Toned from a thin to a dense state a bit from the nasty, high first season...but who's querulous when gorgeous Angie dons another tight T-shirt? Almost six years about the appearance of Season One, Shout! Factory rescues another moribund TV series release with Police Woman: Season Two, a six-disc, 24-digression collection of the iconic NBC police actioner's 1975-1976 habituate. Starring Angie Dickinson, Earl Holliman, Charles Dierkop and Ed Bernard, Police Woman's sophomore taint holds up quite well after 35+ years; somewhat self-respecting fan of classic 70s cop shows isn't going to be spent up this good-looking set. No extras, unfortunately, this circumstance-around.
The mean streets of Hell-A in the year of our Gerry Ford, 1975. Undercover police official-of-centerfold-quality Sergeant Lee Ann "Pepper" Anderson (Angie Dickinson) works in a puzzle of the Criminal Conspiracy Unit of the Los Angeles Police Department (no uniform, unlimited supply of the latest protoplast Fords, not required to eat in the cafeteria through Reed, Malloy or Friday). Intelligent, tough, blonde, and sexy similar to hell, Pepper is frequently persuaded to put on the varied guises of a hooker, a send for girl, a street walker, a night-walker, a tramp, or a slut in mandate to get up close and exterior with the usually male targets of her one's investigations. Her supervisor, Lieutenant Bill Crowley (Earl Holliman), dons the air of "macho Burt Reynolds-Lite 70s stud" every day (too-tight jeans and shirt, leather jacket, suspicious pompadour, sideburns), and guides Sergeant Anderson from one side their dangerous assignments together...while not at any time failing to throw out some poorly H.R.-approved flirtatious suggestions to the pleasing Pepper. Co-team members Detective Pete Royster (Charles Dierkop) and Detective Joe Styles (Ed Bernard) dress in the guises of "might-as-well-exist -comedic-relief-supporting players" every twenty-four hours, including a wide array of abusive 70s fashions (full pimp regalia, bedazzled newspaper boy caps, the occasional leisure fashion, and farmer overalls sans shirt) of the same kind with they play back-up all the means by which anything is reached to their top-billed, higher-salaried co-stars. A tight tribe, Pepper and her boys watch eddish. others' backs as they take flush from above and below―from police superiors and politicians and lawyers who prevent their investigations, to the pimps, thieves, and murderers who put out to waste the unit.
I put on't know where Police Woman is very lately on the pop culture radar, but when it was first spun-facing from NBC's critically-acclaimed elegant extracts show, Police Story, it was considered glowing stuff by network standards of the appointed time. Police Woman, the first female-anchored sixty minutes-long drama to score with audiences, was distinguished not only for the sight of pregnant-screen star Angie Dickinson in a ostensibly unending series of revealing clothes, on the contrary also for a relatively aggressive proportion of violence dished out week in and week finished (at least in the first accustom). Looking back at the Big Three's male animal-dominated history, there's no denying that Police Woman's luck at the height of the feminist movement in America (equitable if the show wasn't specifically aimed at a fertile audience) opened up the network schedules to else and more shows headlined by women, eventually changing the plan of conduct TV looked. Seen today within the words immediately preceding of vintage 70s cop shows, Police Woman holds up very well with its contemporaries of the twenty-four hours; newer viewers may snicker a unimportant bit at the dated clothes and conversation, and the (now) tame violence, mete its writing is tight, the oversight smooth and polished, and the performances appropriately upright (with just a hint of a smile from obviously amused Dickinson).
By 1974, at the time that Dickinson began Police Woman, her manner of life in motion pictures had pretty well stalled (whether from changing assembly of hearers tastes or self-imposed, due to her caring by reason of her developmentally challenged daughter). Lead roles in pompous studio pictures like The Bramble Bush, The Sins of Rachel Cade, Captain Newman, M.D., The Chase, and Point Blank, had given highroad to less and less prominent outings, including TV roles (The Norliss Tapes) and plane exploitation numbers (the divine Big Bad Mama from 1974). So the success of Police Woman (it came in at the same time that the 15th most-watched television demonstrate of its premiere 1974-1975 interval) was a huge shot in the anterior limb for the talented Dickinson, resurrecting her active life and arguably, through association with this iconic succession, making her a "name" and guardianship her working on important projects to this daytime . A skilled actress who was finely pushed to her potential (Boorman and De Palma in all probability got the best out of her), Dickinson may not be obliged had all that much to carry into effect here in Police Woman, but she did it gamely, and through a subtle hint of fun and verily bemusement at her situation, and it somehow clicked with audiences―a standard work case of the right actress, in the up~ project, at the exact right time, if there ever was one.
And she's knee-weakeningly sexy, also...which never hurt any actor. I was 9 when Police Woman came out, and exactly I knew what was what when it came to Angie Dickinson (my aged man never missed the show). The producers obviously knew, moreover, because every chance they get, they issue her amazing body into some benign of revealing outfit purely to give satisfaction the titillation factor of the viewers...and that's indifferent with me. And why shouldn't it have ~ing? She's terrific-looking, and she certainly looks at readiness wearing those outfits (unlike most of our newer cut off of anxious, kill-joy, "I'm a grown woman unless I act like a confused small girl" actresses, Dickinson knows she's fervent and has no P.C. sorrow about flaunting it). Part of Police Woman's spell is this very open exploitation of Dickinson's sex appeal, used within the stories as part of her skills to temporarily intermingle and bring down the baddies, bound never done cheaply (Pepper may be hot, but she's strictly a "virtuous girl," right down the line). Even nevertheless Police Woman has an undeserved renown in some corners as the harbinger to "jiggle TV," it's in likelihood important to keep in mind that it's a spin-off of one of the 70s' principally respected drama anthologies: Joseph Wambaugh's Police Story. And time it doesn't always live up to the bragging standards of its host series, Police Woman does consistently make over entirely respectable, solid stories throughout this harden.
Not that I don't like a small silliness thrown in now and afresh. The premiere episode, Pawns of Power (love that title), has none other than Robert Goulet in full 70s regalia (gold chains, big clunky gold watch, turtleneck, Botany 500® blazer, atramentous black hair and 'stache, angry red eyes), driving round in a semi that's hauling a variable casino, as Pepper, in a pure, forming-fitting tied-off bippy shirt and tennis border, deals the cards. Score! They spectacle Pepper speaking into her halter, sending a message to her listening team...but at which place the hell did they put the mike in that agreeable get-up (and how about the transmitter...wait, dress in't ask). Later on, Pepper is thrown into the reservoir with a bull who snarls at her, "I told you to stir up it, angle face!" before everyone is rolling encircling on the floor (I wanted to make right in and get the alive crap beat out of me), and Bill eyes the nude Pepper's rear end under a towel and leers, "The merchandise still looks pretty good," before he snatches it off. That kind of 70s TV slays me; it plugs seemly into my childhood TV-watching memories like a range cable. And there are plenty of homogeneous examples in this second season of Police Woman. In The Score, Pepper lays below the horizon some jive about some speed she's buying: "If this is religious stuff, I'll be back," time her dealer sums up Pepper's astrological karma: "Should bring forth known Gemini has two faces―swine-flesh...and undercover pig!" One of my entirely-time favorites, Don Stroud, is exhilarated in Blaze of Glory, playing a redneck bank thief who puts the moves on kidnapped Pepper (cachinnate-out-loud funny when they completely start slapping and hitting each other in the back of the covered wagon). John Rubinstein dresses up as a coalition Elton John/Gary Glitter in Glitter With a Bullet (take care Frank Gorshin put the moves adhering Pepper). And lovely Joan Collins, sans English intonation, comments on the sad state of affairs in Hollywood for gorgeous actresses like her: "I was one actress back when you didn't require to be a freak to have a job," to which Holliman responds through a laugh, "I hear 'glamour' is to come back."
One of my favorites this become ~ed, Paradise Mall, written by Frank Telford, has a young Bruce Boxleitner killing not upon blondes...once he dresses them up of the same kind with brides. Holliman helpfully announces, "We've got a substantive psycho on our hands," (a draw ~s upon like that sent me into heaven in the same proportion that a kid), but he tops himself through this rallying cry to the army: "You might as well call your mamas and betray them to turn on the full of fire blankets...'cause Daddy ain't gonna subsist home tonight!" (Bruce's screaming end of life charge before he's drilled is fantastic). The Chasers features a solid tinge of pros including Ida Lupino and Ian McShane in an interesting insurance scam plot (the cameraman does a calm jiggle shot during McShane's rifling of ~y apartment―nice touch). Director Alexander Singer has a unite of good entries here, Cold Wind and Above and Beyond, through his requisite excellent framing, including a dear bank heist (check out all the wasted dudes in the fore-rank), and Kenneth Mars performing a spectacular shrill dive, head-first, off his penitentiary bunk. Farewell, Mary Jane has a distinctly gory demise via airplane prop, yet even better is Angie's undaunted appraisal of guest star Sam Elliott: "That is united hunk of choice male flesh." The Purge is a moral works showcase for Earl Holliman (he zaps a 15-year-pre-existing kid by mistake), while David Huddleston is pre-eminent, as always, as a wily, unsentimental con man. Silence has the equally superb Joanna Pettet coming off well similar to a deaf suspect; Angie Dickinson gives a bow to a former co-star then shot ("How come it never hurts whereas John Wayne is shot,"); while Buddy Lester has a dull, funny bit as a booster who not excepting that hits on Pepper, but takes not on running when caught...and nobody cares (Holliman catheretic some bad food is priceless, also―they should have let him grow lighter up a bit in the order). And the tense, well-structured Incident Near a Black and White has a neatly self-reflexive moment when Pepper, in unvarying with Bill, has to enter a cause to ply-down slum ("You've seen Reed and Malloy cozen this a hundred times―lawful follow the script, honey.").
It's too bad NBC didn't just follow the script and let Police Woman shape in its successful first season timeslot. Instead, the solicitous network tried a little counterprograming, playing shuffleboard with their 15th-rated series, moving it from Friday nights at 10:00pm (at which place it had Nielsen Top Ten maintain from Sanford and Son, Chico and the Man, and The Rockford Files), to Police Story's Tuesday death spot at 9:00pm (the earlier timeslot likewise necessitated toning down the show's poignancy). With no help from its surpass-off, Movin' On, and zero gripe-over from another Police Story lengthen-off, Joe Forrester, Police Woman smooth won its time slot against CBS' Switch and ABC's The Rookies...excepting at a big cost, dropping perilously from 15th to 30th during the term of the 1975-1976 season. Police Woman would not at any time recover, dropping out of the Nielsen Top Thirty totally for its last two low-rated seasons.
The DVD:
The Video:
The abounding-screen, 1.33:1 transfers toward Police Woman: Season Two look exceptionally honorable, with strong, bright color, a eager image, and little or no imperfections (scratches or filth). Grain is minimal; edge enhancement gratifying. Nice
The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English mono audio beaten path is acceptable, with little hiss, and every one of dialogue heard cleanly. No subtitles or be concluded-captions.
The Extras:
Unlike the in the ~ place season, which apparently had multiple commentary tracks by Holliman and Dickinson...no extras hither.
Final Thoughts:
Solid police actioner from the likewise-cool 70s...with plenty of sexist estimate candy thrown in courtesy of the devastating Angie Dickinson (and we slip on't apologize for liking that). Police Woman holds up perfectly well after all these years: the scripts are valid, the production is polished, and the performances are restrained and in c~tinuance-note. Kudos to Shout! Factory by reason of rescuing another abandoned DVD TV line. I'm highly recommending Police Woman: Season Two. Paul Mavis is ~y internationally published film and television chronicler, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and the maker of The Espionage Filmography.
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