Scarecrow & Mrs. King - General Discussion

[Aethera]

This topic replaces the old Scarecrow & Mrs. King forum which has been vaulted at the location below:

http://forums.previously.tv/forum/755-scarecrow-and-mrs-king-v/

[neckielh]

Started watching Scarecrow and Mrs King, just finished the episode "one flew east", I. Understand it's the last episode she really appears in.  I doubt if i will watch the remaining 4 episodes.  Don't want to watch them not if she's not on.  It's sad that she got sick.  Love her as an actress.  I like Season 3 the best.  Season 1, she was getting acclimated with Lee and was eager to learn the business.  

Season 2, I  only liked a couple of the episodes, her character acted a bit goofy.  Season 3 she was more serious and getting involved more with the Agency and working with Lee.  Season 4, from what i've seen so far isn't that interesting to me.  And she got sick and wasn't in all the episodes.

[GHScorpiosRule]

I have to admit, with shows so gritty and edgy in recent years, I’ve come to appreciate the light-hearted take on spies and espionage on this show. And the wonderful chemistry between Bruce and Kate.

And of course I mentally 🙄 and 😒 while rewatching the pilot, where Amanda says “damn” when they’re in the parking garage. Why? Because I remember how that was edited out. Can’t have a nice woman with two kids swearing now, can we?

That aside, I’m having fun visiting Lee and Amanda again. And yes, I’m wearing my hypocrite hat as I’ve stated in the past how cheesy and unrealistic this show’s take on the intelligence community and KGB was, eh @Bastet and @BkWurm1?🤪😜

Sue me.😅

[Egg McMuffin]

I haven’t seen it in years. I wonder why none of the digital subnets have picked it up. The first season was freshest from what I remember. Also recall that the fourth season was kind of a dud after the secret marriage and after Kate Jackson started missing episodes.

[GHScorpiosRule]

12 minutes ago, Kyle said:

I haven’t seen it in years. I wonder why none of the digital subnets have picked it up. The first season was freshest from what I remember. Also recall that the fourth season was kind of a dud after the secret marriage and after Kate Jackson started missing episodes.

Well she had breast cancer and was undergoing treatment, which is why we only saw her in one or two scenes in the last few episodes, except for the finale.

[Door County Cherry]

13 minutes ago, Kyle said:

I haven’t seen it in years. I wonder why none of the digital subnets have picked it up. The first season was freshest from what I remember. Also recall that the fourth season was kind of a dud after the secret marriage and after Kate Jackson started missing episodes.

Amazon Prime used to have it streaming.  That's why I first got it.  But then it was taken off.

I feel like HBO Max should add it as it's a WB show I believe.   

I loved S1-S3.  I'm toying with buying it online as I want to watch it again but I feel like I'm in a standoff with Max.

[GHScorpiosRule]

5 minutes ago, Door County Cherry said:

Amazon Prime used to have it streaming.  That's why I first got it.  But then it was taken off.

I feel like HBO Max should add it as it's a WB show I believe.   

I loved S1-S3.  I'm toying with buying it online as I want to watch it again but I feel like I'm in a standoff with Max.

I bought the dvds years ago at a reasonable price after Prime took it off its schedule.

The final season has a handful of good episodes-“Night Crawler” being one of them. And the one where Lee was poisoned. “Bad Timing”.

And of course the two-part season opener, “Stemwinder”.

Edited May 16, 2021 by GHScorpiosRule

[Bastet]

Over the past five years or so (maybe more with how crazy time flies), I've tried to re-watch this twice and I couldn't get into it either time.  All the corny, cheesy stuff that always bugged me was so much more present, and the stuff I liked wasn't as appealing.  I think I'll give it one more try and then donate the DVDs to the library to free up some space unless I feel differently the third time.  But I'll wait to try that until I feel like I'm in the mood for it, to give it my best shot.

[GHScorpiosRule]

13 minutes ago, Bastet said:

Over the past five years or so (maybe more with how crazy time flies), I've tried to re-watch this twice and I couldn't get into it either time.  All the corny, cheesy stuff that always bugged me was so much more present, and the stuff I liked wasn't as appealing.  I think I'll give it one more try and then donate the DVDs to the library to free up some space unless I feel differently the third time.  But I'll wait to try that until I feel like I'm in the mood for it, to give it my best shot.

For me, I think it’s seeing the relationship with Lee and Amanda develop organically that keeps me watching every few years.

Plus, I’m finding I don’t mind the cheesiness that used to bug me. There’s always the fast forward button. 🤷‍♀️ 

[Door County Cherry]

Cheesy is sometimes a feature,  not a bug in my enjoyment.   But I do think it gets easier for me to watch the more Lee takes her seriously and the more Amanda becomes more established and confident in her abilities. 

[Bastet]

4 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

There’s always the fast forward button. 🤷‍♀️ 

Yeah, but that's all I was using!  Because I mean the cheesiness in everything, including Amanda's character and their relationship.  All the things I used to find endearing about her and them to offset how corny the whole thing was either weren't charming me or weren't charming me enough.  This show was always my least-favorite of the genre (it was Moonlighting first, Remington Steele second, and this a distant third), but I liked it.  I don't know what changed in me, but the last two times I tried I just didn't.

[Egg McMuffin]

CBS also played it at 8:00 which at that point was considered the “family hour” and that likely had an effect on the content. I think the tone would have been different at 9:00 or 10:00.

[GHScorpiosRule]

Yeesh. That stupid “Mystery Marriage” still irks me for so many reasons. Billy was married with kids; we heard about other agents who were married and had babies; and yet others who were stated as married.

Billy himself told Lee he’d been a “lone Wolf” for too long and should get married-AND-look to working in Administration -as the salary in that would help support a family in “Night Crawler”.

Billy TOLD them he was fine with whatever their relationship was; Dotty and the kids knew they were dating.

The situation with Tranh wasn’t the same because neither Lee or Amanda were working as double agents-which is what Tranh was.

And they weren’t fooling anyone anyways.

That said: Bruce Boxleitner is so, so pretty. Okay classically handsome. 🥰🥰🥰🥰

Remington Steele is next!

[Door County Cherry]

Hey everyone, I have great news!

Scarecrow and Mrs. King is now streaming for free on Tubi. 

https://tubitv.com/series/300010224/scarecrow-and-mrs-king?start=true

I am so excited!

[Tdoc72]

I just started watching this. I guess I was too young during the original run.

I’m only 3/4 through the first season. But I have questions:

—Does everyone at the “agency” enter through the same closet elevator thing?  Neighbors never noticed tons of people entering that house? Or are there mysterious entrances all over Washington?

—Amanda meets the spy that gave her the hideous ring through a car accident and then the very next episode, she meets someone else the same way. She’s not even wary or curious?

—Whatever happened to her mostly unseen boyfriend Dean?  He just disappeared and wasn’t mentioned (unless I missed it) when she met the spy that gave her the hideous ring. 
—What is Francine’s job?  Besides the one where she had a lookalike spy,  she doesn’t do anything. She’s pointless to me. 

Edited March 8, 2023 by Tdoc72

[JMO]

Newly streaming and have started to revisit the shows of my youth.  So glad I remembered to look for this one! 

It was a perfect little show with a relatable Everywoman, a swashbuckling spy/hero, and slowly building romance, augmented by doses of comedy, dramatic tension, car chases and explosions---something for everyone, in every episode.  The leads played their roles impeccably, and even the child actors were good.  The characters grew in appropriate ways within a reasonable timeline---Amanda gaining confidence and skill, and not afraid to show her intelligence; Lee, learning how to open up and lean on someone else; and their relationship, moving from improbable to inevitable, from companionship, through affection to mature love.  And what great chemistry!!! 

[Egg McMuffin]

On 3/8/2023 at 11:16 AM, Tdoc72 said:

What is Francine’s job?  Besides the one where she had a lookalike spy,  she doesn’t do anything. She’s pointless to me. 

Her job is to make catty comments about Amanda.

[Clawdette]

I come to the Other Drams section about once a week and happened to see this forum.  I loved Scarecrow and Mrs. King when it aired live so I downloaded the Tubi app and watched the first two episodes.  Sometimes you just need to live in the past.

[GHScorpiosRule]

I'm watching it now; finished Season one on Saturday, and started season two yesterday.

I know I complained about this before, but I swear, I didn't notice it in the entire episode!

I love "Ship of Spies" and how Lee and Amanda end up having to get married, and in past viewings, I thought it was only the wedding ceremony that whoever did the make-up, must have been smoking something, because the eye shadow(?! Like WTF??!) on Bruce, was so very, very obvious. But when I watched it last night-It's there when he pops up behind the milk in the grocery store; again when he explains they have adjoining rooms, and and one more scene I'm blanking on, in addition to the wedding ceremony.

Like, WHAT???! Why????? Why put EYE SHADOW on him?????

And next is "Odds on a Dead Pigeon" which I love, love, love! We talked about how great it was to see Kate play Karen, impersonating Amanda. Such a great job. And another favorite is "DOA: Delirious On Arrival" with Amanda's hallucinations. Especially the one spoofing Casablanca!😅

[baileythedog]

On 5/23/2021 at 1:53 PM, GHScorpiosRule said:

Yeesh. That stupid “Mystery Marriage” still irks me for so many reasons. Billy was married with kids; we heard about other agents who were married and had babies; and yet others who were stated as married.

Billy himself told Lee he’d been a “lone Wolf” for too long and should get married-AND-look to working in Administration -as the salary in that would help support a family in “Night Crawler”.

Billy TOLD them he was fine with whatever their relationship was; Dotty and the kids knew they were dating.

The situation with Tranh wasn’t the same because neither Lee or Amanda were working as double agents-which is what Tranh was.

And they weren’t fooling anyone anyways.

That said: Bruce Boxleitner is so, so pretty. Okay classically handsome. 🥰🥰🥰🥰

Remington Steele is next!

I just re-found this series on Tubi.  I watched this as a kid when it originally aired and I lived with my single mom.  I'm the same age as Amanda's kids so it was fun to imagine my mom was secretly living the life of an international spy.  

The show is certainly a time capsule and that particular mix of humor / action / intrigue / romance doesn't really seem to exist on TV anymore.   As things did in those days, it just kind of disappeared from television without much explanation.  It has only been now that I realize the reason it ended was because of Kate Jackson's diagnosis.  That certainly explains a great deal and why it limped off TV in such a lackluster way.   I didn't spend a great deal of time thinking about the show after it ended and I was certainly a greater fan of "Moonlighting" (of the same era) and, later, "The X-Files", et al, but it's always been a soft spot in my heart.  I think that theme song was really super ingrained in me. 

Maybe I'm just into nostalgia these days -- and I just lost my mom that I spent so much time watching this show with -- but it was a real delight, and perfect timing, to discover it was on Tubi allowing me to revisit the series.  (Although Tubi is, for some reason, missing a couple of the S2 episodes that I had to go buy on Amazon to complete the viewing.)

So even considering nostalgia, vulnerable emotions, and a subsequent lifetime of watching arguably better and more sophisticated television, I thought the pilot episode was a real banger.  It hooked me immediately with its humor, pace, production values, sharp writing, and cracking chemistry between the leads. 

And yes.  Good lord, Bruce Boxleitner was so ridiculously beautiful during the run of this show. They put a lot of makeup on him in the first season for no known reason and he got a bit too close to mullet-y for my tastes in the latter seasons, but his charisma is just perfectly struck in this show.   I knew he was in Babylon 5 back in the 90s but I was more into The X-Files and never made it through B5.  I do remember message boards of the 90s always raving about B5 so I think I'll try that next (because why not, it's not like there isn't an overwhelming amount of NEW shows produced every year now.)

But other than that, I really lost track of Boxleitner.  Looking at his IMDb titles since B5 looks a little....underwhelming.  I wonder if he's a guy that is miscast or how he fell out of being considered for projects with better budgets or if he just has terrible taste in schmaltzy projects.  I feel like he needs the sort of treatment that Bill Murray got with Wes Anderson movies. Resurrect that guy, for god's sake.  If nothing else, his voice is amazing.  

[Door County Cherry]

1 hour ago, baileythedog said:

(Although Tubi is, for some reason, missing a couple of the S2 episodes that I had to go buy on Amazon to complete the viewing.)

At some point, the series also ended up on the Roku Channel (free and ad-supported like Tubi) and they have many of the episodes Tubi is missing.  

1 hour ago, baileythedog said:

So even considering nostalgia, vulnerable emotions, and a subsequent lifetime of watching arguably better and more sophisticated television, I thought the pilot episode was a real banger.

It's a great set up.  I'm watching the series from the beginning as well.  I started when it first came on Tubi but other things distracted me before I could return to this.  

I too was thinking about how much I'm enjoying it even though it wouldn't be sophisticated enough for TV today.  I have to laugh at how many times they say there's an assassination attempt but they don't know who the target is or who is behind it and they have to figure it out.  

But the spy games were always secondary to watching Lee and Amanda.  

[GHScorpiosRule]

11 hours ago, Door County Cherry said:

But the spy games were always secondary to watching Lee and Amanda. 

ABSOLUTELY!!! My teen self was ALL ABOUT their relationship! Not gonna lie, but Kate was my favorite Angel, so it was great to see her in my screen again, playing someone who was the complete opposite of Sabrina Duncan! I saw shades of Sabrina in the final season though.

While Bruce didn’t have more series after Babylon 5, he was in the Gambler movies, did a couple of forgettable movies, too. Played the love interest in a Judith Krantz mini-series ( which was popular in the mód-90s I thine it was). But in the 2000s and later, he appeared on procedurals. And sadly, as a villain in Supergirl. I was soooo hoping he would show up as Kate’s hubby in Criminal Minds!😄😄

I just recently did a rewatch and stopped right before Kate was replaced by Francine due to her cancer. Those one minute scenes aren’t worth it. 

[Door County Cherry]

Bruce pops up in Hallmark movies every now and then.

[baileythedog]

25 minutes ago, Door County Cherry said:

Bruce pops up in Hallmark movies every now and then.

Yeah. Unfortunately, Hallmark movies are absolutely not my taste.  I'm wondering if that's HIS taste or just the best of what's out there for him. 

[baileythedog]

Two random comments -

1. It absolutely slays me that in The Eyes Have It when we see a bedside photo of Lee's parents at their wedding, it is actually a photo of Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy's wedding circa 1944.  (This Kathleen was JFK's older sister and JFK's older brother, Joe, is so obviously in the background of the photo.)

I don't know that I would call this particular photo famous, but anyone who had spent any time perusing Kennedy family history would probably be familiar with it.  I am dying that the production team used it as Lee's family stand in.  Whhhhhyyyy?  

(I suppose there is something of a country-reversal joke in that Kathleen Kennedy was a bit of a socialite who married minor British royalty / military.  Perhaps the implication is that KK was also a spy?).  Anyway.  It's weird and jarring. 

 

2. For the first three seasons Lee being Amanda's personal Snuffleupagus (with respect to her family) is such a great long-running affect of the show.   Particularly in contrast to Dean whom the family DOES see but the audience does not.  

The shattering of that dynamic in the fourth season (amongst other flaws) really kicks the legs out from the show in a way that they didn't recover from.  Lee wondering how to spend the weekend with the boys is just not as fun as Lee appearing / disappearing from Dotty's flowerbed. 

 

 

Edited July 31, 2023 by baileythedog

[WendyCR72]

1 hour ago, baileythedog said:

(I suppose there is something of a country-reversal joke in that Kathleen Kennedy was a bit of a socialite who married minor British royalty / military.  Perhaps the implication is that KK was also a spy?).  Anyway.  It's weird and jarring. 

I have read a lot of Kennedy books. Rose Kennedy, a fiercely-devout Catholic, apparently did not approve of the marriage as Kathleen's husband was, if I recall, Protestant.

Of course, it did not last all too long due to the plane crash that killed Kathleen and her husband. (Ironically, older brother Joe also died via plane when his exploded during WWII.)

I'm rather shocked no fuss was made when the show used that to show Lee's family!