The Case of the Malevolent Mugging is back!

I am absolutely ecstatic over the fact that this time I have actually managed to revive The Malevolent Mugging story for real! I churned out several chapters over the past couple of weeks, including the climax. I have only to write the epilogue and then, glorious, glorious day, it will be done!

It started when I was idly thinking of some other possible Perry ideas. I was on a bit of a Misguided Missile kick and re-read my Spectral Stalker story, which I know is very strange and was pretty much totally a self-indulgent installment. There’s a mention in the epilogue that maybe there would have to be a hearing in order for Captain Caldwell to prove who he is. I doubt that would happen in actual fact, but I got the idea of writing a story taking place directly after The Spectral Stalker and following Caldwell trying to reintegrate into society. Perry would be around a lot, with or without a hearing, and a new mystery might emerge.

I don’t know if I will write such a story, but when I was thinking of it, I thought of how I’ve felt like I can’t start any more big Perry mysteries until The Malevolent Mugging is finished. And I went to look it over for the umpteenth time to see if I could determine how to do that.

I realized that the real problem holding it up was that my original outline called for the bad guys to torture Amory Fallon for several more weeks. And the rest of the mystery was really just about ready to be wrapped up, so I didn’t see how I would extend it for so many more chapters. Cue the stalling, with only a small update here and there.

I determined that the bad guys would not have to torment Amory for as long of a time as I’d thought. After everything he’s already been through, I could probably still obtain the desired result for the climax if they decided to pull the cruelest thing much sooner than the original outline called for.

I changed some of my plans for the climax, too, giving Amory a much more active role as opposed to the idea from a very short piece I did called October, where he spent the climax in the hospital. I wasn’t comfortable with that and wanted him involved, and I’m very pleased with the end result.

One thing to keep in mind for any future mysteries is the Jodie character I introduced. She has nothing to do with the current mystery, but I brought her in because of her connection with Vivalene and Flo, who were major players in some of the other stories. She will play some part in perhaps the next mystery in the series.

I may also use Daniel Conway some more. My original outline would have involved him more than he has been, but I think it might be just as well to move some of my ideas for him into his own mystery.

Maybe this year I can even write that Halloween masquerade story. We’ll have to see. With this story finally wrapping up, I definitely feel freer to venture into other Perry story waters. I’m excited to see where the ride takes me.

If anyone is still interested after all this time in where The Malevolent Mugging has been going, it’s still here: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8342827/ I plan to post the epilogue very soon, perhaps tomorrow or Tuesday. And then Tuesday night, MeTV will air Daniel Conway’s episode. What timing!

In Memoriam, Part 2: Wesley Lau

The second post of the day is for Wesley Lau, another very talented and special man.

I have actually seen at least one new thing with him, and curiously enough, it was an accident. I was looking up an old episode of Suspense because Joseph Campanella had a walk-on part. Then I started skimming through it to see if he appeared again. Instead, I found a man who both looked and sounded very much like Wesley.

It didn’t take long before I knew it really was Wesley. And interestingly enough for Perry fans, the plot of the episode had Wesley’s character accused of a murder he didn’t commit. He turned out an amazing, heartbreaking performance, completely falling apart under pressure and screaming that he didn’t do it.

Thankfully, the real killer is finally caught and Wesley’s character is exonerated. And since Wesley wasn’t even credited for that episode on IMDB.com, I added the credit right after watching the episode.

I took a few low-quality pictures and put them on my Tumblr account: http://lucky-ladybugs-lovelies.tumblr.com/search/Suspense

It’s always interesting to me that Wesley never even wanted to act. He was just a natural at it. His characters are so believable and so human. Most times they are sympathetic. Occasionally they are not. He was equally wonderful at playing good guys and bad guys.

The other day we re-watched I Want to Live!, to see Wesley as well as Simon Oakland. As the fourth husband of Barbara Graham, Wesley’s character Henry starts out seeming fairly mild and sweet. But he’s mixed up in criminal activities and also has a crippling drug habit. It isn’t far into the marriage when Henry is drug-tripping and becoming violent, even striking Barbara while holding their baby. He then disappears, not reappearing until found by the police and brought into court during Barbara’s trial. He looks somewhat dazed, which he very likely is; the newspaper headline comes up that he isn’t any help and had a “foggy day” in court. He apparently can’t remember whether the events of that last night of him being at home happened or not.

The character is certainly not very sympathetic. I can’t say whether or not the way he was written was much like the real Henry Graham; reports I’ve read on him seem a bit contradictory when attempted to be put together. But what I can say for a surety is that Wesley’s portrayal is, as always, very unforgettable.

Perry-wise, it’s always interesting to put his two characters side by side and examine their similarities and differences. Amory Fallon jumps to conclusions, is tortured by said conclusions, and unravels into a completely stressed-out and irrational person. Lieutenant Anderson is detached and businesslike, but often puts together the pieces of a case the wrong way, can be made to look ridiculous on the witness stand, and eventually allows the more stressed-out side of his personality to take over a lot more frequently.

He can’t be faulted too much on how he tries to solve cases, since the same problem plagues all Perry police and is just a fault of the formula. But I still wonder what could have caused him to become so stressed-out by season 8.

Just in that fact of being stressed, he is similar to Amory. But the way they behave while stressed is different. Amory is irrational, sometimes even bordering on hysterical. Andy is just frustrated, angry, and fed-up.

It’s intriguing how Wesley even approached that same basic characteristic of stress in different ways. Amory goes so far as to start running his fingers into his hair so much that it gets downright messed-up. Andy presses his lips in a thin line and becomes clipped. Sometimes, but not always, he doesn’t even raise his voice when his temper snaps.

While writing The Malevolent Mugging, which focuses a great deal on both of them, I had to do my best to make sure they were always portrayed as the two different people they were meant to be. When calm, they can both behave in similarly businesslike ways, which can present a problem in writing. But Amory almost always seems a bit more open with his emotions, even in calm times, so I try to bring that out and also to keep them different in whatever other ways are possible, such as Amory commenting on how Andy is trained to risk his life but he, Amory, hasn’t been and wouldn’t ever be able to think of some of the things Andy comes up with.

I ended up inspired by discovering Deputy Sampson exists in the books and I wrote a new chapter of that story: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8342827/ I have Andy finally end up pushed to the limits of his patience and he becomes stressed even to the point of being somewhat irrational. Luckily, Tragg brings him back to Earth.

I’m hoping to keep that story rolling to its conclusion now. I came up with one plot twist that may hopefully be the start of bringing all remaining loose ends together.

The story was originally meant as being largely for Andy and Amory, then later expanded to also be for the district attorney’s office and Hamilton and Sampson. A tribute to several wonderful characters and hence, the actors who brought them to life and made them memorable.

The actors for three of those characters are gone now, the actors whom are being remembered with the posts today. Thank you, Wesley, and William, for the amazing performances, characters, and the creativity you have helped to inspire. You will both always be unforgettable.

Birthday Tribute: Wesley Lau

I wanted to get this up hours ago, but it’s been a rather busy day. I’ve definitely been thinking about it, however, and I like to think that Wesley knows I haven’t forgotten him.

Today would have been his birthday. Such a gifted actor and a kind man, taken from us much too soon.

The Perry crew must have been aware of his amazing talents, as they very likely specifically requested him for the role of Amory Fallon in The Impatient Partner. And he brought the distressed and high-strung character to life in such a real way. It’s a common thread with many of Wesley’s characters—how they feel so three-dimensional that you feel you could reach out and touch them.

He must have impressed audiences and the staff extremely, as well he should have, since when someone was needed to lighten Ray Collins’ load, the crew turned to him as one of the possibilities. (As a prior entry states, it was Gail Patrick Jackson who asked him to come aboard as a policeman after enjoying his performance as Amory.) They tried several things, from having Sergeant Brice play a larger role to bringing in new police characters, including Lieutenant McVey (portrayed by Med Flory, who also played Captain McVey of the United States Air Force. Twin brother characters, perhaps?) and Lieutenant Anderson. In the end, it was, of course, Andy whom they decided to develop as a character.

I still wonder what their intention was by giving Andy dialogue specifically written for Tragg at first. Did they ridiculously believe they actually could make another Tragg? Or did they think Andy’s role would only be temporary and Ray Collins could later return full-time? It is sad if they thought the latter, since it could not be.

As always, Wesley adapted to the material as best as he could and really tried to make Andy a unique character. He certainly became a different character than Tragg, thank goodness. And he has some fun bursts of personality in season 6 especially. I love him in The Bogus Books and The Hateful Hero.

For whatever reason, the staff or the writers or all of them, did not allow Andy to develop anywhere as much as he could have with Wesley at the helm. But Wesley gave his all and they kept the character for four seasons.

It is a shame that television characters almost always faded into obscurity back then. If the actor left or was fired, the character just vanished without a trace. We don’t really know what happened to Tragg or to Andy. It’s nice to think that they stayed around and just remained unseen by the audience. If they followed the paths of their actors, then we would sadly have to believe Tragg died, and Andy . . . well, we don’t know what would have happened to Andy, since we still don’t know for certain why Wesley departed.

Andy gradually takes the torch from his mentor and friend Lieutenant Tragg, becoming more prominent in the stories while Tragg’s involvement fades. In season 7, however, Tragg is shown to still be active in the cases, just often unseen. And, if The Capering Camera is any indication, Andy continues to go to him for advice and as a sounding board. That’s rather cute, actually. I love the unspoken idea that Tragg is mentoring Andy and they’re very close friends.

I wish we could have seen a bit of interaction between Andy and Sergeant Brice similar to some scenes that happened between Tragg and Brice around season 3, where they discuss the crime scenes and Tragg points things out. One thing with Andy and Brice that I will always find amusing now is in The Careless Kitten, when Andy is ready to blow his stack over Perry beating him to the murder weapon and Brice is just standing there silently laughing over Andy’s frustration. I have this feeling Brice has probably seen Andy’s increasingly short fuse a lot of times, especially in season 8. It must be a source of entertainment to the very easy-going Sergeant. (Unless it really is motivated largely by Tragg's absence, in which case Brice would understand and feel sad too.) On the other hand, if Tragg is still around, I can picture him counseling Andy not to always take things so seriously and that life is too short to go through it always frustrated.

It’s been several months since I’ve seen any Andy episodes other than season 8 offerings, although the other day I re-watched The Impatient Partner on my DVD set. I’m hoping to watch my favorite Andy episodes again soon.

I have run across quite a few people who remember Wesley and Andy fondly, and with good reason. To have Wesley Lau is a great feather in the cap for any series. Perry really snagged a wonderful actor when they got him. I just wish they would have let him develop Andy the way he was most certainly capable of doing. But I’m thrilled he was there in any capacity, and for so long.

Here’s to you, Wesley: still remembered and loved.

Quick Post

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I celebrated early, yesterday, by watching my favorite Perry Irishman. No, not Terrance Clay; Amory Fallon! Here, have some pictures. http://lucky-ladybugs-lovelies.tumblr.com/post/45614675284/happy-st-patricks-day-have-a-picspam-of-an

And I’m absolutely thrilled that watching The Impatient Partner, coupled with an idea a friend gave me a couple weeks ago, gave me the drive and inspiration to write more in the next chapter of The Malevolent Mugging. I’m even more thrilled that the chapter is going to be tying a bunch of loose ends together and getting me over the spot that’s been making me tear my hair out. I hope to get it up sometime tomorrow, at the latest. And then I should be free and clear to proceed with the other plot angles I’ve had planned.

Oh, and speaking of Terrance Clay, incidentally, who caught Dan Tobin in The Scandalous Sculptor on MeTV the other night? I recognized him instantly, even without those glasses. I hadn’t remembered he was ever on the show as anyone other than Clay! I suppose his excellent performance in that episode is what made the producers decide to call him in when they needed another cast role filled in season 9.

I think I will write up that entry on kooky artists featured on the series, but as it looks like I won’t be able to devote enough time to it today, I’ll make it the weekday post.

Has the mysterious Leon been heard after all?

I am rather exasperated that I forgot to address one other intriguing element in The Daring Decoy. It’s just possible that Hamilton’s supposed secretary Leon was heard sometimes, after all.

An unidentified man talks to Hamilton on the intercom in Hamilton’s office, letting him know of an arrival to see him. Hamilton thanks him and says to send him in. Was he talking to Leon? Unless he has more than one male secretary, or had a male receptionist at one time, it’s likely.

This fellow had a very deep voice, which is a bit difficult to equate with the image of Leon I designed in my mind. Actually, I had a different image of Leon before I tried drawing him, and when I drew him, I ended up with someone a lot younger (and with wilder hair!) than my original envisioning. And now that that character is an established part of my stories, I’m a bit unsure of what to do about this deep-voiced person in canon who may be the real Leon.

I guess it’s certainly possible that even the version of Leon I ended up drawing could have a deep voice, going against type. But it’s certainly going to be hard to start hearing him with that voice in my mind, since I’ve been hearing him with a much different voice. I wish I’d remembered (or that someone else had remembered and told me) about that bit in The Daring Decoy before I designed Leon. And I’ll have to look through other early episodes to see if Hamilton speaks with this person at any other times. I’m very curious now!

I had thought I was drawing nigh to the conclusion of The Malevolent Mugging. It was scheduled to launch directly into a sequel, possibly called The Gruesome Graveyard. Hence, a lot of loose ends were to be left open as it closed. But upon reading and re-reading the proposed final chapter for The Malevolent Mugging, I just couldn’t feel good about closing the story there and marking it “Complete”, even though I would be immediately starting the sequel to continue things.

At this current time, I have determined that, like some novels, The Malevolent Mugging will be one big story comprised of two parts. The chapter I just put up today marks the end of Part One, and the next chapter should be the beginning of Part Two. Since I have publicly announced these intentions in the story itself, I hope I won’t end up changing my mind and reverting to the separate sequel idea again.

Part Two will continue the threads of plot that have been left open, including one of the important writer-created character’s disappearance and the continuing aftermath of Deputy Sampson being attacked. Various clues and plot threads will also entangle Daniel Conway and his nemesis Warner Griffith from The Daring Decoy, and the characters will discover that those people’s problems will have a direct bearing on the case at hand.

Instead of further confusion with Daniel and Sampson looking so much alike (considering that there’s already the Amory and Andy thing), I have half a mind to have either them or people around them think that they do not resemble each other that much, and be perplexed when anyone suggests it.

Also present will be a mysterious woman named Virginia, who claims to be a distant relation of the Petersons’ and demands inclusion among the recipients of a departed Peterson family member’s will. She quickly becomes a fixture around both Amory Fallon and Daniel Conway, seeming to be trying to stir up trouble for them both while coming across as completely innocent and oblivious. Amory suspects she is trying to drive him mad by making it look like they’re having an affair, while with Daniel she appears to be attempting to frame him for illegal activities.

I’ve been attempting to write for Deputy Chamberlin, furthering my idea of him and Sampson being friends. I’m finding, however, that Chamberlin is difficult to get a voice on. While it’s true that both he and Sampson canonically spouted dialogue written for Hamilton, Sampson delivered it with more flair and personality and it was fairly easy to find a unique voice for him. Chamberlin still doesn’t feel very developed, no matter how I try to work with his character in scenes. I’m hoping that as it goes on, I’ll be able to figure it out.

The Daring Decoy

I can identify a lot of the Perry episodes by title alone, but The Daring Decoy was not one of them. Such is the case with some of the season 1 episodes. However, there are very unique witnesses and plot elements in those early episodes that I sometimes remember them by. As soon as I realized the bookworm elevator operator was there, I realized what episode it was. I’d seen it several times and liked it alright, but overall it never really stood out to me as exceptional.

The Daring Decoy is fun, intense, and quite book-inspired. It’s kind of a jolt after Perry and Hamilton had several episodes where they were on better terms, especially The Empty Tin three episodes earlier. Then this episode comes along and Hamilton makes perhaps the most jaw-dropping comment throughout the series, when he tells Perry that if he had his way, Perry would be smelling brimstone through a nail-hole. Wow.

That’s probably the closest television Hamilton came to acting like his book counterpart. Everyone surely knows by now that I’m not too pleased with some of Perry’s law-bending, but nevertheless, that’s quite a harsh comment against him. Last year I never thought I’d have a reason to count this episode among my favorites, as the ones where Perry and Hamilton are extremely at odds like that generally never are.

. . . Then I discover that it’s the first of H.M. Wynant’s Perry appearances. And that he’s the main guest star. By the time I watch it all again, I’ve decided to give it a pass in spite of that cringe-worthy remark and the other scenes where Perry and Hamilton are on bad terms.

H.M Wynant has an interesting history of Perry episodes. I was incorrect about him never being the murder victim, and also never playing a really nasty sort. Tobin Wade in The Decadent Dean is one of the worst slimeballs in the series, I think. It looks like he really was friends with the titular dean and his wife, and then his greed turned him against them, even to the point that he manipulates the poor wife into drinking again and fakes his own death, framing the dean for it. Gah. He ends up dying for real later. And H.M.’s shady private detective character in The Tell-Tale Tap also bites the dust. In addition to them, he’s the killer in The Singing Skirt (which I have yet to see again, as it’s really not a favorite at all).

But his character in The Daring Decoy is very different. Daniel Conway is a good guy, a hapless businessman and company president who walks into a cleverly crafted trap and needs legal help.

He’s also very unique among Perry defendants. The early part of the episode focuses on him alone and not really any other guest characters. I only recall this happening in a couple of other episodes.

Has anyone noticed that most Perry defendants have either family members or friends somewhere? They generally come in and are important to the episode and to the interaction surrounding the main guest star. We learn a lot about who these people are, and their backgrounds, from the way they interact with those they're close to. But Daniel seems to have neither family nor friends; by all episodic indications, he’s a loner. His only ally, aside from Perry the company attorney and probably his secretary, seems to be a stockholder from Texas who apparently has a crush on him (which is reciprocated). He’s embroiled in serious conflict with a former member of the company’s board of directors, who may or may not have been a friend at one time.

Daniel is very good-natured in spite of all this trouble. He’s a kind and friendly person and a levelheaded businessman. Some loners are aloof or even grouchy, but not Daniel. He is surprised and bewildered when the Texas stockholder wanders into his office late at night and wants to know what he’s doing to protect himself in the conflict with Warner Griffith, but he isn’t curt or rude, even before he knows who she is.

Like many defendants, he doesn’t know quite what to do when he walks into the trap and finds a murder. He takes the gun, which belongs to the company, and tries to fool the elevator operator into thinking he’s just getting on at the sixth floor instead of the seventh. With her buried in a book, he’s sure he can get away with it. But she recognizes people’s shoes, and without ever looking up, comments on him walking down a floor before getting back on the elevator.

(And musing on this is suddenly making me realize something else fairly unique about Amory Fallon’s case. So many defendants actually stumble on the murder scene. Amory never even saw it. He was in the apartment house, but not Ned Thompson’s apartment.)

The elevator operator would be a fun character to bring back in a story sometime. She’s one of my favorite unique witnesses in season 1, along with the photographic memory fellow in The Fugitive Nurse. I wish they had both appeared in other episodes.

The conflict between Daniel and the former board of directors member, Warner Griffith, is something I’d be curious to explore in a story too. Griffith really seems to hate poor Daniel. Whether or not he really believed Daniel guilty is unknown. Griffith isn’t the murder victim, which is also unique. In many episodes, he would have been.

Also, I think I’d enjoy having Daniel meet Amory and comparing and contrasting them. I have material with which I hope to write a follow-up/sequel to The Malevolent Mugging; maybe this will all be a part of that.

The Texas stockholder is determined to do something to help. She goes to Perry, lying to try to craft an alibi for Daniel, and insists she knows he couldn’t be guilty. Perry knows she’s making things up and tells her that unfortunately, the courts won’t recognize women’s intuition as evidence. Perry eventually manages to sort the whole thing out, of course.

By the end of the episode, when the murder is solved and Daniel is acquitted, he’s hanging out with Perry and Della at the counter of a restaurant and grill (Clay’s?). The Texas stockholder, Amelia Armitage, shows up to check on him, congratulate him on his victory, and assures him of his re-election as company president. Her family owns 37% of the stock. Daniel remembers her from when she wandered into his office near the beginning of the episode and seems quite taken with her. Della wants to play matchmaker and see if she can arrange a “merger”. Perry scoots her out, to allow the two to get to know each other on their own terms.

Della places Daniel’s age at around 33. Whether the age was deliberately picked or not, it does closely match H.M.’s real age at the time. Depending on when it was filmed, he would have been either 30 or 31. He was 31 by the time it aired in March 1958.

Overall, it's probably about the only episode where Perry and Hamilton are on seriously ill terms that I will now enjoy watching repeatedly. A main guest star I quite like goes a long way to make me receptive.

And I think I’ll go ahead and just put up the link to that Perry fanfiction website I’ve been working on. I have it pretty good right now, although I plan for actual paragraphs of information rather than just basic dossiers of the characters, and I still need to get up the section for the main characters. I’ve been having fun with the listings for oneshot and recurring characters first and foremost, as I want to make sure it’s clear what episodes they’re from. http://sites.google.com/site/perrymasoncontinued/

Amory and Andy

QUICK EDIT: For the last couple of hours I've been playing with this: http://lucky-ladybugs-lovelies.tumblr.com/ I'll be posting a lot of random pictures of Perry actors, and some Perry episodic pictures, so it may be of interest to readers here. I do squeal and fangirl a bit, which I try to avoid doing here, but come for the pictures!

This is a problem I’ve been running into repeatedly while working on The Malevolent Mugging. It pertains to episodes as much or more than one fan story, and I thought I might bring some of my ponderings here.

What is Amory Fallon really like?

In The Impatient Partner we see an agonized, highly stressed, and excitable man. He suspects his partner Ned of embezzlement and arson, and worse, trying to murder him in the explosion at the plant. He thinks Ned is having an affair with his wife, Edith. And as his life spirals further out of control, he only becomes more and more upset. Being accused of Ned’s murder does not help.

Well, who wouldn’t be upset under those circumstances?

Most anyone, naturally. But Amory seems to have a knack for making molehills into mountains. Perry points out to him that he could be mistaken on just about every one of his suspicions, which are based around odd coincidences. And his brother-in-law Frank tells Paul that there has never been anything between Edith and Ned, but that it’s a suspicion that keeps building up inside of Amory, tormenting him beyond reason.

The indications are that at least the latter problem has been going on for a long time, only getting worse. We’re never told what triggered it. We only see Amory accusing Edith of the affair while in a highly wound-up state, already stressed from everything else piling on him. Seeing Ned appear on the company building’s back stairs, where Edith came to see Amory, is the last straw. In Amory’s already tortured mind, it’s logical to think that Edith is there for Ned and not him.

Maybe Amory has a bit of an inferiority complex. Maybe he’s just plum paranoid. Maybe it’s a bit of both in addition to the agonies of everything else that’s happening.

In The Malevolent Mugging, I try to explain Amory’s hysteria with the idea that he suspected Ned for a long time of doing shady things with the company, and that his suspicions about Ned and Edith only started after that, while he was already feeling a deep-rooted sense of betrayal. That is possible.

But it’s also equally possible that he suspected the affair first and only later started suspecting Ned of betraying the company. It seems to be hinted at by Frank that the suspicions of the affair have been going on for ages. That could mean it came first, especially if Amory only started suspecting Ned of shady business practices within the past month or two.

We don’t really have a clear picture one way or the other, however, making it fair game for pretty much any idea one wants to come up with.

Edith is frantic to help Amory as everything falls apart around him. She exclaims that his behavior isn’t like him at all. Does that mean that Amory is not generally a high-strung person? Or does it merely mean that it isn’t like him to ignore her and not call her, despite being a high-strung person?

There are some interesting clues in court that may further clarify the matter. Vivian Ames, the secretary to both Amory and Ned, tells in her testimony that Ned wanted her to avoid Amory if she found the file Ned wanted and came to bring it to him. Amory was hanging around the building and had tried to force his way inside Ned’s apartment, Ned said. He had been drinking and was in an ugly mood.

It could be interpreted from that, that Ned knew Amory is not usually like that. Amory rarely drinks, so explaining his especially bad mood as the product of his drinking suggests that it was the only possible explanation. Of course, he was already in a terrible mood before that, but the drinking certainly heightened it. And I wonder if Ned had seen Amory drunk before and was aware that he gets into his worst moods when that happens.

In any case, Amory’s expression when Vivian Ames tells what Ned said is interesting and possibly telling. He looks very mild, very meek, and perhaps somewhat surprised or guilty. He certainly doesn’t look like a high-strung, hysterical person. He looks very sweet and gentle.

Of course, he could be both gentle and anxious, swinging from one persona to the other as his moods change. And he might be realizing in court just how uptight and stressed some of his behavior has been and be feeling guilty over it.

Also, the episode shows us that this is a man descending into desperation and despair. Amory starts the episode much like Andy, in a suit and tie and with his hair perfectly combed. As everything starts to collapse around him and his mood grows worse and worse, we eventually see him drunk and disheveled, with a loosened tie and wild hair (which he later tries to comb at least somewhat to see Perry). By the time he knows Ned has been murdered, he’s taken off his jacket, loosened his tie and his shirt even more, and his hair is a complete mess. Clearly he was running his fingers into it. Would he behave that way if he didn’t have some high-strung tendencies to begin with?

It’s possible, especially if he’s supposed to be a man coming apart at the seams whereas before his life seemed perfectly normal and happy. Everyone reacts differently to high levels of stress; I think each defendant, when their reaction is shown, has a unique way of handling their problems. Amory could either be high-strung in general or just be falling apart in spite of previously showing few to no signs of this. Or he could just become stressed in certain intense situations, rather than being that way much of the time.

Tentatively, I would say that I kind of picture him as being prone to more mild levels of stress in general, but that it becomes intense when things are going extremely wrong. No one other than Edith seems that surprised by Amory’s mood swings, making me conclude that Edith may have been mainly talking about the way Amory treats her and not about him being stressed overall. And she also could have meant that it was unlike him to be stressed to that extreme.

(Also, something interesting and also a bit sad that I noticed. I’m not sure Perry even likes Amory that much. In general, unless I haven’t been paying attention, I thought Perry usually addressed the defendants with their proper titles—Mr., etc.—at least in court. Perry repeatedly refers to Amory as just “Fallon”, both in and out of court. I realize Perry even refers to people he knows and likes on a surname basis, especially Hamilton and Paul, but the key is, he doesn’t do it in more formal situations. And even if on occasion a usage of “Drake” might slip in court, it’s not steady.)

Then there’s a whole other issue. Amory and Andy have some traits and speech patterns that are similar. How does one successfully contrast the two and make them come across as the very different people they are? Not even Amory’s stress levels can fully help there, if we’re taking Andy’s season 8 behavior into the equation. Andy is very capable of becoming stressed as well, albeit he hasn’t ever been shown going to the extreme levels Amory can attain. But we don’t know if he couldn’t eventually get there.

I’ve been tinkering with this issue as well as trying to more fully flesh out Andy’s personality. Steve is honestly less of a mystery to me than Andy. Steve makes sense to me, while Andy, with his series of odd and contradictory behavior, is an intriguing riddle. Which is the real Andy? He’s easy-going. He’s stressed. He’s friendly. He’s stern. He visits Perry and company in connection with cases. He doesn’t associate with Perry and company in social scenes. He’s been on the force for fifteen years, a seasoned and mature man. He idolizes Lieutenant Tragg. He’s usually very sharp. Sometimes he has very cringe-worthy moments.

Putting it down on paper, so to speak, just makes it sound like Andy is a very multi-faceted person. Actually watching his behavior onscreen is what leaves me scratching my head. It’s one thing to make a character multi-faceted; they did that with Steve very well. All of his various behaviors can be ultimately traced back to traits he showed right from his first episode. But with Andy, I really get the feeling that the writers often didn’t know what to do with him, and that they pretty much had him do whatever they wanted at the time, whether or not it made sense with prior characterization. If so, I wonder if that was also a source of frustration to Wesley. Wesley was so good at playing every type of character imaginable, and he did wonders with Andy too, but it must have been exasperating if the writers couldn’t agree on what the character was like.

So rises the dilemma of exactly how to portray Andy and make him multi-faceted but not absolutely inconsistent. Since I am still confused on what is and what is not out-of-character behavior for Andy, the only way I know how to solve the issue is to try to cram in everything the writers wrote for him and try to somehow make it make sense.

It certainly isn’t easy. I tried writing a private, experimental, extended conversation between Della and Andy, just as an exercise. The thing meandered all over the place as I desperately groped for a lost and forgotten train of thought on what they should talk about and had Andy try to explain why he avoids social scenarios with Perry and company. I’m concerned over whether I was really able to give Andy his own unique voice or if it sounds too much like conversations I’ve written between Della and Hamilton.

Andy is easy to write when just keeping to the ideas the writers had about him at first: that he is an amiable but businesslike introvert, seeking to catch the criminals and not liking Perry and Paul’s law-bending, but not trying to trap them in it. Trying to peel back those layers, as well as to add what the writers threw in around season 8, makes it all very complicated. I’m up to the challenge, though. I want to portray a character befitting Wesley’s wonderful depiction, while connecting the dots in a way the writers didn’t.

Andy as I write him has all of the basic traits. His stress in season 8 is explained as coming into play when Tragg was nearly killed and Andy had to temporarily accept many of his responsibilities. He doesn’t join Perry and company in social scenarios—a particularly baffling thing in light of his friendliness—because he holds them at arm’s length, not wanting to become too close due to his concern over not becoming privy to any law-bending activities. And perhaps also because he fears it would become too awkward and straining on their friendship, were he to have to arrest one of them.

I’m not sure if I’ve strung everything together well, particularly on the latter points. But it’s visible for everyone to see that Andy never has lunch or dinner with Perry and company, whereas Steve and even Tragg often do. There has to be some reason for the omission. All I can do is draw on canonical knowledge of Andy and try to knit something out of it.

In the story, Amory muses to Edith on some of the differences between him and Andy. He feels that he would not have been able to concoct such a complex escape plan as Andy did while being held prisoner. He also thinks that if he had, the vicious dogs would have made him surrender. Amory is not a coward; he simply isn’t trained as a police officer and likely would not think of some of the same things Andy would. Amory is a businessman, which is a world likely foreign to Andy.

Amory is rarely in dangerous situations, while Andy faces them every day. Amory says in the episode that when he was nearly killed in the explosion, he stood by his car, shaking, for a few minutes. He, very likely as a common everyman, doesn’t quite know how to handle it. But he does well, all things considered. Instead of hiding away, he immediately sets out to solve the mystery, despite not having any experience in such a field.

In the story, he is held at gunpoint and, mistaken for Andy, told to get his hands in the air, “Cop”. Amory is too alarmed to spend time saying he isn’t a policeman (probably a smart decision, taking the assailant’s mood into consideration), so he puts up his hands and plans to reveal his true identity at that point—although he isn’t given the chance.

Later on, while recovering from the resulting attack, he is stressed by both that and the realization that he is still in danger. Finding out that Andy was abducted by people really wanting Amory doesn’t help. And he is only thrown further into turmoil and conflict by a surprising letter Andy was given that Ned wrote right before he was killed.

Amory never descends into the extreme stress of The Impatient Partner episode, though. Edith is standing by him, and with his faith in her long restored, he has her to lean on for support.

(. . . And who is “The Impatient Partner”, anyway? I’m not sure it’s ever clear whether they mean Amory or Ned.)

I’m planning that Amory will play an active role in the rest of the fic, helping the police and becoming involved in the various convoluted events. He and Andy have only met once so far, and they’ll have many more meetings before it’s over. I’ve tried to contrast them in every one of the scenes in which one or both of them appear. Hopefully it will be even easier to show their differences, in spite of some similarities in speech patterns, in their scenes together.

In Memoriam: Wesley Lau

This is memorial post two of two for today. If you come for the first time and see this post at the top, please scroll down to also see the first one.

Ah, Wesley Lau. I find it intriguing how I’m always lukewarm about replacements but almost always end up loving them. Wesley and his Perry characters Amory Fallon and Lieutenant Anderson have touched me deeply over the past months. Wesley managed to become my second-favorite Perry actor, along with William Talman.

Both William and Wesley were highly talented and highly underrated. They played everything from cowboys to killers (as Wesley said about himself), and everything in between! I’ve delighted to view them in the various movies and television series in which they took part.

I first had an inkling of how multi-faceted Wesley was when I saw his portrayal of the agonized, stressed Amory Fallon, a character so different from Lieutenant Anderson and yet still possessing some of the same mannerisms and speech patterns (possibly because they’re Wesley’s own). As I began to view his various guest-spots on television shows, I became more and more aware of just how incredible an actor he was.

Just as an example, I viewed the first of two Peter Gunn episodes in which he takes part. He plays Joe Scully, a male nurse and assistant to an invalid woman. The woman is mysteriously shot and Joe flees, terrified that he will be implicated. When Peter finally tracks him down, he finds a frightened, guilt-stricken, timid man, domineered by his cold-hearted wife. Apparently Joe was part of a plot to con the woman out of her money. It had worked; she named him in her will. But he is a changed man. Although he originally became her nurse with those ulterior motives in mind, he came to honestly care about her. When he found out she was going to be shot and killed, he was horrified.

Overall it’s a rather depressing episode. The woman wasn’t killed when she was shot, but for some reason, they had it mentioned in the epilogue that she later died. Peter and Lieutenant Jacoby are talking and it’s mentioned that she was never told the truth about Joe.

I was left a little uncertain as to why they seemed to be painting Joe as such a horrid person. Even if he started work with ulterior motives, it’s a beautiful thing that his attitude changed. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the episode, but perhaps the thing was that he didn’t try to stop the shooting even though he knew it was planned? If so, that is definitely horrid. But I can’t remember if he did nothing at all or if he tried to stop it.

EDIT: I saw the episode again and most emphatically confirm that Joe knew nothing of the plan at all. He wanted to divorce his wife, who really was a wretch, and marry the woman he was taking care of. That was when his wife decided to kill her, not because of jealousy, but because she wanted the money from the inheritance, which she could still get if she framed Joe for the murder. Joe knew nothing about any of it until Louise, the woman, was shot.

And I decided I had to give him and Louise a happy ending, because the whole thing was just too depressing and horrible for them. I wrote a short follow-up to the episode.

In any case, Joe is a character worlds apart from honest, upright, serious Lieutenant Anderson.

And Emil Sande is worlds apart from both of them.

A mercenary merchant based in San Antonio, Emil is smooth-talking, snarky, and absolutely doesn’t get along with Davy Crockett’s easy-going manner in The Alamo. He’s also set his sights on the lovely young Graciela (whose complete name is really a mouthful) and wants to marry her, for reasons unknown. He already seems to own her family’s property, and he tries to convince her to marry him because he knows she wants to get it back and he tells that’s the only way she’ll manage to retrieve any of it. A very self-assured sort, he tells her that she’ll eventually say Yes, even if she deliberates over it for a while. It’s practical and logical and she’ll come to that conclusion.

He’s right about that. Graciela, despite not liking him, determines to go through with the marriage. She would have, if not for a chain of events that happens that same night.

Graciela supports the rebellion and the fight for Texas independence. She takes quite a shine to Davy (as he does to her) and ends up telling him about the weapons Emil had stashed for General Santa Anna under the church. When Davy and his rebel group go to get them, Emil is waiting. While trying to keep them from taking his stockpile, he’s killed by Davy throwing Jim Bowie’s knife.

Something about the character appealed to me. Naturally Wesley’s portrayal had a lot to do with that. And I just couldn’t feel that he deserved death. I felt very sorry for him when Davy had to kill him in self-defense. I mean, these people are coming in to take his stuff. What’s Emil going to do but fight back?

There’s also some very interesting things I discovered while reading between the lines. I wonder both if he was really as bad as all that and what the extent of the relationship was between him and Graciela. When Davy wonders if she would like him to throw Emil out of her house because she doesn’t seem to like his company, she tells him that she is in no danger. Emil is apparently close enough to her to call her by her first name (albeit not by the nickname her closest friends use). And when Davy tells Graciela that Emil is dead, she says his death isn’t worth tears and yet she cries anyway (although she attributes it to feeling overwhelmed by so many things happening to her lately).

Emil is a character. Davy has to press and press to get him to pay the boy who takes Graciela’s luggage up to her house. The scene is highly amusing. Davy keeps wanting to talk to him, and Emil keeps opening the door for two seconds, doing what he thinks Davy wants, and then shutting the door again. But he doesn’t stick around long enough, so Davy keeps knocking and the cycle repeats. Emil is finally so annoyed that he answers the door with his gun.

I was so fascinated by the character and determined to refuse to accept his death that I immediately started a project of connected scenes or vignettes, exploring the idea of what if he was not dead, but badly injured, and he survived. And what if he slowly began to have a change of heart as he was nursed back to health?

It’s a very interesting project. Mostly it consists of soliloquies and dialogues involving Emil and Graciela, with the occasional action-oriented scene. Emil is a lot of fun to write. His snarky and smooth speech patterns are unique and amusing. And without too many scenes in the movie to go on for other personality elements, I borrowed traits from some of Wesley’s other characters for other scenes. He is confused and frustrated over his changing attitudes and conflicted feelings, and any stressed scenes are based on Amory Fallon’s behavior. Whenever a bit of a long-buried kind side surfaces, that is also based on either Amory or Andy. Then, at other times, I gather all the various knowledge I have about any of Wesley’s characters that would fit and try to create something a little bit different and new. I definitely want Emil to sound like one of Wesley’s characters, as well he should.

I’d really like to mention his character Staff Meeker in the Law of the Plainsman episode Stella, but this post is getting quite long. Staff is quite adorable, though. He does participate in a bank robbery, but he doesn’t want to and he doesn’t hurt anyone. He seems very timid and shy and gentle. He only became involved in the robbery because his tough wife wanted to and she wanted the money. His wife, Stella, and her brothers were the ones calling the shots.

Gah, Stella treats him cruel. When they’re arguing about the robbery and the money and how reluctant he is to do anything about it (one brother says they had to force him just to strap on a gun), he finally exclaims, “Why did you marry me?!” Stella replies that she was lonely and he was there and asked her. And she says he’s nothing. Oh goodness, he looks so crushed. He says in despair, “I love you!”

Stella finally softens after talking with the show’s awesome main character, an Apache federal marshal. When the brothers come back after recovering the money which was hidden, they corner the marshal and are treating him cruel. Then they want Stella to shoot him. Staff protests, and between him and the marshal, Stella is finally convinced to side with them and not with her brothers. Staff is hurt in a fight with one of the brothers, but is alright. The marshal promises to testify in his and Stella’s behalf at their trial.

We never really do see if Stella treats Staff any better, though. I think I ought to write a little scene of them talking in jail.

I could go on for pages if I tried to discuss all of Wesley’s variously fascinating characters. I am also highly intrigued by his character Carl Armory from the Bonanza episode Her Brother’s Keeper. I’m writing a vignette series about him and his sister, too. And I even wrote a silly addendum to an equally silly episode of a show called The Law and Mr. Jones. I was most unsatisfied with the episode’s conclusion and I endeavored to “fix” it in a way that would please me.

I imagine it’s very unnatural to become so fascinated by minor and/or oneshot characters. And yet on the other hand, the production crew often has specific people in mind for the parts because they want them to attract the audience’s attention. I like to think it’s a tribute to them, the scriptwriters, and of course the actors, when a character is portrayed so well that someone is intrigued and wants there to be more of that character. That’s how some oneshot characters ended up recurring or even becoming cast regulars, after all.

I have been considering off and on making some websites for specific Perry actors as Crystal and I have done for Simon Oakland. I would like to start with Wesley, since I feel he sometimes is lost in the shuffle when he wasn’t one of the original Core Five cast members. Hardly anything is actually known about Wesley, either, and whether that’s because his family honestly wants it that way or because information has simply been lost to time, we have no idea. But if it’s the latter, then I say it’s high-time that information is found and Wesley is properly honored as one of the great character actors of the Golden Age of Television.

Wesley Albert Lau: Passed away August 30^th, 1984. Still sorely missed and well-loved.

The Case of the Impatient Partner

It’s always nice, to finally see the uncut version of a well-loved episode. Sometimes additional scenes are available with favorite characters, either important to the plot or to the character’s personality. Other times, not much has been snipped.

My local station is usually pretty good about getting prints with most of the episodes’ content intact. Season 1 episodes, which seemed to be longer than later ones, usually suffer the most. Others, by around seasons 5 and 6, are generally only missing one or two scenes.

When I saw the uncut version of The Impatient Partner, I had hoped for more scenes with Amory Fallon. There were none. What had been cut from my station’s copy was a short scene between plant chemist Burt Nichols and Amory’s secretary Miss Ames, as well as a longer scene with Perry and Burt conversing outside Miss Ames’ apartment. So the main thing I hadn’t previously known was that Burt and Miss Ames were friends and had been a couple in the past, before she started going out with Amory’s partner Ned Thompson.

Aired as the second episode of season 5, The Impatient Partner would really have quite an impact on the majority of the rest of the series. It gave us our first Perry-related glimpse of Wesley Lau.

I wonder how they stumbled across him. From what I’ve read of how television writers and other crew members operate, they often have specific people in mind when they write parts. Could that have been the case with Wesley, who was already a familiar character actor (mostly in Westerns and a few movies)? Or did they not have anyone in mind and Wesley just showed up for an audition? That would be really interesting to know.

Rare for the series, The Impatient Partner opens in Paul’s office. Amory Fallon, a client of Paul’s, is questioning an old lady. She has trouble sticking to the subject and exasperates Amory when she starts to ramble. He tries to stay calm and polite as he pays her for her time and ushers her out. Paul also leaves, to take a call in his very full waiting room. (Wow, I wonder if days are usually that crowded for him? They’ve definitely given the impression that he runs a large-scale agency, not some dinky little thing. He’s referenced many operatives over the seasons. Then again, maybe the office was so full that day because of all the ladies showing up to be questioned.)

A mousy fellow who has been observing things in the office gets up to talk with Amory. It seems Amory brought him along because he’s Amory’s brother-in-law and Amory thinks he might need a witness. He also thinks that the lady who just left is the woman he’s been looking for.

After further conversation with the woman at her apartment, however, Amory realizes she is not the one. He’s looking for someone who was standing outside the Fallon Paint company Monday night, when there was an explosion. This woman was at the nearby bus stop Sunday night, but not Monday. Frustrated, Amory leaves and remarks that it was her coat that fooled him.

The audience, and not Amory, sees the woman take the coat across the hall to the woman who really was there. The coat was a loan, and its real owner would have gone with her friend to the office, had she not come down with a cold.

Amory is a built-up bundle of nerves. In addition to his paranoia that his wife is having an affair with his business partner, he is certain that someone tried to kill him in that explosion. Though it was set up to try to look like a group of punk kids did it, Amory believes (and it’s later discovered he’s right) that it was someone else, someone deliberately trying to cover up a crime and destroy some important files that revealed it. And he believes it was someone in his company.

Apparently he didn’t tell Paul all of this. Paul shows up at the Fallon Paint company, angry at being used and worried that he’s done something wrong that may jeopardize his license. Amory breaks down and admits the truth to Paul and tells him that nothing out of sorts was being done. And he has no desire to keep anything from the police. He just wants to find out if the woman at the bus stop might have seen someone going in or out of the company building right before the explosion, and if she could identify said person.

Before and while they’re attempting to converse, Mrs. Fallon calls several times trying to talk to Amory. He doesn’t want to talk with her, convinced of the affair and certain that he really means nothing to her. He hasn’t even been home since returning from a month-long trip to Mexico the other day. Instead, he’s been staying in a hotel.

He talks with his partner, who appears in the office, and introduces Paul as Mr. Henry. He then goes around the building speaking with other employees as he tries to get to the bottom of what happened in the explosion. He learns that the suspicious files were moved to where they would be blown up on orders of Ned Thompson.

As he finally leaves the building at the end of the workday, he goes by way of the back stairs. He stumbles across his wife Edith, who has come down out of worry and bewilderment over why he hasn’t been home. He softens at her concern and is trying to work out a reply when Thompson appears on the same stairs. This tips Amory over the edge and he decides that Edith must have really come to see his partner. He screams that he doesn’t want to ever see her or speak to her again. As he flies off in his overwrought state, Edith stares after him in shock. Thompson looks on, his expression impassive.

Meanwhile, Paul has finally located the woman who actually was at the bus stop Monday night. They observe everyone coming out the main entrance of the company building, but she doesn’t recognize anyone. That night Paul has her at the apartment building where Thompson lives. He’s the last possibility, so they figure it must have been him. Suddenly the woman sees who she saw, and amid a flurry of exclaiming and pointing, Paul hurries out and across the street to apprehend him. He grabs a drunk and dazed Amory Fallon.

Back at Perry’s office, Amory finally tells his entire story while Perry and the others listen. Though sympathetic and declaring to help by speaking with Ned Thompson, who refused to see Amory when he showed up, Perry also very frankly tells Amory that a lot of what he thinks is wrong could be in his own mind. There isn’t enough evidence to support the idea of the affair between Edith and Ned, nor is it likely that the arsonist was trying to murder Amory, since no one even knew he would be at the building that night.

Amory doesn’t say whether or not Perry’s assessment makes sense to him, but he is grateful for the offer of help. He mentions writing a note and shoving it under Thompson’s door when he wasn’t allowed admittance to his apartment. Being drunk at the time, a state he’s rarely ever in, he can’t remember what he wrote. Perry says they’ll get the note back.

That turns out to be impossible. So is conversing with Thompson. When he and Paul arrive, Lieutenant Tragg answers the door. Thompson is dead.

One interesting note on Thompson’s apartment: he must really like chess. Not only does he have a board set up with some of the largest chess pieces I’ve ever seen, there’s also a huge statue of a knight chess piece on the floor near the body.

Paul talks with Amory’s brother-in-law during the investigation, who tells him that there was nothing between Edith and Ned and that it was something that just built up in Amory’s mind over a period of time, torturing him. When Paul leaves, Mrs. Fallon comes out and insists to her brother that she has to help Amory.

The court scenes are very intense, as everyone tries to unravel the mysteries surrounding Thompson’s death and the activity at the paint company. Someone was embezzling money and the books were doctored to reflect it. Thompson photographed everything, certainly making it seem like he couldn’t possibly have been the embezzler. Perry finally uncovers that there were two embezzlers and Thompson was indeed one of them. The pictures he took displayed the other embezzler’s work.

And there was also a deal going on under the table with Thompson and Burt Nichols working together with businessman Carlos Silva of Mexico. Thompson and Amory already had an aboveboard deal pending with him. That was the reason for Amory’s trip. But Amory knew nothing of the other deal.

Perry also pieces together why Amory can’t remember anything that happened after he tried and failed to get into Thompson’s apartment. There’s a forty-five minute gap between that and him stumbling out of the building. Perry finally gets Burt to admit that Amory was asleep on the stairs due to his uncharacteristic, heavy drinking. Burt was going to visit Ned to further discuss the deal with Silva. But Burt insists he did not kill Ned.

It’s Edith, Amory’s devoted and worried wife, who manages to close the case for them. In between court sessions she revealed information to Perry about her brother that made Perry suspect him as the second embezzler. And when Perry accuses him of the murder in court, the weasel leaps up, it having been bubbling inside him all during the examination of Burt, and repeatedly screams that yes, he did kill Thompson! Edith covers her face in sickened grief while everyone else in court stares on.

The epilogue finds Perry noting the great sacrifice Edith made in telling the information about her brother’s heavy gambling and money losses. Amory acknowledges that he’s aware of that, and apologizes to Edith for all of his wild imaginings concerning her and Ned. The episode ends on a happy note with them reunited.

Amory is one of my favorite oneshot characters. As already mentioned, he was responsible for making me realize my fondness for both Wesley Lau and Lieutenant Anderson. His tense, jumpy behavior is so completely different from Andy’s usually calm, aloof nature. When I first saw the episode and saw him so anxious, I wondered whether he would be the defendant or the victim. (Or the killer.) I was very happy that he was the defendant!

I was also happy that Edith really wasn’t having an affair with Ned, and that she was so loving and devoted in spite of Amory’s imaginations. As I’ve mentioned, I get a little tired of seeing so many marriages on the rocks. It was refreshing to see one that could be mended.

Also, something a bit amusing. While Amory does lie to Paul at the beginning, he never lies to Perry. And that is a rarity among his clients! It seems like they're always either lying or holding something back. I think I could count on one hand the clients who tell Perry the whole truth.

After I’m able to return to and finish my mystery The Denying Detective, which I hope to do in July, I have been toying again with an idea involving a double of a main character. In the past I had considered one where Hamilton has a bad double creating havoc for him, but I abandoned that after becoming aware of The Dead Ringer. Although the series has touched on doubles more than once (even with one of Perry’s season 6 stand-ins!), I don’t think there has ever been an episode where the double and the main character are both good guys.

Being as fond as I am of Amory, I had the thought of featuring him as well as Andy in one of the mysteries. Perhaps one of them (probably Amory) is found lying unconscious in a park, stripped of all identification, and is thought to be the other. Meanwhile, the other (probably Andy) is abducted for some reason. One of them is a mistaken target while the other is the one meant to be taken. And so far I haven’t quite sorted out which should be which. Amory’s already had so much trouble with people causing trouble for him in his company. But Andy’s had trouble in one of my past stories with someone trying to kill him, so it probably evens out.

There’s also the question of motive. If it’s some nut out for revenge on Andy, it could start seeming too much like my past story The Memento Mori Murderer, where some nut is out for revenge on Perry. And in that case, it might be better for it to be Amory who was the real target all along, and for a reason other than revenge.

If I decide to write the story, I’ll get it all sorted out by that point.

If someone else had played Amory, The Impatient Partner still would have been a good episode. But it would not likely have been significant in the overall picture. With Wesley Lau in the role, the episode’s place as an important installment is assured.

I wonder what viewers thought when Wesley appeared two episodes later as a Homicide detective. Maybe they were used to character actors popping up repeatedly and they didn’t bat an eye. In any case, they must have been receptive. If only the crew and not the audience had liked Wesley, it likely wouldn’t have worked out for any length of time. But he would be regularly present over the next four seasons.