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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 34388" data-attributes="member: 23">TOGETHER AGAINA "previously on Cagney & Lacey" résumé at the beginning, showing events from The Return? This was unexpected. I was expecting each of the four movies to avoid all but the loosest of continuity so they could play independently (and six months apart, as originally broadcast). Instead, this builds on the groundwork laid in The Return. The balance is actually perfect. It does work as its own entity, but there are plenty of threads carried over that mean the viewing experience is enriched by having watched what came before. In other words, it has the same appeal as Cagney & Lacey: The Series.This actually felt like a step up from The Return. There were several reasons for this. Firstly it hit the ground running because the pipe is already laid and we know where each character is in their journey. Secondly, I found the procedural a little more grass roots than that in The Return. Thirdly, there was a lot of personal conflict for each of the main characters that made this an engaging journey. I also very much enjoyed the smaller touches with perfect casting down to the smallest role. Ira and Mitzi Glass were hugely enjoyable characters in their brief screen-time.The opening chase, with Chris in pursuit of a homeless man who had stolen the Chinese food she'd just collected, felt perfect in tone. It was engrossing, it was funny, it featured one of the leads, and it took a nice little twist with the homeless guy being found next to a dead body.The soapy stuff was very absorbing too. Mary Beth's mothering of Harv about what he's eating and how little exercise he's getting and his resultant fury played out very well. A marriage imploding as a result of an illness played out very well and with complete believability. Mary Beth relapsing into smoking cigarettes and essentially choosing to damage herself just as Harvey is with butter and chicken skin was an interesting choice too. Both her Season One battle to stop smoking and her later cancer battle came to mind while watching this and - to the show's credit - both were referenced.Chris's marriage took a far more soapy turn when she made a surprise visit to James's hotel suite in Washington and found him in bed with another woman. I had a problem with this scene. While I completely believed it could and did happen it's just too familiar a scenario. Watch a few episodes of any soap opera and you'll see this scene played out in exactly the same way by different actors. It's the a prime example of an important aspect of the series that doesn't seem as important in the movies: the "tell, don't show" rule. As a viewer, I trust Chris by now. I didn't need to see it to believe it.That said, it could be argued that showing us gave the opportunity for Chris to internalise some stuff (it would still have worked if the discovery scene had been excised, probably even better, as there was a later confrontation between Chris and James which covered all that ground again. But I'll rest my case and stop banging on about that).The end of the episode sees Mary Beth being told she can stay on after some hints about cutbacks. Another colleague, Bernie, is taking early retirement and the tone is celebratory. Champagne is flowing and the relieved women are handed glasses. Chris toasts Mary Beth being able to stay on and takes a sip from her glass.Now, this is where this film really took my breath away. Literally. The emphasis was completely on the significance of Mary Beth keeping her job, so it all felt completely natural. I don't know at what point I remembered that Chris is an alcoholic. Probably when I saw the look of concern on Mary Beth's face. Again, I had a physical reaction to it. I actually gasped. Initially I wondered if Chris had taken the sip by accident, but then I saw the nonchalant expression on her face in response to Mary Beth's concern. Chris then proceeded to drain her glass and walk away, telling Mary Beth that one glass was fine.I had a problem with Sue Ellen and Gary relapsing on NuDallas. Not because it's beyond the realms of credulity. It's a fact that recovering alcoholics pick up a drink after months, years or even decades. My biggest issue - particularly in Gary's case - was that it felt lazy, cheap and one-dimensional. It diminished the character somewhat to being a characteristic. The writers took the most sensational aspect of a character's history and replayed it for easy drama rather than finding new facets to explore (fortunately, Sue Ellen's relapse - whether through serendipity or design - ended up doing both). Echoes of that went through my mind after watching Chris take a drink. And yet I don't feel the same way about it. It felt surprising, unexpected and - even with her history - out of character in the best possible way. It was a significant moment that took me by such surprise that I didn't recognise its importance until it had almost passed. Very few TV shows have done that to me, so this deserves due credit.Something that set this apart from anything we've seen before is that we have all three main characters putting up walls and using coping strategies that they know from experience can kill them. Harvey is recovering from a very recent heart attack. Mary Beth has had cancer. After "seven years and nine months" of sobriety in AA, Chris knows all too well that alcoholism is a terminal illness. What comes across is the ripple effect of how their choices affect the people around them in terms of stress and concern.Even though Harvey and Mary Beth reached an understanding, all three have serious battles on their hands, and I'm feeling very invested and curious about what will happen in the next instalment.I particularly enjoyed how unfinished and unclean the personal stories felt at the end. That took some courage for a TV movie when the next airing was still half a year away.</blockquote>

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