Season Four: Fishing Boats, Fake Marriages, and the Season In Which NBC Should Have Stopped At, After All!

[BkWurm1]

A ha!  According to one site, it was Jimmy Stewart.  Wow.  I didn’t remember it being that big a star.  But that would explain the script being so light on Steele and Laura and heavy on the guest character.

 

Wow. Never heard that before.  And given that Stewart WAS a former flyboy, that would have been an incredible episode. Can you imagine the last shot as he walks among the planes remembering the fallen?  I still think the actor they got was great but it would have been a really lovely love letter to Stewart had he done it. 

 

What a let down to the writers and producers. 

Edited November 19, 2015 by BkWurm1

[GHScorpiosRule]

So, I zoomed through this final season. And come away with this:

 

INSULT. That series finale was a fucking insult, to have Steele doing a green card marriage and how Laura reacted to it and what the show put Laura through, as a fucking comedy, without any kind of emotion. Not to mention that it totally undoes all the episodes leading up to the end.

 

The only positives I come away with is that there are a handful of really good episodes and "Beg, Borrow or Steele" remains my top favorite.  And I can't believe I forgot how hilarious Steele was as the Butler "Ruggles" in "Steele at Your Service." I will not lie, I laughed uncontrollably as he appeared as the new butler.

 

The Remington Steele of "Bonds of Steele" might as well have been the Season One Remington Steele.  

 

And though I wasn't a fan of Norman Keys, and ended up loathing him, after his first appearance, I did think, okay, he's never going to like Steele, but he's not that much of a bad guy, really. But no. The show had to turn him into a villain.

 

I hate, hate, hate how this show ended.

[Bastet]

I think Norman Keyes was a great villain in his first (Vegas) and especially his second episode (when Steele is being framed for the diamond heist and the agency has been stolen), because we see that he really loves his job and wants to catch those doing wrong - he simply has the wrong idea as to who's doing wrong.  So, yeah, it bugs me that he's later turned into a cartoon villain.

 

I still haven't watched Sensitive Steele and carried on with my re-watch, and when I went to do so the other night before I left, I accidentally put in the wrong disc.  I'd already crawled under the covers, so instead of getting back up to fix it, I allowed myself to skip ahead and enjoy Beg, Borrow or Steele.  Twice.  Oh, I love it so.  Anyway, I'm back home now and will get back on track.

Edited November 29, 2015 by Bastet

[GHScorpiosRule]

Agreed with Norman Keys's first two appearances.

 

And Steeles's line/Pierce's delivery of how the mortuary lost Laura's "urn" will never not make me laugh.

 

Oh and add me to the list of people who can't stand the music with its trumpets blaring and the speed of the credit openings.

 

ETA: Oh, and I could never understand why Keys or anyone else actually (except for Laura), assumed Steele was a con man/fraud based on the number of different passports.  I mean, Laura did put in his background when she created him, as an ex-CIA agent, so couldn't he have just said that those were aliases for the different covers he'd used as part of being an agent? I know, I know, plot point, but it wouldn't have been unheard of, since Ludlum's Jason Bourne trilogy had already been out and best-sellers and those stories were from the previous decade.

 

And another small nitpick--how Steele never carried cash in "Beg, Borrow, or Steele" when in fact, he was known to carry around a wad of cash in his money clip--to pay bribes throughout the series. And then I had to remind my self: plot point. And of course, we wouldn't have had the wonderful episode if he had had cash on him.

Edited November 29, 2015 by GHScorpiosRule

[GHScorpiosRule]

And so I'm rounding out the end of this season again and I think I'll just end with "Beg, Borrow, or Steele" since that is such a good episode, while the next one is meh, and the finale, "Bonds of Steele", just pisses me off; especially since "Sensitive Steele," "Steele in the Spotlight," "Steele at Your Service," "Steele in the Running" and "Beg, Borrow or Steele" precede it. It undoes all of that; or rather, contradicts all the moments and trust between them that take place.

[Bastet]

I think I'll just end with "Beg, Borrow, or Steele" since that is such a good episode, while the next one is meh,

 

I had to go look up what that episode is (Steele Alive and Kicking), because it just would not come to me.  Yeah, that one must be quite lackluster because I can't even remember more than a few scattered scenes.  Steele at the gym.  Laura ensuring she'll never be asked to pet sit again.  (Can I revisit my perpetual disgruntlement that Nero existed for just one episode?)  Their annoying client who kept crashing through things.  That's all I've got; I can't even remember the closing scene.

 

If I ever get back to my re-watch, I'll find out.  Which I need to do, if for no other reason than to watch Beg, Borrow, or Steele again.  That is one of my favorites. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

The closing scene was stupid-the stupid client stepping on the replacement turtle Laura had gotten -Phyllis--I believe the same idiot client killed the original pet. The closing scene is Remington, Laura and Mildred wincing.

[Bastet]

Ah, I'd probably repressed that memory -- unlike far too many writers, I don't find pets being killed humorous.

[BkWurm1]

I have to say, I really love this episode.  I adore Steele's gut feeling that the guy is innocent and Laura being charmed by his certainty.  I also loved that the episode starts with Steele and Laura just hanging at her loft and Steele wearing that weird but oddly sexy grey jacket slash robe thing. 

 

I'd feel worse about the dead turtle(s) if I didn't know they were not really harmed. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

I have to say, I really love this episode.  I adore Steele's gut feeling that the guy is innocent and Laura being charmed by his certainty.  I also loved that the episode starts with Steele and Laura just hanging at her loft and Steele wearing that weird but oddly sexy grey jacket slash robe thing. 

 

I'd feel worse about the dead turtle(s) if I didn't know they were not really harmed. 

 

Steele wore the same grey jacket/robe at the end of "Suburban Steele", I think.

 

I will agree, I loved the beginning of the episode, with the "normal" moments between Steele and Laura, but it all went downhill, once what'shisface showed up and began to destroy Laura's loft, kill the turtles, destroy Francis's car, cause the cops to destroy and damage Francis's home, destroy Laura's Rabbit...

 

It's a toss up as to who I dislike more: him, or Louie Anderson's character in "Steele Spawning.".  Louie may just edge him out. By a smidge.

[BkWurm1]

Anderson wins because his character was mean.  I don't blame Louie though, they wrote a really terrible character for him to play.   Some really fat phobic crap too.  I was glad in syndication when they cut at least some of the gratuitous "lets put skin tight white shiny pants on him and watch him run and try to climb a fence".

 

It wasn't only Anderson that got poor writing in that episode, I was annoyed with how they made Laura OOC right away by not being at all interested in hearing something from Steele's past. ("Just pop the cork.")

 

On the plus side, we got continuity that Steele knows how to play polo. 

Edited December 7, 2015 by BkWurm1

[GHScorpiosRule]

Anderson only got the part, because one of the show's writers, John Wirth, was his friend. In the interviews, he's grateful to have been on the show, and praises both Stephanie and Pierce, but I haaaated his character.

 

Anderson has a good sense of humor about it--he said even the horse hated him. I'm betting that the two men holding the black horse steady for Anderson to get on for the publicity shoot were probably real life horse trainers.

 

But yeah, it was delicious to see Pierce riding a horsie and playing Polo.

 

I am so easily pleased sometimes.

[BkWurm1]

Anderson's friend probably thought it hilarious to write him so much against character but the whining made the character very hard to watch. 

[Jacqs]

Judith Barsi would have gone far. I was looking at one of the adverts she did, for the Bottle Time Baby doll, and they've dressed her very doll-like (and tried to make her seem younger than she was) in that yellow dress. On top of the abuse from her father, being made to play roles substantially younger than she was can't have been good for her mentally.

[GHScorpiosRule]

20 minutes ago, Golden Kitten said:

Laura always yapping about how her father left her mother an emotional cripple really got on my nerves. She was always trying to act like Polly Purebred. That is why I thought he did not tell her about the deportation issue.

Maybe if the episode where Steele hadn’t been framed as gambling the agency away, where Laura admitted it could have been a long con and he told her he wasn’t going anywhere or if the England two-parter had never aired, then maaaaaybe I could understand him not telling Laura what happened.

[Golden Kitten]

Didn't she tell him that several times before those two episodes? I remember when they were in Acapulco she told him  and another episode I can't recall at the moment. He threw it back at her - I think it was in Sensitive Steele. I liked Laura but I never felt sorry for her because she seemed to want to have and eat her cake.

[Golden Kitten]

And I was done with Mildred when she took it upon herself to take his passports from his suitcase. She was out of line and I was really pissed at Laura for not telling her so.