Meridian

The first episode of a series that I will entirely review, I have all the episodes at home. This is not an anthology series, because the lead characters are all the same; only two of them, but each episode focuses most of the time not on those two recurrent characters - James Franciscus and John McIntire for the first season only - but mainly on supporting characters, I mean those who will appear in only one episode, the true lead actually, instead of the recurrent, who will finally exist as supporting characters. Very unusual, folllow me? Here, it is question of petty hoodlums who are also armed robbers pulling a heist in a department store. Efficient, taut, sharp...Excellent story.

The classic TV series gets an auspicious sendoff in this simple yet distinctive opener. It's designed to set the scene for the central characters as well as providing an exciting standoff against the criminals.

I've recently been watching the complete series of both "Combat!" and "Route 66", and was surprised to see that "Naked City" was so influential. A young criminal is Puerto Rican and we're introduced to him and his family, speaking Spanish that is untranslated -just as "Combat!" years later featured German and French dialogue regularly, and without subtitles. First episode was written by Stirling Silliphant, creator of "Route 66:, and the filming on location in New York City preceded the later series groundbreaking travels all over America instead of shooting on the studio backlot, both series produced by Herbert Leonard.

Leonard also narrates, colorful in showing NYC. Setting is Columbus Circle, with a robbery of a small shop on West 58th St., and then a shootout in the NY Coliseum (then new, but since torn down and replaced with the Time-Warner Center a/k/a Deutsche Bank Center).

The location photography is excellent and Irish captain John McIntire and boyish newbie plainclothes detective James Franciscus are empathetic heroes, latter with a typically wholesome '50s family.

****SPOILERS*** In it's TV debut the highly successful crime series begins much like the movie "The Naked City" that its based on. We have an aerial view of Manhattan Island and the people who both work and live in it. As the camera pans down to the streets we see 15 year old Arturo, Pat DeSimone, mug this old man by bashing his head in and taking off with a gun the man, who's a watch and jewelry repairman, had in his lunch pale. Arturo then teams up with his fellow greaser Lefty, Joseph Walsh, who are both planning to make a big score by knocking off a local jewelry store. The two brainless grease balls, who have enough grease & oil in their hair to fill up the tank of an SUV, then try to pull off a Jewel robbery on crowded West 58th Street in broad daylight with the streets filled with more cops then pedestrians. The two not that on the ball would be robbers end up slugging the what looked like 90 years old store owner and to make matters even worse shoot a cop who just happened to show up at the crime scene.

Going from dumb to dumber the two then takes off with about two dozen policemen on their tail to a gun show at Columbus Circle where their trapped like rats and are, another bright idea on their part, now planning to go out in a blaze of glory. That in order for them to finish off what had turned out to be definitely not their day. It's there where our hero's Lt. Don "Birdman" Muldoon, John MacIntire, and his young whipper snapper partner the just made NYPD Detective James Halloran, James Franciscus, are introduced to the TV audience as they show up at the scene in order to prevent things from getting even more worse and out of hand then they already are.

***SPOILERS***Stopping short from using fire power to catch the two fugitives from the law Det. Holloran has the store sprinkler system turned on to flush the two trapped and cornered rats out. For his part Auturo in seeing the writing on the wall let one of the two hostages go but in his partner Lefty wanting to duke or shoot it out with the police he soon ended up getting completely drenched. Lefty ended up with his full head of glorious hair or proud pompadour, that the girls were crazy about, so badly mussed up and water logged that to him it was far far worse then any punishment, including life behind bars or the death penalty, that the NY court system could have meted out on him.

This is a great first episode of a great show. It may be overdone in spots but that only adds to the mostly-unintended humor of the whole show. Some of the message(s) are delivered with the subtlety of a sledgehammer on an egg,but this too only adds to the character and amusement value. To be clear,obviously nothing is 'funny' about the topics of any of the episodes,but the way many things are presented,and the over-the-top acting definitely make the show pretty dog-gone funny in my book. Plus,as a bonus,we get a fascinating look at 1958-1963 NYC and wow it was glorious!