The Least Dangerous Game as a teenager was one of my more favorite memorable episodes. Simon and Simon was the beginning of 80's detective shows. Still had the Rockford Files humor, and cons, but slicker with more style. Their is the two brother characters one has good looks, intelligent and is very 80's and the older brother is more blue color, Nam Vet with dubious friends. The arguments and clashes push the brother to be better detectives and add much humor for the series. The Least Dangerous Game has the two Brothers investigate mysterious death of a Lion killing a staff member. The Simon brothers have to work at the Zoo. A J the charmer get more of the P R easy Zoo job, while Rick cleans poo, and feeds the animals dirty work. Their is much humor with this. Well I digress, their is a plot twist and sad answer with what was happening at the zoo. Memorable episode. Well written and directed. 9 stars.
2 Reviews
There's Just Something Wrong About This!
JasonDanielBaker30 December 2018
A sick lion attacks and kills a worker at a world famous zoo. Small-time local private investigators the Simon Brothers - Rick (Gerald McCraney) and A.J. (Jameson Parker) are hired by wealthy philanthropist Derek Frye (Nicholas Coster) to get something on the deceased man that can be used to impugn his credibility i.e. past drug use, alcoholism, mental health problems etc.
Added to that distasteful duty is a suspicion they were hired because everyone that matters knows they are desperate for cases. We are reminded that private investigation is not exclusively the realm of the altruistic and can in fact be used to service the ends of the morally ambiguous.
Our first reminder is that they are being hired by a zoo i.e. a place where animals face so much hardship and cruelty. Our second reminder is this mission that the Simon brothers are sent out on to burn a dead man's credibility presumably so that the zoo won't face liability.
The fact that it seems too easy (Dead guy was mainlining PCP and left his stash out) might bother the kind of P.I.s Rick and A.J. were. But there are plenty of corporate and small-time outfits that serve client needs of the most outrageous sort and only occasionally face professional sanction.
Knowing they are setting someone up is not necessarily valuable knowledge unless you are fundamentally a good person or have professional ethics. What they do with that knowledge again defines the title characters as heroic professionals even though their tactics are sometimes illegal.
Frye agrees to let them go undercover at the zoo and the Simons dredge up the unexpected with the help of veterinarian Dr. Sandy Sawyer (Darleen Carr).
If we need a more stark ethical contrast to the Simons than what other private investigators would do we have the revelation of a particularly perverse kind of villainy that gives us that and more. The baddie is of a kind that would not only outrage animal rights activists but also hunters.
The real horror for the brothers is that their long widowed mom (Mary Carver) is dating again and that she wants them to meet the guy.
While investigating the dead man's apartment A.J. asks the landlord why it is vacant with "What happened? He get transferred or something?". Home to a naval base and Silicon Valley computer companies, 1980s San Diego was a gorgeous place that people did not usually leave unless they were accepting promotion somewhere else. Hence "He get transferred?" may have been a natural question when someone moved. It is also telling that formally dressed and well-coiffed A.J. would pose as a prospective tenant and not cowboy Rick. You know which one people would rent to.
But the most telling moment is when the brothers play basketball in the driveway like when they were kids. You see them talking about the case while they play. It can be interpreted as giving us the metaphor of the give and take when detectives discuss strategy while showing them literally competing.
It also is this All-American thing brothers are known to do so it helps relate the characters to the audience that way. Real people have conversations while they are doing things like that. As with a number of moments during the series they struck just the right tone.
Darleen Carr and Jameson Parker were married in 1992. She did no less than four episodes of this series each time as a different character.
Added to that distasteful duty is a suspicion they were hired because everyone that matters knows they are desperate for cases. We are reminded that private investigation is not exclusively the realm of the altruistic and can in fact be used to service the ends of the morally ambiguous.
Our first reminder is that they are being hired by a zoo i.e. a place where animals face so much hardship and cruelty. Our second reminder is this mission that the Simon brothers are sent out on to burn a dead man's credibility presumably so that the zoo won't face liability.
The fact that it seems too easy (Dead guy was mainlining PCP and left his stash out) might bother the kind of P.I.s Rick and A.J. were. But there are plenty of corporate and small-time outfits that serve client needs of the most outrageous sort and only occasionally face professional sanction.
Knowing they are setting someone up is not necessarily valuable knowledge unless you are fundamentally a good person or have professional ethics. What they do with that knowledge again defines the title characters as heroic professionals even though their tactics are sometimes illegal.
Frye agrees to let them go undercover at the zoo and the Simons dredge up the unexpected with the help of veterinarian Dr. Sandy Sawyer (Darleen Carr).
If we need a more stark ethical contrast to the Simons than what other private investigators would do we have the revelation of a particularly perverse kind of villainy that gives us that and more. The baddie is of a kind that would not only outrage animal rights activists but also hunters.
The real horror for the brothers is that their long widowed mom (Mary Carver) is dating again and that she wants them to meet the guy.
While investigating the dead man's apartment A.J. asks the landlord why it is vacant with "What happened? He get transferred or something?". Home to a naval base and Silicon Valley computer companies, 1980s San Diego was a gorgeous place that people did not usually leave unless they were accepting promotion somewhere else. Hence "He get transferred?" may have been a natural question when someone moved. It is also telling that formally dressed and well-coiffed A.J. would pose as a prospective tenant and not cowboy Rick. You know which one people would rent to.
But the most telling moment is when the brothers play basketball in the driveway like when they were kids. You see them talking about the case while they play. It can be interpreted as giving us the metaphor of the give and take when detectives discuss strategy while showing them literally competing.
It also is this All-American thing brothers are known to do so it helps relate the characters to the audience that way. Real people have conversations while they are doing things like that. As with a number of moments during the series they struck just the right tone.
Darleen Carr and Jameson Parker were married in 1992. She did no less than four episodes of this series each time as a different character.
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