Remington Steele (TV Series) Small Town Steele (1984) User Reviews

Good effort at an old concept

[patcadle · 7/10 · 2 February 2023]

Almost every private eye television show in the 60's and 70's had one episode set in a small western town where every citizen in town was in on, and guilty of, a secret. In fact, it seems to have been almost a requirement of every detective show to Take a crack at this particular plot (just like there always HAS to be an episode related to horse racing. It is the way of things.). The secret is generally a past crime the town folk committed or in some cases just a fortuitous windfall from another person's crime that benefited the town financially. And of course they do not want any strangers snooping around who might dig up the past and cost them their windfall, so they are hostile toward any outside visitor who may show up. How a town is supposed to have survived economically with no social or business contacts outside of its own borders is always a puzzle to me, but sometime I think too much when I watch tv. I saw an episode like this on Mannix, Cannon, Rockford and I've lost track of how many others.

The cliche endured until at least 1984, but I kind of like the lighter touch of this take on it. My favorite line is when Laura says, with girlish glee, "I came to rescue you. I've always wanted to say that!"

I won't splint the plot but the banter is good in this one, and the cliche is handled well.

Small Town Steele

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 17 January 2019]

It certainly is a Bad Day at Black Rock in this intriguing and entertaining episode. A good blend of mystery, tension and some comedy.

When an academic disappears while on a research trip in a small hick town. Laura and Remington arrive and find out that the locals have zipped their mouths shut and they do not like strangers poking around.

The local Sheriff tells them that the Professor moved on elsewhere.

All the time the townsfolk are running down the clock. They just need for some time to relapse and come into a jackpot.

When Mildred rushes to see Remington, even she is put to jail for the weekend.

Things get serious when Laura and Remington come across a dead body. Then there is a story of missing money from a heist some years earlier, money that was never recovered.

Paul Gleason was familiar face in the 1980s, usually playing stern or sleazy types. Here he is the Sheriff and you are not quiet sure how bad he is. It is a nicely nuanced performance with a hint of comedy.

Unpleasant typical Hollywood small-town steryotypes

[aramis-112-804880 · 5/10 · 12 January 2023]

This story seems to be based on a tale from "Mannix" that also featured Ford Rainey (perhaps his casting was a wink to the cognoscenti: "Mannix" hadn't been off the air much more than a decade when this episode aired).

On the trail of a missing academic, Remington and Laura wind up in a town where they're most unwelcome. Why are the people so unwelcoming, yet eager that they don't leave?

Though this is a lot kinder and gentler than the 'Mannix" episode, and the folks have a good reason for doing what they do, it still plays into big-city fears of small towns. Several stereotypes appear, the sort of stereotypes Hollywood people will never do mea culpas for.

A few stereotypes don't appear. One is the local clerical type.

Hollywood studios, in their peculiar take on theology, always used to have small towns where they had one church everyone in town attended (clearly they never lived in small towns or they'd know no town is too small not to have a Baptist, Methodist, etc.) These churches everyone attended sang hymns of no particular theology (in "Sergeant York" they had a rousing rendition of "Give me that old time religion"). The services were led by clerical types who always wore collars (God forbid they show protestant preachers in street clothes; Hollywood's clerical collars were sort of like yellow stars of David in Nazi Germany, making sure we understood these were the only characters allowed to spend their waking hours being religious). After the collapse of the Studio system this way of thinking still prevailed.

This episode's small town lacks the usual non-denominational church-house with the collar-bound cleric, or they might've had what Hollywood regers to as a "conscience." Then again, it is on California. Instead, what we have in this town is a dead secret Remington and Laura must crack. With the help of Mildred, who spends much of this episode in stir.