Directed by Christian I. Nyby II
Written by Mike Halperin
Good gravy, that's a lot of cast!
The race is on! Or, much like the race in Cannonball Run II, it’s sort of on. But,
they kind of forget about it for long stretches and go off on tangents, which
leads one to think that B.J. might not win. (SPOILER: He does.) There are so
many tangents I got lost in them. I had thought this episode was going to be a
straight-up Race For The Contract. Not so. Grant has planted Dolly on the rig with a tracker and drugs.
So, not only will B.J. have to deal with the race itself (and the beautifully
mustachioed William Smith) but tons of cops coming after him. It seemed like
the perfect set-up for a wonderful conclusion to this story after the rather tepid first part.
They didn’t really pull it off. This is definitely better than
Part 1. But, it's still suffering from being so overcomplicated. They are really
trying to give everyone even the littlest bit to do and it swamps everything.
Let me work through some of the stuff going on here:
I don't normally point these things out but...
She's hiding drugs in the boxes. Trying to be surreptitious.
Can you see all those people in the background?
And the forklift. Come on, Dolly!
The episode takes about 1/3 of its time before the race
begins. The race seemed to be the point of the end of the previous episode. It’s
also highly implied in the title. So what happens in the first 15-or-so
minutes? Well, BJ talks to Dolly about unsalted peanuts. That goes on for a
bit. Grant and Steiger sets up their
plan. Grant gets a visit from his daughter. Dolly is threatened into bugging
BJ’s rig and putting drugs in there by Grant. (Note the weird timeline with Grant going to dinner in (I think) Los Angeles and then suddenly appearing to threaten Dolly who (I thought) was up north, nowhere near there.) It all kind of goes on and on. Dolly plays
all of this in half-hysteria mode and as much as I love The Shoop, this character
wore me out.
She does this face a lot.
Don’t get me started on Grant. (Steiger doesn’t do much
here.)
OK. Get me started on Grant. Lobo worked on this show
because he wasn’t in every episode. He started off nasty and they mellowed him.
Good thing, too. Because BJ whoops him every time. (More or less.) So, Lobo was
fun. Grant is going to get whooped every time but he’s not fun. He’s nasty like
Lobo was at the start but then they try to go all wacky with him at certain
times. For example, in the end, BJ wins and the drugs get transferred to Bill
Smith’s rig. Grant is all slack jawed and “Huh?” as BJ puts his arm around him
for a photo op. The music keeps it wacky. But, earlier, we learn that his hold
on Dolly Read is that he won’t release her child to her from an orphanage.
Nasty, sure. But, wait… When Grant finds
out that Dolly has double-crossed him (triple crossed?), he tells Steiger to
get the kid and put him “on ice.” We’re talking about like a 6-year-old kid.
What? They’re trying to have him be Early Lobo and Later Lobo and he’s just
kind of Lame Lobo.
When the race finally does begin, there’s no sense of time
to it until the last minute or two when suddenly they are neck and neck racing to
the warehouse. How does that happen? I couldn’t tell you. The time within the race
is covered, oddly enough, through Freeways and Interchanges down the West
Coast. Is BJ taking the 101? No, the 280. To the 156. And then eventually they’ll
be where the 135 and the 101 meets. It’s interesting. Certainly. But, unless
you know that, for example, if they’re at the 135/ 101, they’re in Santa Barbara,
that means precious little. Especially in 1981 when folks couldn’t search for the info super-fast.
He has fun just being himself.
There are a couple of moments of urgency throughout. But,
not a lot. The end chase with the two rigs is cool but the fact that the rigs
just sort of appear at the finish line robs it of anything but spectacle. Some
of the moments on the road are nice. (I liked the ball bearing attack.) They’re
all well-done. There’s just no sense that BJs going to get in any sort of
trouble. And we know that the writers here aren’t long on clever twists and
turns. So, it kind of goes: tracker on board, drugs on board, the race starts.
Shenanigans. Lose the tracker. Lose the drugs. Win the race. It all happens in
such a pat manner, especially with some of the darker moments involving Grant
and Dolly. The tone keeps shifting and the show really isn’t handling it well.
A show like Doctor Who can shift
tones on a dime. Generally, because it’s much smarter than this. BJ and friends
go from Dolly discussing attempting suicide after her husband left to goofy cops falling
on ball bearings accompanied by wacky music. It’s tonal whiplash. I really, really
wished it worked.
I bet you didn't see the Doris and Mr. Hinkley
plotline approaching.
It feels like they were trying to go for something darker.
But, something stopped them. Censors? Producers? Sponsors? Their own writing? I
don’t know. When you set up the darkness and then you forget it when push comes
to shove, this viewer doesn’t know how to take it. Everything feels hollow.
Another example: Put the kid “on ice.” As Steiger is racing (in his smashed-up,
smoking car) to the orphanage, BJ, Dolly and one of the Lady Truckers (I don’t
know), get the kid out of there. How? BJ and the Trucker Lady pretend to be
very bureaucratic and convince a lady to let the kid go. What?! Does it work
like that? “Hey, where’s Timmy?” “Oh, some guy in a sports coat said we could
bypass Form 77B.” “Come again.” “He was handsome and talked fast.” “So, you let
him take the kid.” “Yes.” “Doris, let me talk to you for a minute.” One minute,
they’re talking about putting a kid “on ice.” The next it’s poorly staged
farce. Sorry, folks. This didn’t work.
I wanted this to be the episode that did it. That made the
change in format worthwhile. It just made things more confusing. It kind of
wastes Ms. Shoop and Mr. Smith. It’s far too complicated. It sets up something
great and then doesn’t deliver. It really sidelines Bear. And, it really takes
some focus to keep the whole over-plotted enterprise in place. But, it’s kind of not worth it.
There are now 10 episodes left. I believe Grant is going to be in every one. I’m
not looking forward to that.
Ice him!
Maybe the next episode will be the one that makes this show
awesome again. (It is now, officially, bordering on dumb.) Hope springs eternal.
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