"Try this for a deep, dark secret. The great detective Remington Steele? He doesn't exist. I invented him." - Laura Holt (Stephanie Zimbalist) in the "Remington Steele" opening credits
Remington Steele: Season One DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
For as long as she can remember, Laura Holt (Stephanie Zimbalist) dreamed of becoming a private investigator, so she went to college, got a job with a major agency, and was soon one of its most successful investigators. When she decided to strike out on her own, however, she discovered her dream wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Clients, it seems, were simply uncomfortable hiring a female investigator. Someone less ambitious would have given up and returned to a male-run agency. Not Laura Holt. Equally stubborn and creative, she decided to invent a masculine superior to serve as the figurehead for her agency. She whipped up a fake bio and resumé, rented a swank office suite, borrowed names from "a typewriter and a football team," and voilà - Remington Steele Investigations was in business. Laura, posing as the fictitious Mr. Steele's associate, would investigate all of the cases, but her creation would get all the credit.
There was just one little problem: clients expected to meet the boss. After all, if you're paying a premium fee to retain the services of the famous detective Remington Steele, you want to know that he's personally on the case. With the help of fellow P.I. Murphy Michaels (North & South's James Read) and receptionist Bernice Foxe (Janet DeMay), Laura was able to maintain the charade. Until now. Afraid that the agency will lose a highly publicized gig providing security for a cache of precious jewels, Laura agrees that Mr. Steele will personally supervise the job. She rents a hotel room, buys wardrobe for "Mr. Steele," and sets in place an elaborate plan whereby the client will always just miss seeing Steele. But she didn't count on one thing - a charming British rake (Pierce Brosnan) who begins impersonating Steele while trying to steal the jewels. By the time Laura realizes what is happening, he has become the public face of Remington Steele. It is helpful to finally have a real man behind the myth that she created, but can Laura trust him?
Soon, the ersatz Mr. Steele is accompanying Laura on cases, eager to play detective. He looks the part, but his crime solving skills are all based on what he's seen in old movies. On many occasions, he unknowingly bumbles onto solutions while recounting plotlines from classic films. This productive ineptness infuriates Murphy, who is equally dismayed that Laura seems to be falling for the suave con man.
Remington Steele is often compared to another popular 1980s detective series that paired a neophyte with a seasoned pro of the opposite sex: Moonlighting. This is no coincidence. Glenn Gordon Caron, Steele's supervising producer during the show's first season, went on to create Moonlighting. Both feature overlapping dialogue, will-they-or-won't-they interplay between the leads, and plotlines "borrowed" from other sources. A few of the same locales even manage to pop up in both series. Yet the two series show how the same basic premise can be developed into two tonally different shows. Moonlighting has its roots in the Marx Brothers movies and screwball comedies like Bringing Up Baby. Its humor is sophisticated and broad, often at the same time. Remington Steele is closer to the witty, elegent mood of films like The Thin Man. It is also much more romantic than its slightly goofier counterpart. During the third season of Moonlighting, the lead characters became involved in a sexual relationship, a development that many fans say killed the romantic tension and irreparably harmed the series. Ms. Holt and Mr. Steele, by contrast, maintained a chaste but sexually charged relationship for much of the series' run.
The best episodes of Moonlighting still feel fresh today because the emphasis is on timeless comedy. The mysteries are almost an afterthought. Remington Steele's cases are far more integral to the series. This is somewhat of a flaw since many of the mysteries aren't very mysterious. Fans who saw an episode once twenty years ago will have no problem remembering the culprit of each crime, and newcomers are likely to make accurate educated guesses. One reason is that by employing so many homages to old films and books, some of the episodes already feel familiar even if we're seeing them for the first time.
This doesn't mean they aren't fun. Fans of Agatha Christie will recognize the plot structures of both "In the Steele of the Night" and "Steele Trap," two derivative but entertaining episodes. In "Night," Laura and Murphy attend a reunion of former colleagues at the country home of their old employer. Old rivalries and resentments are dredged up. Steele arrives - uninvited - just in time for the murder of the weekend's host. How will this houseful of egotistical detectives solve this case, especially when one of them is obviously the murderer? By putting the bumbling Steele, the group's only outsider, in charge of the investigation. In "Steele Trap," Steele and Laura go undercover (Steele as plastic surgeon Dr. Bellows and Laura as his nurse, Myrtle Groggins) at The Devil's Playground, a Playboy Club-esque resort located on a remote island. Their fellow guests are murdered one by one, leaving the duo with little choice but to solve the crimes before they become the killer's next victims. "Night" is almost clever where "Trap" is definitely dumb (it's never clear why the duo is going undercover), but both are highly entertaining.
"Steele in the News" is another diverting episode in which the agency investigates a series of murders at a local network newscast that has recently switched over to a fluffy "happy news" format. The episode features gruesomely creative murders, clever banter, and valid arguments for why TV news should at least try to maintain its dignity and commitment to public service. "News" also boasts an especially strong guest cast, including Tracy Scoggins (Dynasty), John Reilly (Passions), J.D. Cannon (McCloud), and Jenny O'Hara (My Sister Sam).
Viewing these episodes again after all these years, it may come as a surprise to fans that Murphy and Bernice barely appear in many of the episodes. The Murphy-Laura-Steele triangle is, in retrospect, almost non-existent. It hardly comes as a surprise that the characters would be written out of the series at the start of the next season.
Several episodes give TV fans a chance to see early performances by actors who would go on to star in shows of their own. In "A Good Night's Steele," Laura and Steel go undercover at a sleep clinic to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a doctor and a large batch of morphine. While there, they encounter a narcoleptic played by Paul Reiser (My Two Dads, Mad About You) who fears that he killed the doctor during one of his blackouts. This episode is a nifty blend of laughs and chills. The blood-spattered opening sequence is especially memorable. In "Steele Crazy After All These Years," ten years after graduating from college, Murphy heads back to his alma mater for homecoming festivities. What should have been a leisurely reunion with old friends turns deadly when a fellow alumnus is found hanging from a flagpole. He calls on Laura for help in investigating the death, and is horrified when she shows up with Steele in tow. Annie Potts (Designing Women) and Allyce Beasley (Moonlighting) appear as former classmates, and Sharon Stone has a small role as the modern-day homecoming queen. Touching on everything from ghostly apparitions to secret tunnels, this episode is a fun mix of Hardy Boys adventure and William Castle-esque B-movie chills.
Also making an appearance is Efram Zimbalist (The F.B.I.), Stephanie's father, who plays Steele's grifter pal Daniel Chalmers in "Sting of Steele." Other notable guest stars include Peter Scolari (Bosom Buddies, Newhart), Marta Kristen (Lost in Space), Thom Bray (Riptide), Beverly Garland (Scarecrow and Mrs. King), Barry Van Dyke (Diagnosis Murder), Ilene Graff (Mr. Belvedere), George Morfogen (Oz), Keye Luke (Charlie Chan), Philip Charles MacKenzie (Brothers), Caren Kaye (My Tutor), Richard Moll (Night Court), William Russ (Wiseguy), and James Callahan (Charles in Charge).
Purists will be happy to know that each episode starts with the original episode previews and ends with the series-specific MTM "Sherlock Holmes" cat logo.
The twenty-two episodes that make up the first season are divided onto four double-sided discs. Two slim, black keepcases hold two discs apiece. The front of each case features the same publicity photo of Brosnan dressed in a tux. The back of each case features a listing of episode titles, airdates, and brief synopses, as well as a small set of publicity and production photos. The cases slide into a cardboard outer sleeve which features the same photo of Brosnan in a tux.
From its tagline ("Before He Was Bond He Was.Remington Steele") to it Bond-esque photo choice, the release of this DVD is obviously meant to capitalize on Pierce Brosnan's stint as 007 (which is rumored to be at an end). Fans of the series will surely be disappointed by the fact that Stephanie Zimbalist doesn't even rate a mention anywhere on the packaging. Her presence is limited to two tiny photos on the back of the box. Even worse, the photos are from subsequent seasons of the series. Doris Roberts (Everybody Loves Raymond) didn't join the series until season two, but she appears in three separate photos throughout the packaging, while DeMay and Read are nowhere to be seen.
The menus are simple and functional. There is no "play all" feature.
