The show stars Hal Linden as Barney Miller, Max Gail as
Stan “Wojo” Wojciehowicz, Ron Glass as Ron Harris, Steve Landesberg as Arthur
Dietrich, and Ron Carey as Carl Levitt. Barney Miller: The Final Season
includes all twenty-two episodes of the eighth season on three discs, plus lots
of bonus material. These episodes originally aired in 1981-1982.
One of my favorite episodes of the season is “Stress
Analyzer,” which features guest star James Cromwell as Dr. Danworth, from the
center for stress studies. He’s there to collect data from Dietrich. There is
also an elderly woman who accuses her husband of cheating and wants the police
to run the other woman out of town. And a recruiter for the Peace Corps is
angry at self-involved students (which is perfect, as this was the beginning of
the awful Reagan years). This is an hilarious episode. I usually dislike
Christmas episodes of shows, but “Homeless” is a good one, and it features a
guest appearance by David Clennon as Howard Weckler. Clennon is an actor I
always love to see, and he’s brilliant in this episode, as always. “The
Tontine” features Ian Wolfe, whom you’ll recall as Mrs. Carlson’s butler in WKRP
In Cincinnati. That episode also features a CPR instructor who has a
special relationship with his dummy.
I like the way the show handles some serious subjects. In
“Advancement,” a detective is unhappy about his impending retirement. He says,
“Most people facing retirement, they got somebody else facing it with them.”
This leads to his wanting to find an Asian bride to share his final miserable
years, which becomes a running storyline throughout the season. There are a
couple of other running storylines, like Harris’ writer’s block and Officer
Levitt’s quest for promotion. By the way, it’s interesting how often the
charges against suspects are dropped in these episodes.
There are so many great lines in this series. In “Games,”
a nervous suspect says: “Please don’t let me go to jail. My wife hardly
talks to me now.” And in “The Clown,” a criminal says: “I couldn’t make
up my mind whether I wanted to go straight into med school or work in a
hospital first, get some practical experience. So I robbed a shoe store and
bought drugs.” Dietrich is my favorite character. I love his dry,
intelligent humor. In “Obituary,” a woman asks, “Is there some place I could
go to freshen up?” Dietrich replies, “No, but we have a bathroom.”
This season has two multi-part episodes. The first is
“Chinatown,” in which a witness to a gang-related murder in Chinatown doesn’t
want to testify or even offer any information. This two-part episode also
features Joanna Barnes as a wealthy victim of a mugging, and in it she wears a
gorgeous lynx coat. And the series’ finale is a three-part episode titled
“Landmark,” in which the building that houses the twelfth precinct might be
sold as an historic site. The first part opens with a man who has been robbed
of every cent he owns. He says: “You see, I’ve been out of work for almost a
year and a half. I was laid off on inauguration day” (a nice, subtle jab at
Ronald Reagan). And a newly released hostage is arrested. His time as a hostage
seems to have had some interesting effects on his outlook. This three-part
episode is a nice way of wrapping up the series, long before the show was in
any danger of becoming stale.
Special Features
This three-disc set includes several bonus features, all
of which are on the third disc. There are commentary tracks on the final three
episodes, all done by director Tony Sheehan and writers/producers Jeff Stein
and Frank Dungan. The three joke around a bit, teasing each other. On the
commentary track for “Landmark Part 1,” Tony Sheehan says, “The show pretty
much directed itself.” On that commentary track, they talk about ending the
show, about the “Chinatown” episode and about the writing process for this
series. In the commentary for the second part, they talk about Danny Arnold as
a director, and about how many of the series’ stories came from real life, from
newspapers. And it’s so interesting to learn that the network wasn’t allowed to
give notes on the show, which was probably one of the main reasons why the show
was so good. In the commentary for the final episode, they talk about the
show’s appeal to men.
Inside The 12th Precinct is a half-hour look at
the series, featuring interviews with cast members Abe Vigoda, Hal Linden, Max
Gail and Steve Landesberg (the Landesberg interview was filmed in 2009), as
well as with writers/producers Frank Dungan and Jeff Stein. They talk about how
there was a studio audience at the beginning, and why that stopped. Hal Linden
talks about the original pilot. Salute To The Old One Two is basically a
continuation of that featurette, in which the cast members talk about certain
episodes, such as the hash brownies episode and the prostitute episode. Frank
Dungan mentions that it was most difficult to write for the Barney character.
This featurette is approximately twenty-four minutes. Inside The Writers
Room features more of the interviews with Frank Dungan and Jeff Stein, who
talk about how they became interested in the series, how they broke into
comedy, and specifically about writing for this show, and how it differed from
other situation comedies. This is approximately sixteen minutes.
Also included is The Life And Times Of Captain Barney
Miller, the original pilot episode, which has a different cast and a very
different opening title sequence. And then, for comparison, the uncut version
of “Ramon,” the re-cast version of the pilot, is also included. The special
features also include an excerpt from You Don’t Know Jack: The Jack Soo
Story, a documentary on Jack Soo.
Barney Miller: The Final Season was released on
DVD on July 7, 2015 through Shout! Factory.
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