"DON'T SPIT ON THE FLOOR" - Sign in the 12th Precinct's holding pen
Barney Miller: The Complete Second Season DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
The gang at the 12th Precinct in New York's Greenwich Village returns for another season of crime, punishment, and laughs in Barney Miller: The Complete Second Season. Captain Barney Miller (Hal Linden) is the idealistic leader of the precinct's cadre of plainclothes detectives. Old before his time Phil Fish (Abe Vigoda) complains equally about his supposedly ailing health and his passionless marriage to his wife Bernice. Stanley "Wojo" Wojciehowicz (Maxwell Gail) is an enthusiastic gum chewer who is sometimes a little slow on the uptake. Nick Yemana (Jack Soo) likes to play the ponies. Chano Amenguale (Gregory Sierra), proud of his Puerto Rican heritage, often rails against the system. Dapper Ron Harris (Ron Glass) dreams of being an author someday, but seems to spend more time on his outfits than on writing. Inspector Frank Luger (James Gregory) manages to be simultaneously blasé and overly sentimental.
Barbara Barrie is still given opening credits billing as Barney's wife, Elizabeth, but she rarely appears in actual episodes. Only the season's second episode, "Social Worker," gives Liz her own storyline. This was a smart move on the part of the show's creative team. The detectives of the 12th Precinct are Barney's family. A wife and kids are superfluous.
Each episode deftly weaves two or more storylines, each playing out at the same time on the same precinct set. But the series' strong point is its finely drawn characters and talented cast.
Vigoda is nearly perfect as the ever-depressed Fish, drawing laughs from his deadpan stare and excellent timing. In "The Kid," he considers cheating on Bernice when he becomes charmed by a young pickpocket's mother. In "The Mole," he considers the pros and cons of surgery for his hemorrhoids. In "Discovery," he is purged from the payroll list when the department's database insists that he is dead. Ironically, in a case of life imitating art, People magazine erroneously ran an obituary of Vigoda in 1982.
Gail is immensely likeable as dopey Wojo. In "Heat Wave," he goes undercover as the world's huskiest woman to catch a rapist terrorizing a local park. In "Discovery," he gets in touch with his feminine side when a gay couple comes in to complain that they were shaken down by an officer outside of a gay bar. In "The Sniper," he becomes the target of a man with a rifle. In "The Psychiatrist," a complaint leads the department's shrink to suggest that Wojo should be stripped of his gun.
The glue that holds everything together, however, is Linden's Barney. Whether negotiating with a man who is wired with dynamite ("Doomsday"), considering a job offer from a sleepy Florida town ("Ambush"), quelling fears that the precinct is scheduled to be closed ("Protection"), or simply offering advice, Barney is both funny and compelling.
Another vivid character is the crummy, decrepit New York City of the late '70s, a city so bankrupt and polluted that even President Ford refused to get his hands dirty by bailing it out. Several of the men are laid off ("The Layoff"), the Precinct can't afford air conditioning ("Heat Wave") or heat ("Protection"), a giant rat attacks Wojo and steals evidence ("You Dirty Rat"), the Precinct's roof nearly collapses during a freak rainstorm ("Rain"), and Wojo and Harris are forced to chase a suspect through the city's sewers ("The Mole"). The series never leaves the Precinct, but is still manages to portray a believable (if slightly exaggerated) version of NYC.
Season two features several guest stars that will be familiar to TV fans, including Steve Landesburg (who later joined the cast as Detective Arthur Dietrich), William Windom (My World and Welcome to It), David Doyle (Charlie's Angels), Dick O'Neill (Cagney and Lacey), Linda Lavin (Alice), Robert Mandan (Soap), Adam Arkin (Northern Exposure), Beatrice Colen (Wonder Woman), J. Pat O'Malley (Maude), Jack Dodson (The Andy Griffith Show), David L. Lander (Laverne & Shirley), Ray Sharkey (Wiseguy), Charlotte Rae (The Facts of Life), Jack Riley (The Bob Newhart Show), Valerie Curtin (9 to 5), Jose Flores (Ark II), Ron Carey (who later joined the cast as Officer Carl Levitt), and Severn Darden (Forever Fernwood).
The twenty-two episodes that make up the second season are divided onto three discs. The discs are housed in slim, clear keepcases. The first keepcase holds two discs. The front covers each feature production stills from the series. The back covers include episode titles and plot synopses. The double-sided coversheets show through to the inside of the cases and feature more production stills. The actual discs feature a "case file" theme. The two keepcases slide into a cardboard sleeve which highlights a composite photo of the cast members.
The static DVD menus are extremely basic. Viewers can play all episodes or choose an individual episode. Although there are no scene selection menus, chapter stops are included, including one after the title sequence.
