(Season 6, Episode 13 – “Breaking News”)
Oh. I forgot to mention “funny hats” in my faux-title, didn’t I? It didn’t really play a huge part in tonight’s episode although it gave the Nick Vera character some screen time. At least the show was back to a cold cold case tonight unlike last week’s lukewarm 2007 case. Hey, we’re talkin’ cold, cold like 1988. Twenty years is pretty doable as unless a witness or suspect was elderly back then (barring untimely deaths), they’d still be around today. I was here then. I’m here now. But I have an alibi for the night in question. I wasn’t in Philly at all that year. What’s your alibi? Read on!
The case at a glance
Young rising female TV reporter co-anchor type gets strangled in a park. No real leads back then. I personally suspect only bad police work would have not come across such a scandal as it turned out to be, but remember … I wasn’t there. It turns out that she had the story which could make her career — asbestos poisoning at Shaw Plastics. It turned into a three-ring circus of suspects. Her co-anchor hated her, her original source was a rather hinky guy on painkillers who unleashed his pit bull on Lilly and Jeffries and her taped insider source for the story may have been the last one to see her alive. In the end, it wasn’t the person I thought it was.
It was her boss, her mentor! It turns out that he used insider trading knowledge and tried to kill the story. Instead of just killing the story, he killed the girl, too.
The music
I guess we didn’t have many worthy songs directly in 1988, huh? The show featured one 1988 hit — “Simply Irresistible” by Robert Palmer. That made me want to go to YouTube and watch his videos. But then they went onto songs from The Fixx. “Red Skies” was 1982 and “One Thing Leads to Another” was 1983. The Tears for Fears song “Shout” was 1985. Catchy tunes, nice memories. But not 1988. The song with the female lead singer is driving me crazy. I recognize it, I know it. Argh. I’d venture a guess that it wasn’t 1988, though.
Present day and past
Overall, they didn’t do a bad job this week with the actors playing the older and younger roles. I didn’t think that Jane’s mom looked anything like her younger counterpart. Where’s the mole on her left cheek? And why was her face an entirely different shape? And … sheesh, she really aged in those twenty years, didn’t she? The older and younger PR guy also had a disappearing non-pigmented mole on his lip. With him, the profiles were so not alike that they couldn’t even pass as relatives.
But I’m just fussing a bit. It’s fun to fuss. They did well with the pit bull siccer dude. Yeah, having the same goatee is a bit odd. But he was a bit lost in the past anyway.
The perp walk and Scott
I’m for them canning the romance between Frankie and Scott. It’s too contrived and now it’s just tired. Okay, maybe he’s simply irresistible, but the handcuff tossing made me snort with derision. Really. It did. The perp walk was the usual sentimental schmaltzy scene. It kind of bothered me that Jane’s mother wasn’t proud of what she was doing until her “real” story was released. Sure, serious journalism and all that. But, she made it to a big city hometown market. Even if she did fluff stories, she could grow up to marry a network CEO or something, couldn’t she? Oh. Les is already taken?
Clacked by Jackie Schnoop 
on Jan 11, 2009 @ 23:58 EST5EDT
