Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This was a good show. I think. I was young and I watched a lot of crap back then. Anyway...ABC had high hopes for this show, the pilot achieved the coveted post-Super Bowl time-slot in 85. After the big game, millions of Americans who were either too drunk or too lazy to change the channel, watched this. Then ABC promptly moved the MacGruder & Loud playing piece from Boardwalk to Baltic Avenue, giving it a cushy new home Monday nights at 10:00 PM EST. Graveyard slot.Everybody knows that in those days there were 2 types of shows that weren't going stand a creamsicle's chance in hell of surviving:1) Any sitcom that aired immediately following "Facts Of Life"2) Any ABC series that aired Monday nights at 10:00 PM ESTNice knowing ya' Malcolm & Jenny!The show itself was watchable. I think. In that "Hart To Hart"/"Remington Steele" sort of way. MacGruder and Loud weren't detectives though, they were ordinary beat-cops. They didn't fight crime in stylin' J.C. Penney leisure-wear, no detective-salary fashions for them... no, they served and protected in (get this) plain ole wash-n-wear police uniforms! Imagine. The bad guys were always interesting. I think. And the chase-scenes were always quasi-thrilling. But the real reason 3 people in America kept tuning in was Malcolm & Jenny's secret marriage. To fool their nosy precinct captain (he of many impromptu home-visits) they lived in side-by-side apartments. With a secret passageway between the two that was hidden by a *bookcase!* YES! The only thing missing was Alfred and the bat-poles!Such fun this show was. I think. I was young and I watched a lot of crap back then.