'Police Woman'

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Considering how Angie's cover is blown in each episode, she seemingly ends up in danger and they usually end up killing the perp, it's fair to say these cops aren't that great.

It's drama, honey.

At least in the first season, all the rescue scenarios seem to make sense organically. By the second season, that pattern starts to feel far more contrived.

What the show started out to be:


One of the best episodes of Season 2:


It's breezily directed by Barry Shear (one of their good ones). But the title, "Blaze of Glory," was metaphoric -- it's a line in the sand for the show, and it's never quite the same afterwards.
 
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tommie

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The only issue with the Flowers of Evil episode is that the lesbians really needed to amp up on the evil part.
 

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The only issue with the Flowers of Evil episode is that the lesbians really needed to amp up on the evil part.

Oh, the episode is such a fine little hypnotic noir, brave yet un-progressive for 1974 television.

Angie's so good with her raspy and enigmatic inflection (until they coerce her into not-acting-it anymore during the second season).


Some of the episodes from the Season 1 DVD are excessively washed-out (like this one, which was much darker and moodier looking originally).
 
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Sadly, Charles Dierkop died three months ago, on February 25, at the age of 87... Until then, POLICE WOMAN had been the oldest American primetime series in which all the principals were still alive.

Dierkop had a long and varied career, appearing with Newman & Redford (twice) in BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID and THE STING.

 
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William Castle, along with writers like Richard Matheson and Jimmy Sangster (Del Reisman wrote this one), had a "horror" anthology series in 1972 called GHOST STORY airing on Friday nights. These kinds of shows rarely run very long, and even this program was retitled midway through its first and only season, to CIRCLE OF FEAR, and the host, Sebastian Cabot (the best name for an actor ever!) quickly dumped.

Here, in the episode "Creatures of the Canyon," Angie plays one of her many brittle neurotics who come to believe she's being stalked by a menagerie of neighborhood pets -- and she may not be wrong -- after her husband dies. (Let's just say she appears to meet the same end as Peter Lawford in DEAD RINGER). Angie's looping scenes are always so funny -- and help blur the issue that so many feel about her as an actress: is she terrific or is she terrible??

I've always loved the neo-noir style of the very-late '60s and early-'70s, with all the moody lighting and hand-held camera shots and sudden changes in focus and perspective within a single frame. (POLICE WOMAN, in the beginning, used those same techniques in a few episodes to great effect, but it was soon replaced by the standard flat-lighting and a static camera as the neo-noir style was abandoned by the industry at large). It's just more cinematic and focuses the drama (just as all the B&W noir in the '40s did).

 
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