T and T - Season 2

 

There is yet more to say about this stupid show! This is a continuation from Part 1.

Season 2 - The Movie!

Searching on imdb for "T and T" yields "Craig T. Nelson" as its first result. But if you make it past that, you'll find there's an entry for a TV show AND a movie called "Straight Line" with its own thumbnail and plot, etc. but with a cast that's eerily similar to "T and T."

The reason is that "T and T" Season 2 starts out with a 4-part episode that apparently originally aired as a made-for-TV movie. And the name of the 4-parter is "Straight Line." I have to say right off the bat that I have never heard of a 4-part episode of television anywhere else in my life. I could be wrong but I can't think of one. Can you?

You might recall from Part 1 that one of my main complaints about the show is how it took itself too seriously to be the fun series I was hoping for. Well, starting out with this made-for-TV movie, the series reaches the grittiest, darkest and most depressing point of the show's history.

You see, a black man is running for Mayor of "the city" and, if elected, he will be the first black mayor in the history of "the city." Meanwhile there is a gang of leather-clad white supremacists who are stoking racial division. During a rally, a bomb goes off and kills a woman. The woman happens to be the mother of one of the troubled teens in the gang. So the boy, out of shame, doesn't even bother to check whether his mother is alive but instead runs to the nearest bridge to commit suicide. Having fun yet? And his mother IS dead so good guess! Turner talks him down off the ledge and gets on the case to fight the charge that the boy killed his own mother with a bomb. Oh yeah, and the black candidate is later killed by an assassin's bullet while giving a speech at his church.

There's actually way more to the plot than that, it goes into other areas but it's all depressing and the less said the better. From my notes, I caught a couple highlights to convey the extremes: a white supremacist actually calls Turner the N-word and Turner chokes a man with a pool cue. At the end, the main villain is (inadvertently) hanged by a chain around his neck.

Needless to say, this is the absolute lowest point of the series for me. It's dark, it's depressing, it's completely unpleasant to watch. If they were really tackling hard issues, I could be interested but I don't think they're even doing that. And it's such a jarring shift from anything that's happened before in the series, it just seems like a huge misstep.

The Formulas

Despite the fact that nothing before or since will be like the first 4 episodes of Season 2, it does seem like the creators of the show attempted to make Season 2 darker and more serious that Season 1. The clothes-changing montages are gone, in fact Turner's suits are gone, the courthouse scenes are minimized. In this Season, Turner has an office at the gym and people come to his office looking for a detective (private investigator) like it's a 40s style film noir.

Also in this season, Turner wears informal 80s clothes. Like I said, the suits are gone. I don't know why I'm talking about this except that Season 1 made such a big deal about his clothes it seems that this must be important somehow; like some seismic shift has taken place right under us.

The Theme (Updated)

In Part 1, I noted the humorous aspect of the opening theme that it was a bit like "Too Many Cooks" in that it introduced a large cast of characters that would mostly never be seen in the episode. Well in Season 2 the theme remains unchanged even though all those characters are gone for good (with 1 exception). Whereas in Season 1 you would be introduced to characters rarely making an appearance, now in Season 2 you get introduce to characters who NEVER make an appearance. 

Thinking of the Children

Do you remember the kid who Turner rescued from the "gang" in the Season 2 "movie"? No, and you shouldn't. But he exists. And in Season 2 he becomes a new somewhat regular character who shows up in many episodes... but not all... nothing about this show is ever consistent. T becomes a mentor/father figure to him and his character is that of the plucky kid who always hangs around T and wants to be involved in the dangerous crime fighting. T tells him it's too dangerous and doesn't let him come but he comes anyway and does things.

 To me, the addition of his character looks like an obvious ploy to get more kids watching the show. With a kid in the show, there's someone kids can identify with, they vicariously get to hang around Mr. T. This is a natural connection - kids love T and so the show should naturally be aimed at kids.

There's only one problem with this of course - do you remember how the show is trying to be dark and gritty? Yeah, that kind of conflicts with trying to attract children, it even conflicts with having a kid in the cast. So it just becomes a mess - some episodes become light and innocent but then the next week they're dealing with something heavy and adult. Again, nothing about this show is consistent from season to season or even from episode to episode. If you ever think you understand it, you don't.

The Most 80s Episode - Season 2

Oh boy, speaking of "not for kids"...

The most 80s episode of Season 1 had The Fat Boys guesting, and funnily enough, in Season 2 we have Prince protege Vanity. In Season 2 Episode 6, Vanity guest stars as a reporter who goes undercover to work in a mud wrestling club.

When mud wrestling was a fad in the 80s I remember being aware of it but not really understanding it. Now that I'm an adult, I obviously understand more but I still don't think I really understand it. Suffice to say that it was a fad of that time and so Vanity + mud wrestling + Mr. T is pure 80s... They're not wrestling together, mind you, just saying that they're both in the episode.

And on the subject of the 80s, Season 2 is where Turner first uses a car phone. No explanation of it, no comment necessary, he has a car phone now, so what?

This Thumbnail

Here's imdb's thumbnail for Season 2 Episode "The Contender." Enjoy:

Soak it in, boys. See it in your dreams, see it in your nightmares. This character's name happens to be Kevin Hart. Not that anything can be very interesting after that picture.

Amy Taler

So far in this rambling, incoherent think piece, I've only talked about the Mr. T half of "T and T" but there is another T - Amy Taler played by Alexandra Amini. This is because there isn't much to say - the character is businesslike and efficient and cares about people. She's very bland and one-dimensional. She shows one quirk in Season 1 where she cares too much about her car but it's only for that episode.  Her and T have the slightest suggestion of a "will they, won't they?" relationship for brief moments but it's not really a big focus. 

One of the things they do in Season 2, however, is give her an antagonist to contrast against in the character of the hard Detective Hargrove. And, although it's inconsistent - like everything else about the show - it's occasionally funny. They have scenes where Hargrove will say "Of course he's guilty, he has tattoos!" and then in another episode it's "Of course he killed the guy, look at his long hair!". And that allows Amy to come back with "Just because people dress a certain way or listen to certain music, it doesn't mean they're bad people." And what a great life lesson it is for us all.

Conclusion - Season 2

Alright, that's it for Season 2. I didn't even get to Mr. T being a substitute teacher for an episode, or the flashback episode where we flashback to the sweet clothes-changing of Season 1 (do you remember the clothes changing?), but this "review" is already too long. In short, this season has the series' low point and it tends to emphasize everything I disliked about Season 1. And just as Season 2 made drastic changes from Season 1, Season 3 is about to make even more drastic changes. It's almost as if they're inconsistent or desperate or something! 

Continued in Part 3...

T and T - Season 1

There seemed to be no bigger star in the 80s than Mr. T, especially as I recall my own experience. I was obsessed "The A-Team," I loved the Saturday morning cartoon "Mister T," I had Mister T crayons (I still have one), I didn't have the Mr. T doll but I knew someone who did and I envy them to this day. And so it would appear to be impossible that Mr. T would get his own TV series right after "The A-Team" and that it would last for three seasons and not only would I have never seen an episode of the show, but I would also never have even heard that such a show exists. And yet it does.

My first thought upon seeing this phantom television series, was that it must have aired on TNT, the cable channel. A show called "T and T" airing on a channel called "TNT" would make perfect sense, and since I didn't have cable growing up, it would explain how it could completely escape my notice. But that's not the case. "T and T," as it turns out, was a Canadian program that, as far as I can tell, only aired in Canada. And that's the reason why, not only did I never hear of it, but also why you and everyone else didn't know about it either. 

But imdb knows and now the show is on youtube and, as of today, I've seen every episode and now you're (unfortunately) going to hear about it.

"T and T" starred Mr. T as a private investigator who works for a lawyer (Amanda Taler) as he works his way toward getting a law degree of his own. The opening theme played before every episode summarizes it thusly:

"T.S. Turner was a city-smart kid fighting his way off the street, until he was framed for a crime he didn’t commit. Amy Taler was a young, crusading lawyer. She mounted an appeal to put Turner back on the street, this time in a suit and tie, working as a private detective. Together they are—T. and T."

 

And speaking of the opening theme...

The Theme

At first listen, the "T and T" theme song sounds like a generic "of its time" theme from the era. Listening to it over 65 times, as I have, I'm ready to call it one of the stranger theme songs in TV history. Repetition is the heart of melody and (it may be just my lack of musical knowledge) but it seems to me the "T and T" theme has no repetition. Think about it: I hear no verse, no chorus, each phrase doesn't repeat any other (as far as I can tell) - it is a "song" only of disjointed phrases of pseudo-Gospel set to a beat. It's like the entire song is a bridge within a larger song that we never hear. And yet there is one bright spot: after much vamping we arrive at the line "In the eyes of the law, he's a champion..." and it actually sounds like a great song and I think "Yeah! Now we've got a song!" But we don't. First off, that one good line is 45 seconds in to the full 1 minute theme and then also the last 15 seconds just devolve back to just running out the clock. For that one line we almost have something but it's only a brief respite.

So now you know that "T and T" never aired on TNT and did not use "TNT" by AC/DC as its theme. And the fact that both of those things are true means that you can forget about UFOs - I don't think intelligent life even exists here on Earth.

One of funnier things about the opening, too, is there is a nice "Too Many Cooks" aspect. If you watch the opening, you will see credits for a long list of minor characters that you will probably not see in the actual episode. Particularly this gets worse in Season 2, but we'll get to that later.

The Formula - Season 1

So, as you might expect, being a half hour show from the 80s, the show is episodic and every episode has the same formula. Every show starts with an introduction to a crime with creepy music, then the opening theme - which we've covered - and then Amy and Turner are seen at the courthouse arguing a case, taking a case, talking about a case, etc. where they take the case of someone accused of the creepy crime, Tate investigates, there is action, then Tate wins and every episode ends with them back at the court house "winning the case" and making a joke which freeze frames as we all take in the joyfulness. 

It's pretty standard. Many shows could be loosely said to revolve around a mystery plot but in a half hour show there isn't time for a lot of depth. And for some reason most episodes end with the same exact device: almost every episode ends with a bad guy holding a gun on the good guy when suddenly a good guy walks in on the situation undetected, creeps up behind the bad guy without him knowing and tackles him, saving the day. As I was watching I was trying to figure out why this is a formula when there are so many ways to end an action show. My best guess is that it may be a Canadian thing - they want the threat of a gun but don't want any actual shooting. But then again, sometimes people are shot, but I can't think of any reason to be so repetitive. Just a theory, anyway.

There is another element to the formula that deserves its own section...

The Clothes Montage

T.S. Turner's (Mr. T's) wardrobe in Season 1 is a full suit and bow tie. It's a nice playing-against-type because you wouldn't expect Mr. T to be dressed up but he's usually in court and so it makes perfect sense. How the legal system feels about a man with a mohawk, gold chains and gold earrings is somehow never addressed, but the point is he dresses well.

So why am I talking about Mr. T's wardrobe in the show? Well, for some reason the makers of this television series decided that every episode needed a clothes-changing montage. I kid you not. In fact, it's so unthinkable that it took me many episodes to catch on to what was going on. Mr. T changing his clothes is a fundamental part of the first Season. Yes, in every episode Turner is in a suit or working out in the gym and he goes to the locker, changes clothes and the clothes changing is edited into a hip and stylized montage.... for reasons that I can't fathom.

Don't believe me? Well you can feel free to explore any episode in the first season to find out for yourself but I've gone ahead and noted one of the more extreme examples... it's this one from Season 1 Episode 18. In this particular clothes-changing, you can tell someone in the editing bay was like, "No, we need 3 slaps of the locker and 3 zips of the jacket, yeah...yeah.." But you could consider that one to be at least "stylish and cool" for the time... If so, check out this changing montage from Season 1 Episode 20. This is the episode where they add superfluous sound-effects. This is where I imagine an editor saying, "The clothes changing montages might be losing their edge, I need more clothes hanging and let's add some Street Fighter II sound effects to really Wow the audience."

Where Are We?

By looking closely at the shots of the city skyline and through closeups of some of the license plates, and just overall being a creep about it, you can pretty conclusively determine that the show takes place in Toronto. But the weird thing is, they take great pains to never reveal that explicitly for some reason. The city is always referred to as "the city". The country they're in is always referred to as "the country". At one point a plot revolves around a guy running for mayor but no one ever says what city he's going to be mayor of.  In another episode, part of the backstory takes place in St. Louis (shown in a title card) and when the action switches back to Toronto the title card for that location says "Metro County" which, as far as I can tell, isn't a real county.

But I could never tell if this complete evasion of their location was a Canadian thing or just a general TV thing. Perhaps they wanted to sell the show into the U.S. market? 

I'll tell you where it gets weird though. Skipping ahead to Season 3 Episode 16, a Japanese film crew has arrived at the police station hoping to do a documentary about T.S. Turner (obviously that's a plot - oh Season 3... more on that later). In trying to explain why they're interested in this subject they state, "As you probably know, we are fascinated by your country. We love your Westerns, we love your television commercials, we love your baseball." Now that's... what?! I mean Canada has Westerns, I know they have television commercials, and yes, they technically have baseball... but how can we not gather from this that the show takes place in the U.S.? Three whole seasons of looking at the Toronto skyline, hearing all the characters say "aboot," all the hockey hair and suddenly they imply that it's a U.S. city? I can't make sense of anything with this show. Maddening.

The Most 80s Episode - Season 1

The most 80s episode of Season 1 is Episode 12 - "The Silver Angel". In this episode, we get a special guest appearance by none other than The Fat Boys! Yes, it turns out that the fattest boy (Buffy Robinson) is T.S. Turner's nephew (convenient!) and so they all show up at the gym to lose weight for their upcoming tour. Meanwhile, an old man is accused of being "The Silver Angel" - a masked man who robs from grocery stores to give food to the homeless.

So, yeah, you got The Fat Boys rapping and beat boxing in a Mr. T show so it's very 80s. But there are two things going on in this episode which are rather interesting and worth noting. Firstly, The Fat Boys are spontaneously making "raps" about what is happening in the main plot as a commentary. In this way, The Fat Boys serve as a sort of modern day Greek Chorus. Very avant-garde. The second interesting thing is that at one point towards the end, the Fat Boys subplot and the Silver Angel main plot converge and become one. This episode aired in early 1988 and it would not be until 1991 that Seinfeld would discover it as a hallmark. It makes you think.

Conclusion - Season 1

So upon hearing of this "undiscovered" Mr. T show from the 80s you might have initially thought it sounded fun. And now upon hearing all my complaints about the stupidity of it and think it sounds bad, or perhaps you might even think it sounds so bad that it must be fun. But the thing is, it's none of the above.

The best way I can describe it is: "T and T" takes itself seriously. You get the feeling that the people making it wanted to make a gritty, serious crime show and that they were either unsure or unable to do it well. It does have many of the "cheesy" traits of 80s television but then also the pacing and music are moody and dour, conflicting completely with the action and the Mr. T persona.

Here's an example plot summary that exemplifies the problem well:

"When T. and T. keep a young offender out the detention center, the boy finds the path to rehabilitation fraught with danger and violence."

You don't read that and think, "this is going to be fun." And it isn't. It's too serious to be exciting but it's too wacky to be effectively serious. The show exists in a No Man's Land of entertainment. Yet, it isn't completely horrible just as it isn't great. And it isn't so bad that it can be enjoyed ironically (though exceptions exist). You know what it reminds me of? It reminds be of the dog days of Summer vacation where I had been away from school for too long and was too lazy to get off the couch. "T and T" is the kind of show that I would watch every day just because it provided that bare amount of entertainment to keep me from switching the channel. It's the kind of thing I'd watch because the alternative was a Soap Opera and because it wasn't bad enough to make me turn off the TV. It's the kind of thing I'd watch "because it was on." And so what can you do with a show like that? Not much other than write way too much about it on a blog in the backwaters of the internet.

That does it for Season 1 and I think Season 1 is both the best season and a good exemplar for the entire series. But, because I have too much to day about this dumb show, come back for Part 2 and Part 3 which will explore the other two seasons...

The Squirrel Maze 2.0

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Adam Ragusea - What is Kosher Salt?

LGIO - Building the Worst Subway

Drunk Irish People Guess American States