CD Giveaway - Sam Shrieve, "Bittersweet Lullabies"
Ends Nov 29, 2009
The current student at Berklee College of Music has a rock 'n' roll pedigree, but delivers a pleasing and diverse collection of soft pop on his debut record. Enter our contest for your chance to win!
The Twilight Saga: New Moon Prize Pack
Ends Nov 29, 2009
The second installment of the Twilight saga is hitting theaters, and we've got the stylish goodies you'll howl over!
Country: USA Release Date: November 8, 2005 Distributor: Fox Home Entertainment Cast: · Stephanie Zimbalist as Laura Holt · Pierce Brosnan as Remington Steele · Doris Roberts as Mildred Krebs Grade: B+
Laura Holt (Stephanie Zimbalist) is a female private investigator unable to secure any clients. In a bid to lure in some customers, she invents the dapper and suave Remington Steele, the mysterious "owner" of the Remington Steele Detective Agency, a man clients are never supposed to meet. After all, he doesn't really exist. That is, until a suave and dapper man walks into Laura's life and assumes the identity of Remington Steele (Pierce Brosnan). This is the premise of one of the seminal television series of the 1980s. All romantic comedy/dramas that came after Remington Steele (especially those set in a detective agency) owe something to this series.
In its sophomore season, having undergone some growing pains, Remington Steele matured. Supporting characters Murphy Michaels and Bernice Foxe were gone, soon to be replaced by Mildred Krebs (Everybody Loves Raymond's Doris Roberts). Some of the cheezy and hokey stuff from the early 1980s still stained the show. For example, every episode still started with a clip montage of the upcoming episode (but at least the narrator promising "Tonight, on Remington Steele..." was gone.) Certainly the dialogue is stiffer and less casual than you'll see on television today (without a hint of the swearing or profanity sure to make its way onto primetime TV these days). Camera angles are more static. And the opening theme sequence (set in a movie theater with the two main protagonists watching scenes from the series) is brutally bad. But Remington Steele must still be admired for its sense of humor and sense of style.
The second season is all about Doris Roberts's Mildred Krebs. Certainly that was not the intention of producers, but now that Roberts has become the star she is, you can't help but focus your attention on her. The two hour season premiere tells us how Krebs - an IRS auditor come to investigate how it is that Mr. Steele has never filed a tax return - comes to be in the employ of the Remington Steele Detective Agency. The charm of the Krebs character is that she - unlike the characters she replaces - does not know that Steele is a fraud.
Bonus Material
The bare bones packaging and lackluster menus hide some truly valuable extras. We get three featurettes addressing different aspects of the production with interviews with all three major leads and much of the behind-the-scenes crew. Each featurette is relatively short, less than fifteen minutes, but you learn a lot about the production of the series. Brosnan's interview clips seem to have been filmed at the same time as those found on the season 1 set, but they're still appreciated. Zimbalist is a surprise, since she did not appear on the season 1 set (I can't imagine she was too busy.) Everything is held together by co-creator and executive producer, Michael Gleason.
Steele Together looks at the unconventional relationship between Laura and Remington. Moonlighting may have been famous for the sexual tension between the two protagonists, but they got that from Remington Steele.
Steele Action looks at all the suprisingly wild stunts for what was supposed to be a mostly cerebral show. Highlights here include Zimbalist swimming in a tank full of snakes and Brosnan getting Bell's Palsy after a fistfight in the L.A. river. Stunt coordinator Ernie Orsatti and numerous past directors and producers take pleasure in reminding us that this was before the era of CGI and all the stunts were done "the old way."
Steele Mildred looks at the series' new character, Mildred Krebs. Doris Roberts' comic timing was already very evident back then. I particularly enjoyed watching the clips of her doing stunts. That's something we didn't get to see on Everybody Loves Raymond.
Also included on the discs are commentaries for several episodes. "Steele Eligible" has commentary by Gleason and episode director Sheldon Larry. "Steele Sweet On You" has commentary by Gleason and episode writer Susan Baskin. "Hounded Steele" has commentary by episode writer Jeff Melvoin. You would think that the last of these three commentaries would be the least compelling since it's a commentary by only one person and the banter would be limited, but it's actually the most informative of the threesome. Not because you learn a lot about the episode, but because you learn a lot about how television production has changed since Remington Steele. Melvoin is now an executive producer on the series Alias and he spends a lot of time drawing comparisions between his current gig and Remington Steele. He reminds us of what a revolution the invention of the steady-cam was to television production, for example. Although not initially obvious, if you watch and old TV series and try to put your finger on what makes it different from shows today, what you're noticing is probably the lack of a steady-cam. Also of note in "Hounded Steele" is the villain, played by probably the most famous person to portray Dr. Who, Tom Baker.
Remington Steele is a video time capsule, visually reliving the mid-1980s. The cars, the clothes, the hair. It's all there. It suffers only in being the first to do so many things. Inevitably, others come along and do what you did, only better. But the zany, screwball antics, mystery and drama and more than enough to make this set compelling.
