The short answer to the mandatory retirement question is probably "they fudged it".
They did have episodes where Luger is threatened with forced retirement, and/or reassignment, because of his age. Even though I know the series pretty well, at the moment I can't recall exactly how they explained Luger dodging the forced retirement bullet.
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I can think of a few reasons why Luger and Fish weren't chummier, despite their both being old-timers.
For one thing, they might've had a "history" that's never revealed-- not necessarily a hostile encounter, just something that would make them keep their distance.
Or, since the NYPD is so big, perhaps they passed each other by like two ships in the night in their early careers. Maybe Luger, Brownie, Foster, and Kleiner were in a class ahead of Fish, and/or had moved up in rank and traveled in different departmental circles than young Fish. ("Young Fish" sounds like an oxymoron, I know. 😉 )
That's all pure speculation, but I can think of something based on their characters: Fish is obviously not a person who suffers fools gladly; he even struggles to remain civil to Bernice, his own wife!
Speaking of whom, there was that episode in which a uniform cop who graduated with Fish from the academy turns up and glad-hands Fish. Fish eventually tells off the cop for expressing too much interest in Bernice, but even before that Fish wasn't exactly glad to see the guy.
So: Fish isn't sentimental by nature in the first place, and persons like that have no time for extroverted blowhards (fools) like Luger.
In short, regardless of the potential for friendship based on their common history, because of their very different personalities, they had no "chemistry".
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the_match_maker
8 years ago
The idea of their characters clashing is a very good one. I could see Luger maybe picking up on Fish's not suffering him, and thus doesn't interact with him as one might have expected.
Though I'm still interested in knowing how Luger somehow avoided forced retirement...
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skohl632001
7 years ago
This is where things get tricky for me. It seems that they definitely wanted to portray Luger as younger than Fish. Witness Fish's retirement episode where Luger wants to make a big deal out of it...a party with cake, ice cream, etc. It doesn't seem that his (Luger's) attitude would make sense if he was "dodging" retirement. It would almost be like he was rubbing Fish's nose in it (which was NOT in character for Luger). Luger even refers to Fish at one point as "one of the greats". Almost like Luger looked up to him.
No, the age thing doesn't make sense but, since I always loved Luger as a character, I'm more than hapy to suspend my disbelief.
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amyghost
7 years ago
I don't recall any episodes where Luger's exact age is given, so he's probably a few years younger than Fish--recall that Luger did sort of get around the mandatory retirement issue by finagling his connections to be made a 'media liason' later on.
Best bet is Luger just seems a bit older than his actual years because of the way he dresses, and the fact that he's constantly harping on the good old days. Retirement age is hovering on the horizon for him, but unlike Fish he's still got a few years to go--and being higher up in the department likely has a few more friends behind the scenes who can help him to stay on the force in some capacity or another, as opposed to Fish, who's just a squadroom detective.
50 Is The New Cutoff Age.
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ben-thayer
7 years ago
In the episode The Psychic (S7, E11, 1981) Luger states at the end that June 1, 1984 will be the date they "put him out to pasture".
In theory one could use that date to estimate his age. If the mandatory retirement age is 62 then he's around 59 or so, but that just doesn't seem right, he's got to be older than that. If it's 65, then he's in his early 60s. Still seems too young, although different people age differently.
BTW James Gregory was 70 or so when this episode aired, and I would've guessed late 60s or thereabouts myself.
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the_match_maker
7 years ago
Luger being younger would seem to be true. I just saw the last three episodes of the series, and at one point he talks about "going on sixty--" before he cuts himself off. So, at the very least, he's somewhere in his sixties by the end of the series, which means that Fish (who had already hit retirement age) has to be older.
If his last day was to be in 1984, and mandatory retirement was 62, that would mean that he'd have been around 60 when the final episode aired. Which begs the question: how long was Luger on the force?
Luger always talks about the 'good old days', yet, even if he were to have joined the force straight out of high school at 18, that would have only been in 1940. The way he talked, I always thought that he'd been there since the 1930's. But, I guess not. He just seems older than he really is.
Either way, he's always been my favorite character. Old School, baby. 😃
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Doug-Oh
7 years ago
Either way, he's always been my favorite character. Old School, baby.
He's my favorite character too.
"... Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar-nee......"
He's like Col. Flagg on MASH, made occasional appearances.
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stones78 (426)
3 years ago
Luger stinks, so phony-acting.
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thbryn (226)
2 years ago
How about Lugar having special status, due to his Inspectorship? I tried.
I saw the final Fish ep. in the old precinct -on Antenna- and it was a good one. Someone mentioned the show can be like a play at times. It did hear, sort of like "Our Town."
I don't know whether they had high hopes for "Fish " on ABC. I didn't getr very far. I'm not surprised as "BArney" never really got good ratings and was fortunate to survive 6 seasons. Or maybe they just wanted Vigoda out and "Dietrich" -SteveLandesberg- as a much more versatile character, in . Vigoda did a very nice job on his final "Barney."
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