For the '80s, the was amazingly decent

What I mean by that is that, by the early-to-mid-'80s, doing a cop show -- with two women no less! -- which managed to be almost totally uncorrupted by the smug political correctness of that era, is an astounding accomplishment.

Yes, sure, you can still tell it's from the '80s, but compared to what else was on at the time, CAGNEY & LACEY was amazing chill.

Much of the media had become painfully PC by the mid-'80s (both in a leftist way in which everyone had to be "a role model" and which killed comedies and even kids cartoons, and also a rightist trickle-down way --- often even in the same product). Such that you were actually supposed to believe horrible Faye Furillo was "right" on HILL STREET BLUES.

It was stifling and wall-to-wall and a bit warped.

Well-outside the neurotic, self-conscious paradigm of the '80s, so many of those shows are almost unwatchable today. They so want to be meaningful --- and also "hip" --- and the result are a bunch of series (and movies, too) which, despite their best efforts, shrilly wind up being about nothing.

Smugly. About nothing.

So the fact that CAGNEY & LACEY managed to avoid this is nothing less than astounding... (Yes, yes, I know Mary Beth cries too much and Cagney throws too many tantrums --- and the show was also forced by CBS to do some early re-casting. But nothing's ever perfect).

Now, 30 odd years later, this distinction may not translate. But at the time, it was pretty darned refreshing.


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The most profound of sin is tragedy unremembered.