The Chronic Consumer

When I was growing up, Cagney & Lacey was one of my favorite television shows. But since I was in grade school when the series was in its prime and since I never caught any eps in syndication, I decided to buy the recently released DVD Box Set so I could revisit my favorite female detectives from an adult perspective. I therefore purchased the box set, titled “The True Beginning,” when it first came out at the beginning of May for $27.99 through Amazon.com. Here’s what I think of the collection.

First of all, it should be noted that although the set is called “The True Beginning,” that reference comes from the fact that these episodes are the ones that feature Sharon Gless as Cagney. She was actually the third actress to play the role, since Loretta Swit had taken a turn as Cagney in the original made-for-TV movie and then Meg Foster took over when CBS picked up the show as a series. So this box set doesn’t include the first movie or the six eps with Foster. It starts with Season Two eps — which didn’t make a difference for me, but might bother some other people.

The episodes themselves were fantastic, but I’m not going to talk about them in detail here. If you want to read my thoughts about the content of the show, then I suggest heading over to Reviews and More and running a search for “cagney and lacey.” All relevant posts should turn up.

For this particular entry, I’m just going to list the eps that appear on these DVDs. Please note that this collection contains double-sided discs, which is one of the reasons it retails for such a low price.

Disc 1 (Side A):
Witness to an Incident
One of Our Own
Beauty Burglars
High Steel
(Side B):
Hotline
Internal Affairs

Disc 2 (Side A):
Mr. LonelyHearts
Conduct Unbecoming
I’ll Be Home for Christmas
Recreational Use
(Side B):
Hopes and Dreams
The Grandest Jewel Thief of Them All

Disc 3 (Side A):
Affirmative Action
Open and Shut Case
Jane Doe #37
Date Rape
(Side B)
Burnout
Chop Shop

Disc 4 (Side A):
Let Them Eat Pretzels
The Gang’s All There
Featurette: Breaking the Laws of TV Part I
(Side B)
A Cry for Help
The Informant
Featurette: Breaking the Laws of TV Part II

Discs 1 and 2 are packaged together in one plastic case, while Discs 3 and 4 are packaged together in another. Both individual packages, plus the outer cardboard box feature the same image (pictured above). There are no liner notes, pullouts, or any other extras with the set.

I thought the featurette was very interesting and wish there had been more behind-the-scenes stuff like that. We got appearances and commentary from Sharon Gless, Tyne Daly, Carl Lumbly, Martin Cove, Barney Rosenzweig, and a bunch of the writers. It was cool to hear how C&L was the first show to do so many things because, honestly, if people didn’t tell me this, I would never have known.

The way TV shows are today, all the issues addressed on C&L have been done to death by now so someone seeing C&L for the first time might not think that the storylines were very innovative. So I definitely appreciated the reminder.

This is obviously a bare-bones box set, and not a very nice one at that, but I didn’t buy this as a collector. I was more interested in watching the actual episodes and these DVDs were perfectly adequate for that. The show looked great on my LCD TV, and I do recommend that you buy this set if you’re an old Cagney & Lacey fan like myself or if you want to check out some quality programming from past decades.

As soon as the next season comes out on DVD, I’m placing an order!