The Uncut 12th Wildcat

So this past day I did something else I’ve rather been dreading: watching the uncut 12^th Wildcat.

Despite as disinterested as I am about sports, and American football in particular, the episode isn’t that bad . . . until, of course, we get to court. My complaints about how that is handled have not changed. Hamilton is making way too many mistakes and has to be reprimanded far too many times. It’s out of character. If this is the sort of conduct Bill Vincent sees, it’s no wonder he makes mistakes in The Impetuous Imp and The Misguided Model.

I counted around four or five times where Hamilton is reprimanded for unusually bad behavior. And judging from the scene when we first switch to court, there were many more problems happening off-screen. The exasperated judge is scolding both Perry and Hamilton and says that for the last time, he will not tolerate personal exchanges in court.

Having seen the episode in full, I suppose it is conceivable that Hamilton is on a high from his third narcotics bust and goes into court overconfident and that’s why there are so many screw-ups. But I really don’t think so. This seems more like just plain old bad writing, especially in light of the episode’s other, even worse problem.

Yes, the identity of the murder victim is never disclosed onscreen. We’re left to assume that the missing man is the one the defendant’s husband killed, but we’re never actually told that. It really wouldn’t have taken much for Perry to say it—just one more line, one more sentence!—but he doesn’t. And the epilogue, while cute, is like some hastily written fluff party. It reminds me of some of my first drafts of epilogues, where I’m so anxious to get a story done that I’m tapping out something short and cute to wrap it up. Luckily for me, I generally see the problems before I post and fix them by having the characters tie up all loose ends as well as celebrate. The writer did not do that here. The epilogue consists solely of everybody toasting each other.

The episode does manage to have its good points. As I noted before, Hamilton’s very first scene is excellent. There are many Steve scenes. And it boasts what is probably the most adorable Sergeant Brice scene ever.

Perry and company are eating at Clay’s and discussing the case when Brice randomly wanders into the scene. He smiles and greets Della, teasingly asking her if the guys are giving her a bad time. She smiles and runs her hand up his arm, telling him that if they ever do, Brice is her policeman.

This certainly opens up an intriguing friendship that is never really explored before or since. They wouldn’t be having such a familiar exchange like that if they haven’t had a great deal of interaction in the past. We’re sadly never shown any other scenes of them interacting, unless there’s some short little bit in the uncut version of a season 3 or 4 episode I’ve never seen. I’ll definitely be writing a story about Della and Brice sometime in the future.

Della is adorable too during the football game. She is very caught up in the game and is tensely excited as she roots for the Wildcats. I was a little surprised to see her show such an interest in football. I never thought of her as much of a sports fan.

Perhaps it’s not so much that she has an interest, but just that as long as she’s there, watching, she gets excited in the moment. They have friends on the team and among the team’s management, too, so she might be rooting for them, really. And they know that if the Wildcats win, there will hopefully be that payoff and they can crack the case.

It is kind of a cute thought, though, if Della enjoys football in general. It would be such an unexpected aspect of her character.

Brice also has an interesting moment in The Impetuous Imp. When Paul arrives on the crime scene and Steve doesn’t want him underfoot right then, Brice shrugs and calmly says, “He’s the boss. Let’s go, Paul,” rather indicating that if it was up to him, he would probably just let Paul stay.

I’m currently trying to find the post where I compared the defendants of The Impetuous Imp and The Negligent Nymph, and mused on preferring the more mature and serious girl from Nymph as opposed to the ditz from Imp, but so far I can’t seem to locate it. (Oh wait, I just found it.) I tend to not tag a post with an episode title if I only mention the episode in one paragraph, but sometimes that results in my losing track of the post. I think I need a better tagging system. It would help if Blogger didn’t limit you on how many characters via tags you can use per post. I think that’s why I started the system I’ve been using.

Anyway, I watched The Impetuous Imp too, generally enjoying it as I usually do, but the epilogue gave me pause this time, in spite of its amusing nature. It occurred to me that it really is terrible that Paul wasn’t consulted on the subject of the girl’s novel. Since she changes the name, however slightly (Paul Lake), I assume he could not sue her if he doesn’t care for the portrayal. But it seems it would just be the most decent thing to do, to tell him before a character heavily based on him goes into the world of print. Perry even seems to know about the book, since he says, “You’ll see, Paul.”

I guess it was just the practice back then, to keep it a surprise. But I heard about more than one instance where somebody sued in real-life because a television character was named exactly after them without their permission and they did not like it one bit. One would assume Perry would mention to the girl that even if Paul could not potentially sue, out of decency she should let Paul know before publishing the book. It would be a little different if it had just been a finished manuscript that she was planning to send off, and Paul was just learning the truth then, but in the scene it’s an actual, published novel. Before he even knows about it, people all over the nation (maybe even the world) are paying to read about Paul Lake, Private Eye. Wow.

In all fairness to the girl, it does sound like she portrays Paul quite well in the excerpt that's read. Paul's feelings on being the subject of her book, however, are not expressly clear. He gives one of his classic facial expressions during the excerpt and yet another when he sees the title of the book. And we are left with that.

Season 9, Volume 1: First Thoughts

So the first half of season 9 arrived on Friday! I’ve been happily exploring some of the episodes I’ve never seen uncut.

I noticed one intriguing thing on the container itself: Steve gets pictured and mentioned! Andy is certainly never mentioned on the containers for seasons 5, 6, and 7. He is depicted on the ones for season 8 (with the wrong color hair, oy vey), but I don’t know if he’s actually mentioned in the blurbs. Anyone with season 8, please let me know if he is!

The very first thing I wanted to do was to dig out The 12^th Wildcat and find that missing scene with Hamilton from before court convenes. I skimmed past the first part of the episode and paused to watch Steve when he appeared.

You know, it’s really a shame about how that episode handled the court scenes, making Hamilton look so unable to control himself and having to be reprimanded every few minutes. Not to mention their refusal to even explain the crime at the end. The 12^th Wildcat has copious amounts of both Steve and Hamilton and I would probably greatly enjoy the venture if not for those problems.

I love the missing scene. There is no similarity whatsoever with what happens in court moments later. Hamilton is awesome, he handles the reporters asking about his narcotics bust awesomely, and his conversation with Perry is awesome. It reminds me of that great scene at Clay’s Grill in The Golfer’s Gambit, before everything goes downhill in court.

Hamilton is very happy and pleased about the bust, naturally, but he doesn’t come off as overconfident or prideful or anything like that. He’s very mature, logical, and composed. When Perry asks him to release the client, Hamilton refuses, but he has good reasons for his actions, and he explains them very nicely to Perry. And he even comments that he’s mellowed out to be giving Perry some of this information. He certainly has mellowed out in later seasons, and that canonical notation of his character development deeply thrills me.

Having seen such a wonderful scene, I cringe all the more to think of watching the court scenes again. But I do plan to give the episode one complete viewing in its uncut state, to make sure I see all of the missing material.

I sure would like to know the explanation for why the court scenes in the back-to-back episodes The Hasty Honeymooner and The 12^th Wildcat are almost identical, right down to the prosecutors being chewed out so frequently and the exact nature of Perry’s complaints against them both. It really does make the court scenes in The 12^th Wildcat lose a lot of their meaning. It makes me feel as though they were sloppily tacked on and possibly not even meant for Hamilton at all, since The Hasty Honeymooner comes first and the prosecutor is a random guy we never see again.

That would make me feel better about The 12^th Wildcat, honestly, because Hamilton gets such wonderful scenes outside of court that to me it’s just not believable that he would regress to being so unprofessional in court. When he has to be reprimanded, it’s usually only once or maybe twice in an episode, which is vastly different from how often it happens in The 12^th Wildcat.

Other things I discovered are that The Fatal Fortune is one of the most mangled episodes there are. I counted five scenes that are cut short or missing entirely from the syndication version! It will require a post all to itself to detail them all.

I also encountered another instance of Perry throwing an accusation at Hamilton, which he does in The Fatal Fortune. I really do puzzle over why Perry does that so often in later seasons, but I love how Hamilton reacts. He handles it very calmly and maturely as he responds and tells Perry that he is not doing what Perry is accusing him of doing.

I started skimming through The Bogus Buccaneers to find the missing scenes in it, and I located two or three by the halfway mark. And one of them does explain a bit why Clay would be chosen as one of the three godfathers for the baby. It’s an adorable scene of him wanting to make sure the mother-to-be has plenty of milk to drink. I’m looking forward to watching it all the way through, and The Runaway Racer, too. I’ve long suspected that it is also one of the most chopped-up episodes.

I also watched The Wrathful Wraith, but only found one long scene and one short bit missing from it. They’re important parts, though, especially the long scene. It’s where Louise goes for the diamond cufflinks and eerily gets locked in the room. Then she finds the cufflinks aren’t even in the box.

The short scene is a bit when Perry and Paul are going to call Della back after Louise goes to visit the clairvoyant. Paul talks Perry what he’s learned about the clairvoyant, and wow, she’s a character. And they comment that Della probably ran out of gas for the third time in a month and is probably walking to the phone in the rain. One of them remarks on how Della can remember the details of a four-year-old brief, but can’t seem to remember that cars run on gasoline. Haha, poor Della. That isn’t why she called, but it’s an interesting little conversation. I love anything like that, which sheds light on the characters’ personalities and quirks.

I also couldn’t resist watching The Candy Queen. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it uncut. But I was left scratching my head in confusion. I only counted one small bit missing from the MeTV version, the first half of Perry’s conversation with Claire in jail. Honestly, I could have sworn that there was a scene where Wanda was telling about being poisoned on the witness stand, even though that would contradict Hamilton saying that he had tried to avoid the subject. I wonder if I’m mixing it up with The Silent Partner. And yet I don’t see how I could be, because they didn’t go to court in The Silent Partner.

Maybe a scene really is missing, because on the container it says that some episodes may be edited. I’ve thought that the only edits on the DVDs are the specific opening sequences, but perhaps there are occasionally others. I’d have to wonder, though, why I could have seen an uncut version not so long ago and yet CBS wouldn’t have access to one for the DVD set! And judging from the running time (close to 52 minutes), it seems it surely must be uncut. I don't think the episodes ever ran longer than that, except in season 1.

In any case, cut or uncut, The Candy Queen is always one of my favorites to watch. I get Hamilton, Steve, William Boyett, and H.M. Wynant all in the same episode!

I’m looking forward to an upcoming week of more uncut scene discoveries (as well as a whole bunch of guest-spots by H.M. Wynant on MeTV over this week and the next).

The Hasty Honeymooner vs. The 12th Wildcat: There's some definite deja vu here...

Last night my local station aired The Hasty Honeymooner as part of its current Saturday lineup. If I’ve ever seen it before, it was years ago. It’s a season 9 episode, and one of the strangest I’ve seen in any season. And perhaps the oddest thing of all is how some elements of it curiously echo some of what’s wrong with the episode that aired right after it: The 12^th Wildcat. And it managed to run this parallel despite being an out-of-town episode.

The plot is both unique and odd, concerning a very suspicious man who arrives in town and immediately begins courting a young woman on a ranch. Apparently they met through a computer dating service, only he lied on his application about many things and now has the business’s staff highly unsettled. They believe that he’s out to milk the woman for all she’s worth.

That’s certainly the impression the audience is given. I wasn’t sure whether they were setting him up to be the defendant or the victim, but since everyone seemed to think he was up to no good I figured he might be the defendant. Which he is, after his new wife dies from drinking poisoned lemonade he hands her.

Another unique element is that Terrance Clay certainly has an extensive part in this one, perhaps his most important and involved in any episode. The fellow happens to be a war buddy of his. Clay later recommends Perry to him when he wants a good lawyer to write a will for his wife. And, although Perry has strong misgivings about continuing to represent the guy when he realizes he’s been lied to on many accounts right from the start, he agrees to see him when Clay pleads for Perry’s help. And Perry finally consents to remain the lawyer when the desperate defendant begs not to be let down.

I think out of all of his clients and all of the lies, this guy is the one Perry has the least faith in. I don’t recall ever seeing him so hesitant to represent anyone else. But he has good reason; he and the audience are still being led to believe that something is bizarre and the man might have been committing illegal acts. There’s the mystery of a former wife who died under mysterious circumstances. And during court, it comes out that there was another wife before that. Perry just about drops him after that lie, and warns him that if there’s any more. . . . He’s interrupted and assured that he knows about all of them now.

There ends up being an intriguing and sad twist, in that the defendant was actually supposed to be the murder victim. And instead of him fleecing the woman, she was the one fleecing him. He was actually just lonely and looking for a loving wife, especially after two bombed marriages (which he didn’t talk about because of being afraid that the third woman would freak out and leave him).

I did think she acted very odd in their scenes together. She was very standoffish and aloof. And I noted that when he wanted her to call him Luke, feeling that Lucas was indeed standoffish, she continued to call him Lucas. I thought maybe she was afraid of him, thinking he was out for her money. But she wasn’t afraid at all until his stepson lied to her and made out like Lucas had killed his former wife. Poor Lucas.

And the poor wife of the murderer. It ended up being the guy who ran the dating service with his wife. He was in love with the girl who got in with Lucas and he even gave her his and his wife’s ranch, without his wife’s knowledge, to make her look rich. At the end of the episode, Lucas gives the ranch back to the woman and muses that maybe he’ll go out there and try to offer her some comfort.

Our main guest-star is played by Noah Beery, Jr., popularly featured as a regular on several television series, and a previous Perry guest-star from season 8’s The Golden Venom. He played the bad guy in that one. Here, as the very quirky, secretive defendant, he once again pulls off a stellar performance. He is one of the best things about The Hasty Honeymooner.

This episode takes place in the next county over, save for scenes in Perry’s office. So, with a new county comes a different prosecutor. And in walk the similarities to The 12^th Wildcat.

Throughout the scenes in court, Perry continually complains about the way the district attorney is handling the case. Many of his complaints, if not all, are upheld by the judge. The half-dozen or so points of frustration mostly revolve around the sole idea that the man is prejudicial against Perry’s client and keeps phrasing questions in a way that brings that out. The D.A. apologizes to the court each time this happens and he is reprimanded. Sound familiar, anyone?

The most eerily familiar line is when Perry’s patience is finally stretched to the nth degree and he says that his current complaint is that not only has the prosecutor’s last comment been filled with prejudicial misconduct, but his whole case likewise. Didn’t we hear the same thing, pretty much word for word, when Perry complained about Hamilton in the very next episode? What’s going on here? Aside from the actual identity of the prosecutor, the exchanges are interchangeable!

Now, of course some things during court scenes recur. There are certain comments both Perry and Hamilton make over 271 episodes that are repeated in various ways. And I’m not forgetting that during William Talman’s suspension the assistant D.A.s were all given dialogue meant for Hamilton. But, the very same problem with the prosecutor, twice in a row? I don’t recall that problem ever happening before, at least not to the same, strong degree as it’s shown in both The Hasty Honeymooner and The 12^th Wildcat. What is the explanation? Is there one? Is it just coincidence?

Honestly, I doubt it. Especially after looking at the writers for both and finding a common denominator. Ernest Frankel wrote some of The Hasty Honeymooner. And he wrote The 12^th Wildcat all by himself.

I’ve long suspected that Ernest Frankel was responsible for most of the trouble with Hamilton’s characterization in season 9. True, he and Orville shared writing credit for other episodes I’ve strongly disliked that season, but I took special notice that when Orville wrote by himself he was usually kinder to Hamilton. There was that oddity during court in The Golfer’s Gambit, which was an Orville solo project, but even that wasn’t on the same level with episodes such as The 12^th Wildcat and The Vanishing Victim. And since Ernest wrote the former on his own, and was partially responsible for The Vanishing Victim, it seems much more likely that Ernest was the main one throwing characterization to the wind.

So, concerning The Hasty Honeymooner and The 12^th Wildcat, a whole new series of questions arise. Why on earth were the court scenes written so strikingly similar for both? Why weren’t the writers more creative, especially with the episodes airing one after the other? Maybe they didn’t know they would air in that order, but that’s still no excuse. Isn’t it a bad enough blow to deal the prosecution once, to say nothing of twice? When I watched The 12^th Wildcat, I complained about the prejudicial misconduct angle and that it had never happened to that extent anywhere else in the series. And with Hamilton, it didn’t. But with this other D.A., it happened again.

Was The Hasty Honeymooner ever intended to be an out-of-town script? Was Hamilton originally supposed to be the scapegoat in both episodes? Or going the other way around, was The 12^th Wildcat ever meant to be an in-town episode? What if it had originally been written as another out-of-towner, with some oneshot prosecutor as the instigator of that misconduct too? It is possible that Hamilton was not intended to be the one committing those acts. (And unfortunately, it’s also possible that he was supposed to commit twice the number he did. If the latter was the case, I guess I have to be grateful that they decided to make The Hasty Honeymooner an out-of-town episode instead. It was bad enough in The 12^th Wildcat without seeing Hamilton act so strange another time.)

It certainly gives me some new things to think about. It’s annoying to see that prejudicial misconduct angle crop up again, but it’s kind of nice to muse that there is the possibility that it wasn’t intended as a slur against Hamilton. (On the other hand, it’s aggravating to think that maybe it was, twofold.) It would be nice to know what really was in the writers’ minds.

In any case, as long as the angle is being used, I’d rather see it with a random oneshot prosecutor instead of Hamilton. Hamilton is already dealt enough blows in the series without being hit with a plethora of (justified) prejudicial misconduct complaints. And despite the episode’s overall strangeness, The Hasty Honeymooner is most definitely better than The 12^th Wildcat. In the latter, I just can’t get over Ernest Frankel’s sloppiness in not even explaining the crime. And it’s that fact, not only the gross mischaracterization of Hamilton, that makes me rank The 12^th Wildcat at the bottom of my list.

The only positive notations about The 12^th Wildcat are the appearances by real-life sports icons, for those who are into sports. And the epilogue, admittedly, is cute, even though it does nothing to explain the goings-on. And I honestly don’t think those things are enough to save an episode that really is terribly cobbled together.

(Oh, and by the way, I finished my latest writing prompt challenge. For anyone interested in reading the Perry vignettes that came out of it, the entire set is here: http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=insaneladybug&keyword=lux%20aeterna&filter=all )

Surprise! A weekday post again!

Now that things have settled down after the turn of the year, I may go back to posting more than one entry a week. At any rate, I felt that this entry needed to be written now, while it’s fresh on my mind.

For the last nights in succession, my local station (which has skipped most of season 7 and all of 8 for some unknown reason) showed two season 9 episodes that I feel bring out even more strongly what is wrong with The 12^th Wildcat: The Vanishing Victim and The Sausalito Sunrise. All three episodes have some elements in common. Some handle them better than others. The latter two handled everything better than The 12^th Wildcat, despite The Vanishing Victim having problems of its own.

As might be recalled, my problems with The 12^th Wildcat are varied. Some involve my complaints that Hamilton’s misconduct went without explanation and hence, looked more out-of-character than anything else. There’s my problem with them not explaining the crime. And there’s one other problem I realized when I saw a bit of the episode again last Saturday, when my station did its annual New Year’s Eve Perry marathon. I’ll get to that in a minute.

The Vanishing Victim is the second reworking of season 1’s The Fugitive Nurse, following season 3’s The Frantic Flyer. Season 9 remade several episodes from season 1, which isn’t a surprise since it seemed to think it was season 1 reborn.

One of my problems with season 9 is that some of the episodes seem to forget any and all character development that came before. Season 1 often featured Perry and Hamilton working against each other. I’ve observed the episodes from all the other seasons, and those instances greatly diminish to almost nothing by seasons 6, 7, and 8. Instead, Perry goes to Hamilton or vice versa, they discuss the case, and Perry has an idea for what to do next. But by season 9, they’re sometimes back to working against each other. There’s no explanation for it, no rhyme or reason to it. It just is, as though someone decided that they were getting too friendly and it had to be stopped.

Such is the case with The Vanishing Victim. Its plot is long, complicated and twisted, unlike both The Fugitive Nurse and The Frantic Flyer. First one man is thought dead, then another, then a third. Each time it’s wrong. By the time we finally learn who really died, at the very end, it feels absolutely incidental and randomly thrown in. The real point seems to be the vicious battle Perry and Hamilton are fighting over the client caught in the middle of this mess. Perry gets the case thrown out of court once. Then Hamilton and Drumm plot to arrest the client on a trumped-up charge outside the courtroom, presumably because they’re certain she’s guilty and don’t want her running free while they seek the information and the missing person Perry wants brought in before the hearing can reconvene. Perry pulls a switcheroo and gets the client out of the courtroom. Drumm catches him with Della later, instead of with the client. The problems between Perry and Hamilton continue in that vein throughout the episode.

One other little thing I didn’t like there was that when Paul told him of the trumped-up charge plan, Perry said, “One thing about Burger—he’s predictable.” The only thing is, he isn’t. I don’t recall them trying something like that ever before, even in season 1. But if they did, it was in season 1 and then didn’t happen in the succeeding seasons until 9.

Perry and Hamilton working against each other reminds me of the scene in The 12^th Wildcat at the train depot, where Perry and company are there to meet the train and Hamilton and Drumm are tailing them. If the episode had been in most other seasons (or heck, if it had even been one of the more sensible season 9 episodes), Perry would have squared with them and they would have been at the train depot working with and not against Perry and company. Instead there’s suddenly this adversarial element that hasn’t been heavily seen season 1. Why?

Of course I’m sure the writers didn’t care one way or another. As long as their scripts were accepted and they got paid, that was probably all they cared about. But why was there suddenly an influx of such scripts being written and accepted in the first place? That’s what I want to know. Why does season 9 seem like a reboot of season 1 half the time? Was it intentional? Were they trying to get back to their roots and make things more like the books again?

Even if most people don’t care about that puzzlement, they should all care about this next one. The problem in The 12^th Wildcat of not explaining the real crime is absolutely preposterous! So what if the defendant’s husband wasn’t really dead. Without explaining what actually happened, the defendant could easily be accused of killing whoever died.

The Vanishing Victim had a similar scenario. But to my surprise and pleasure, they acknowledged that very problem. Perry wanted to convene in the judge’s chambers to discuss what really happened and who actually died, so that his client could not be dragged into court a third time, being accused of the real murder. That was certainly a plus for that episode.

And how does The Sausalito Sunrise fit into all this? By bringing up my complaint of Hamilton’s gross misconduct in The 12^th Wildcat. As I’ve explained before, he was chewed out by the judge at least half a dozen times, and rightly so. The way he was acting, it really seemed that he had something personally against the defendant aside from thinking he was guilty. And Perry was visibly frustrated with Hamilton for one of only a handful of times in the series.

If there had been an explanation for Hamilton’s behavior it could have been an interesting and intense exploration into a darker but very human side of his personality. Without any explanation it looks stupidly cobbled together and out-of-character. Hamilton never behaved in such a way to that degree in other episodes. And when he got emotional, such as in The Fatal Fortune, it only took one reprimand to get him back in line.

The Sausalito Sunrise explores the darker side of Lieutenant Steve Drumm. Vengeful after the murder of a fellow officer, he is losing sight of all the facts of the case and focusing on his determination to convict whom he believes is the killer. Perry is worried about him. He says to Steve early on, “This isn’t like you.” And it’s clearly brought out that it’s this particular case that is getting to him. It’s still painful, to see Steve like that, but at least we know why, and we know that the other characters realize something is very wrong. That is the way to handle such scenarios, not by wildly flinging them around without any obvious point or reason to them!

In the end, the latter episode is the one I like best of the trio. By contrast there are only a couple of things I like in The Vanishing Victim. One is that they explained the crime, unlike The 12^th Wildcat. I also really liked Perry’s speech to Lisa Gaye’s character, where he tells her she can never be truly happy if her happiness is built on an innocent person going to the gas chamber. (I remember a similar speech in The Fugitive Nurse, but I don’t think it went into as much detail.) And lastly, the very last scene is quite unique. Hamilton himself gives the last line of the episode, as he talks to the killer. The killer says something about a last trip. Hamilton remarks that that is what the killer will be taking—one last trip. Cue the fadeout and the credits.

I still do not like The 12^th Wildcat at all. At this point in time, I feel it was the worst episode the series did. It was very badly handled.

Now that that’s out of my system, I plan to praise another good episode this weekend.

The Shapely Shadow vs. The 12th Wildcat

Season 5’s The Shapely Shadow is an episode that I’ve been both apprehensive and curious about. It’s highly praised, but is also, as is told, one of the episodes where Mr. Burger flips out more than usual.

Now, let it be made clear from the start that whether or not I like that depends entirely on the way it is presented. I absolutely love him losing his patience in The Curious Bride and The Elusive Element. Those episodes, to me, are classic, and I have giggled in amusement over the lawyers’ clashes in them.

On the other hand, I absolutely detest how the clashes were handled in The Final Fade-Out (as I’ve complained about more than once) and The 12^th Wildcat. The latter episode repulses me far more than even the scenario in the series finale. In The Final Fade-Out, it seemed more that poor Mr. Burger was humiliated and taking out his feelings on Perry without fully thinking or really believing Perry guilty, since he later calmed down so inexplicably. But in The 12^th Wildcat he absolutely without a doubt has a serious chip on his shoulder. He behaves during court in icy, unprofessional ways that are not like him and seems to have something personally against Perry’s client, who is a friend of Perry’s. The judge reprimands Mr. Burger at least half a dozen times. I have never seen him be chastised so often in one episode. Usually it’s once or twice at the most. And Perry was more frustrated in court than I have ever seen him, with the possible runner-up of The Sun-Bather’s Diary. And even that is no comparison for this.

There was a scene missing from the version I saw, a scene that may or may not have explained Mr. Burger’s behavior. So far I haven’t been able to find either confirmation or denial of that. But what I can say is that throughout the series Perry has had many clients who are personal friends of his. I have never seen Mr. Burger behave towards any of them as he behaved towards the client in The 12^th Wildcat. As far as I’m concerned, if there was no specific reason given for such outrageous conduct, then it is a clear case of out-of-character behavior and the writers were just being very lax.

And I can fully believe it, as lo and behold, I actually have a problem with that episode that has nothing to do with Mr. Burger. And this is a doosy, folks: The crime is not explained. We are finally shown at the end that the man supposedly killed is not dead at all. We are left to assume that the dead man is someone else who has been missing. But nothing is ever said about that, or about who murdered him! Most likely it was the fellow who is alive but was thought dead. Still, there is no excuse for not explaining it. The way it’s left, there’s no visible reason why it could not be argued that Perry’s client killed the person who really was dead (perhaps by conspiring with the man who wasn’t dead, who is her husband). Instead, in the epilogue, everything is apparently hunky-dory after showing that he is really alive. Everyone is toasting the end of the case and Perry is proclaimed the 12^th Wildcat. It’s a cute ending, but it is highly unsatisfactory.

Anyway, after smarting from that trainwreck of an episode, I have been more suspicious of The Shapely Shadow than ever. I wondered if it would be anything like The 12^th Wildcat and I was not looking forward to another episode like that.

Well, it aired on my station last night and I finally was able to see for myself.

The plot is amazing. The episode’s status as an above-average venture is well earned. It reminds me of some of the incredible twists in season 1’s episodes, which is not unusual since this one, also, was based upon one of Gardner’s books, as most (if not all) season 1 episodes are.

Mr. Burger’s outbursts and behavior were neither of the Curious Bride variety nor of the 12^th Wildcat variety. Instead, it was another category altogether—the category that makes me feel plum sorry for the guy.

This episode is a rare jury trial venture, rather than a preliminary hearing. Mr. Burger presents a very solid-seeming case and then rests. Perry, due to lack of evidence for the defense, rests his own case and moves to go directly to the arguments. Mr. Burger is taken aback. But he consents, and allows Perry to go first (presumably because the prosecution is not ready). Perry’s argument seems very logical. Then he comes to a possibility that had not been considered before. Mr. Burger is not impressed by it. When his turn comes, he repeatedly tries to tear down Perry’s argument, Perry objects, and the judge sustains. Mr. Burger pleads that if the judge will give him an hour, he will bring in evidence to counter Perry’s questions. It’s granted, but in the end Perry’s theory is proven true. Mr. Burger’s reaction to this is not shown.

Was it professional for him to fumble and stammer and end up presenting his own argument to the jury by trying to attack Perry’s argument, rather than to simply present his own, unbiased argument? It was very unprofessional. He had been thrown for a complete loop by Perry’s passing on presenting a case for the defense and determining to move directly to the arguments, but he should always be prepared for anything, especially in his position.

However, he is only human. And oh, how I can relate to his befuddled feelings. Many is the time that I have had something thrown at me that I completely did not expect at all and I reacted by fumbling and stammering and reaching in desperation for an appropriate response. When he was pleading for the judge to hear him out and to allow him time to put together a proper response to Perry’s questions, I didn’t feel the slightest urge to laugh. Nor was I outraged by the writing. I did not proclaim it out-of-character; I felt it was in-character. And I just felt pity.

Without a doubt it was not one of Mr. Burger’s best or most noble days in court, but it was certainly better than the one he had in The 12^th Wildcat. The Shapely Shadow, at its heart, showed a sympathetic, endearing flail. He was neither sympathetic nor endearing in The 12^th Wildcat. And while he has behaved similar to his desperate behavior in The Shapely Shadow on multiple occasions (just not to the same extent), as far as I can tell there is no precedent for his cold misconduct in The 12^th Wildcat.

I wonder if he was still on a high from his third narcotics bust and was feeling a bit prideful when he tried the case in The 12^th Wildcat. That would be human behavior, but most unprofessional and unlike him, and I don’t appreciate there not appearing to be an explanation for his actions. Plus, I’m not sure prideful would translate into cold for him. Any way I look at the problem, it does not translate into in-character behavior for me.

I think that Mr. Burger became a better, more open-minded prosecutor over the many seasons of the show because of how Perry was a challenge to him. Perry, although likely not deliberately trying to do so, pushed him to go further. I realize that with the formulaic nature of the show character development opportunities were more limited, but they were there, and they were taken as often as they could be. Mr. Burger changed so much over the seasons that to see something like The 12^th Wildcat just makes me cringe. Even in season 1 it would have made me cringe, but to see it in the final season was so much worse.

To me, season 9 is starting to feel like a reboot of the series. It’s common knowledge that the producers were worried that Andy was too friendly and too permissive, so they brought in Lieutenant Drumm (who, honestly enough, is very friendly too, and perhaps the only thing I really like about the final season). After seeing The 12^th Wildcat, I started to have the feeling that maybe they felt Mr. Burger had become too friendly as well and that they had to return to season 1’s roots—only they dug a bit too deep and went too far the other direction. I am hoping I am wrong and that The 12^th Wildcat is just one terrible flub, instead of one of many flubs.

I have mentioned that William Talman came to have fun with the scenes where Mr. Burger loses it. I’m sure he enjoyed filming scenes in all three of the episodes I’ve been discussing. And I don’t blame him for that one bit. Heck, after nine years of apparently almost always losing to one person, I think just about anyone would be frustrated. I think I myself would have had fun filming a scene similar to the one where Mr. Burger blows his stack in The Final Fade-Out. It would feel wonderful to finally release all of the frustrations the character would likely have by that point.

However! Although William basically implied that he felt Mr. Burger’s behavior in The Final Fade-Out was in-character, and said that Hamilton may have even wanted to hit Perry, I can’t help but feel that he was basing that interpretation of the character on how Mr. Burger would react to the trappings of the formulaic nature of the series. If they had been allowed to branch out a bit more, even show Mr. Burger winning now and then (and to that end, be more realistic), I believe that William might have had a bit of a different view on the character. He admitted that having fun with the losing streak we saw on the show was something that was learned over time, indicating that he was not happy with it when he realized it would always be that way.

Of course, I don’t and would never claim to be able to speak for William or to ever know what he was actually thinking. And I can only base my thoughts on how I myself have felt in similar situations (such as the role-play issues I mentioned in an earlier post).

But I like to hope that he would like what I have done with the character and the series in my stories. I am not restrained by any formula. I am free to branch out, to allow Mr. Burger to win sometimes, and to further develop angles that were introduced in the series—his friendship with Perry, his interest in justice, and his interaction with other characters. I hope that William would understand why I reject an episode such as The 12^th Wildcat because of how glaringly it goes against character development and yet how at the same time I can agree that something such as The Final Fade-Out makes sense when considering the formula (even if I personally don’t care for the demonstration).

As for season 5's The Shapely Shadow, I hope it stands as further proof that Mr. Burger did not display drastically out-of-character behavior until season 9. Then there would be a very small amount of such episodes to face. Not to mention that it would further my case that season 9 is different, often unflatteringly so.

(Of course, even season 9 isn’t all bad. I am developing a fondness for the one color episode, The Twice-Told Twist, and I thoroughly enjoyed The Positive Negative. I also seem to remember I enjoyed The Sausalito Sunrise, although I prefer its original, The Moth-Eaten Mink.)