Looking at episodes from seasons 7 & 8

Thanks for the reply tenement-funster.

On iOffer, you cannot rate the experience with the seller until 7 days after delivery-- this is done so the buyer and seller can work out whatever problems may arise before a negative rating is issued. So I had emailed her and said very generally the discs are unusable. She just replied back and wanted specifics. So I basically copied and pasted what I had written earlier in this thread and sent it on to her.

Yes, to borrow the mantra at the end of your posts, I should accept NO substitutes. :)

'Desperately Seeking Dacody'
Suzanne Sugarbaker comes to San Diego

I had been eager to see this episode, since as we all know, Gerald McRaney married Delta Burke in real life. I am not sure when this episode came in the timeline of their relationship, but Delta had already been delighting audiences as Suzanne Sugarbaker on CBS' hit southern sitcom Designing Women for a year before she turned up on this show. In many ways, Delta has a very limited range as an actress, and this story sort of proves it. She's basically playing another Suzanne type character, charming the pants off Rick and pulling a few fast numbers on him and his brother. Even after she seems to experience a change of heart midway through the story, she still manages to stiff them with the bill at the end. I guess we needed to know that while Mac wound up with Delta behind the scenes, Rick did not get to keep her on camera.

And yet, despite Delta's limited ability to play a wide range of characters, she does manage very well here with the highly specialized, high-maintenance woman she plays. She's a reporter Rick knew in 'Nam, and her stupid selfish act fifteen years earlier caused a lot of suffering for the men Rick served with. In a pivotal scene, he lashes out at her and tells her what kind of pain she caused. It's not a typical screaming match-- yes, the veins on Rick's neck and forehead are popping out-- but he is setting her straight because he cares enough to see her change, and this comes across vividly. Delta's reactions are perfect, including the apology scene that follows afterward, and this is perhaps some of the best acting she's ever done on television.

The title for the episode is an allusion to a movie called Desperately Seeking Susan, which couldn't be more different from this particular crime story. The plot involves a fugitive from "justice" (and we put that word in quotes because this is another episode about corrupt small-town justice) whom Delta's character believes has been set up. The Simons help her basically help him, and it all seems to be moving along as one expects, until the last part. The scene where the Simons stop guest star Pat Corley from extraditing Dacody sacrifices all credibility the episode might have had up to that moment. There is no way a relatively new lieutenant like Abby Marsh, who has already been established as a no-nonsense by-the-book copper, would let two private detectives use a squad car and pose as police to nab Corley. It was just too unreal for words. Kind of like Suzanne, I mean Delta, going back to Sugarbaker's in Atlanta without paying the bill.

Two more:

'You, Too, Can Be a Detective'
Richard Simon, author of a new detective novel

While this is a fairly entertaining episode, I think there are some missed opportunities. First, I don't buy Rick just whipping out a 300 page book at the snap of a finger. This is where an on-going arc might have helped, if it had been established in an earlier season that he was plugging away on a book and nobody thought he'd ever finish it-- then voila, this episode shows he did. But for him to have a book completed and selling it just out of the blue was kind of unbelievable. Plus they missed out on A.J. poking fun at Rick's grammar. Instead, A.J. seems more obsessed with the fact that Rick (or should I say Richard, as he is known on the cover) is taking credit for cases they both solved. Incidentally, wouldn't Rick need to get permission from past clients to use their stories in such a publication? Also, I think the idea loses something without Cecilia being present-- they could have had a bit of fun with her reading pages in Rick's book and now realizing some of the boys' cases had put them in so much danger, at least according to how Rick perceived them and wrote about them.

All that aside, the book is really just an excuse to introduce a guest character named Molly. She's a literary groupie who has quit her job as an airline attendant, after she read Rick's book and decided to become a detective too. She's loopy, played a bit over the top by the actress cast in the role, but her offbeat charms manage to attach themselves on to an unsuspecting viewer. So much so that by the end of the episode, you almost wish they'd give her and the character its own spin off series. Or at the very least, she could have been invited back to help the guys solve another case.

I won't go over the plot too much, because there are no real surprises with it. We know that Molly's gotten tangled up with some sort of crime ring at the airport and the bad guy will be caught before the closing credits. I did like the climactic scene in the baggage area, when Marsh and the Simons helped nab the villain. This show always does a nice job staging the chase and capture scenes.

*****

'Shadows'
Shadows of an angel

At the present time, this episode has a fairly strong rating on the IMDb so it's probably safe to say it's a fan favorite. It reminds me a lot of Miami Vice, the way we see a boat docked at the harbor, tall skyscrapers in the background, and a gritty but flashy crime scene involving drugs and rich men who exploit young prostitutes. Olivia d'Abo, right before she started on The Wonder Years, is cast in what might be considered a dual role as a street urchin named Alison/Angel. She is called Angel because of a tattoo printed on her arm, and we're supposed to be believe she's a good girl who had to go bad to survive.

Some of her bad deeds include stealing wallets, which is how A.J. first meets her when she robs him during a baseball game. And she also steals other things, like when she later sneaks off with one of Rick's expensive cameras. She has her reasons for doing these things, and as the story unfolds, the brothers learn about her troubled past and how she was once abandoned by her father. It's all meant to tug at viewers' heartstrings, and it works-- probably because d'Abo looks younger than her actual age (18), so this seems even more shocking. In fact, she does such a good job conveying the pathos of the girl she portrays that you can't help but get caught up in it. I thought she had a very powerful scene where the camera followed her into a public bathroom and she pounded her fists on the counter. She looked right into the mirror and vowed to kill the sugar daddy who gave her best friend a fatal dose of some narcotic-- it was rather intense and scary. In hindsight, it's almost surprising d'Abo did not go on to become an Oscar-winning movie actress; in this episode, she certainly demonstrated the talent to head in that direction.

By the way, there is a fourth season episode which tackles some of what this episode covers-- about runaway teen girls stuck in a world of drugs and trying to climb out of the pit they've fallen into. But compared to this offering, the earlier version seems very pedestrian. This particular script is not afraid to really sink its teeth into the subject matter, to show us very shocking things that the girl and her friends go through. But it does give us what is almost a too-tidy ending. While I appreciated her finding happiness, I think it would have been even stronger if she had died and we had seen how a life can be totally wasted because of the neglect and abuse she had unfortunately encountered.

Some more:

'Forever Hold Your Piece'
Three heads are better than two?

When a show runs as long as this one has, I suppose it becomes a challenge to present new scenarios that will keep things fresh. In the case of this episode, the writers have managed to come up with a different and highly entertaining situation. They've sent A.J. off on a fake vacation to the Bahamas (he's really just spending ten glorious days at home enjoying some peace and quiet); while Rick holds down the fort at the office. Soon Rick gets involved in the messy divorce case of a friend (Michael Constantine)-- a decent but down-on-his-luck bloke who's about to lose everything he holds near and dear, including a rather expensive boat.

While Rick tries to help, the plot thickens and some thugs show up, which leads to a murder. But what makes the story fairly unique and generates plenty of laughs is how Rick must team up with two other detectives hired by the friend's estranged wife. They are forced to work together to solve the murder and get the divorce back on track. Of course, we know the divorce probably won't take place and the couple will in all likelihood reconcile, but until then, there's a reason the other two P.I.'s must cooperate with Rick while A.J. remains unavailable.

It's fun to see Rick interact with the other two, particularly when they seem to be so ethically challenged. One of them is portrayed by Universal contract player John Schuck. He appeared in an earlier episode during the sixth season as the same character. When Schuck and his female partner go undercover with Rick to trap the killer, we're treated to some very over-the-top scenes with the three of them in a ritzy hotel suite-- which climaxes when the culprit shows up and learns their real identities. McRaney seems to be having a lot of fun with the story which deftly combines action with satire. His flair for comedy undoubtedly helped pave the way for his later sitcom Major Dad. This episode is a major blast.

*****
'Tale of the Tiger'
Rick and the Vietnamese community

I didn't think this was the best episode by any means, but it was well-structured and had an interesting message about post-war life. We get a chance to see Rick deal with another aspect of his time in 'Nam, when he is reunited with an old pal named Chen. Some startling truths about Chen and the man he has become begin to surface, and it drives a temporary wedge between the Simons when A.J. tries to enlighten Rick about Chen's modern-day dealings and current reputation.

I really liked the way the episode gave us a group of Vietnamese American characters to represent a culture seldom seen on network television at the time this story was produced. And it's to the writers' credit that these people were not stereotyped. Shades of good and evil within the community were depicted as they struggled to realize the American dream.

I did think guest star James Shigeta over-acted in a few scenes, which at times made me want to tune him out. Perhaps a Vietnamese man who had been a hero but was now drastically changed by circumstances meant it was necessary to present him in a highly dramatic fashion. But I still feel his performance could have been reigned in a bit more, so it didn't contrast so much next to McRaney's. I didn't want to keep thinking this was a showy guest actor hamming it up. Instead, I wanted to think this was really someone Rick connected to many years ago and whom he still related to as a brother on some level.

The final moments, involving a shoot-out with a more villainous individual who was determined to take over Chen's territory, were unusually graphic. In fact, a scene where the baddie gets shot by Rick while standing behind a shed door, then collapses and falls into the frame, seemed excessively bloody. I guess we were supposed to understand that Rick and his military buddies had witnessed many deaths in the jungle that were equally horrific.