Police Woman (TV Series) Good Old Uncle Ben (1978) User Reviews

A sad ending to the series

[midnight_raider2001 · 1/10 · 11 March 2007]

The last episode to be telecast and very likely the worst. The acting is pretty bad (especially from the leading guest star Keenan Wynn), but that's nothing compared to the script and direction. One seemingly endless conference outside an elevator is filmed in a single master shot, and it's poorly framed, putting the actors near the bottom of the frame while the top of the elevator door at least a foot above the tallest head is prominently shown. The final confrontation in a steakhouse is unbelievable. Pepper and Crowley walk in, surprise the bad guys at their table, and draw beads on them from less than 15 feet away. Despite this, the lead bad guy, who's holding a fork in his left hand halfway to his mouth (he's left-handed, and his left side is facing the camera), manages to drop the fork onto the plate, go under the table to his belt despite being in full view of the cops, yank out a revolver and fire at Crowley and Pepper. Uncle Ben shots a warning and goes for his own gun, although his angle on the shooter is far less acute than that of Crowley and Pepper. Crowley fires once and misses completely. Ben fires once and misses completely. The gunman whirls and fires a second time at Ben before Crowley fires his second shot (Pepper doesn't fire at all). Then Crowley's slug hits the bad guy but doesn't kill him, despite nearly all of his vital organs being in the path of the bullet. Uncle Ben takes one for the team, though, and the camera lingers on him through the rest of the scene (there are a couple of cutaways, but only briefly) as Pepper and Crowley console him in his dying moments and even give back the dirty money he had made off the rustling operation, to be left to his ailing wife. In the elapsed time of the gunfight,Crowley and Pepper could have gotten off a half-dozen rounds and "peppered" the guy with lead -- instead Pepper doesn't fire at all! There is more, much more, but this is the bottom of the barrel. Styles' last line of the series ("If you do (go for a gun), you'll be deader than the meat that's in the truck,") is a classic of bad writing.