to.

Law & Order SVU was also on two channels pretty much simultaneously last night and I'd already seen both episodes. What are the chances of that? Actually probably quite high, especially since Five are saving their new series for weekdays only. I had also already seen today's Perry Mason case.

Even more annoying was that a cable channel we don't get (Living TV) had a Detective special weekend - a friend sent me a Facebook message to alert me to this. I was gutted. Apparently one show posed the question of 'If you were murdered who would you want on the case?' This is a question I will no doubt return to here later.

On a positive note, we now seem to be receive a batch of new channels including one On Demand Channel that has a whole series of Charlies Angels, which I'm hoping my partner will watch with me if only so he can decide if he prefers Jaclyn Smith or Kate Jackson (he's already ruled out Farah).