This Week's Episode: Angie's Choice

[owlcroft]

Angie's Choice
Airdate: Apr. 1, 1985

After seeing reputed mobster Stevie Ray kill a man named Tommy Chen, former prostitute Angie Bloom goes into hiding. Before disappearing, she decides to leave Nicky and Lindsey, her young children, with Hardcastle for safekeeping. While the kids initially refuse to tell the judge their name, the judge eventually realizes that they are Angie's children. Meanwhile, Hardcastle and McCormick discover something is amiss when some men unsuccessfully try to kidnap the kids. Following a hunch, Hardcastle pays a visit on a former madam named Dolores. The hunch pays off and the judge locates Angie. Convinced that Hardcastle has her best interests in mind, Angie tells the judge the whole story. Recognizing that the best way to protect Angie is to put Stevie in prison, Hardcastle arranges for her to testify. To his regret, the officers that pick up Angie are actually Stevie's men. Upon learning the truth, Hardcastle and McCormick "convince" one of Stevie's men to tell them where to find Angie. Following up on their lead, the two men capture Stevie and rescue Angie.

Guest Cast
Lynne Topping as Angela "Angie" Bloom, Robert Desiderio as Stevie Ray, Bobby Jacoby as Nicky Bloom, Beau Starr as Scully, Robert Thaler, Anne Marie McEvoy as Lindsey Bloom, Barbara Cason as Dolores

Writers
Richard Christian Matheson and Thomas Szollosi

Director
Bruce Kessler

[Coyote X]

I've always liked Robert Desiderio. I think that's about all I would want to say about this episode, except that the writers got just about everything else all wrong.

Barbara

[owlcroft]

The really isn't much to like about this one. It's one of the reasons that I didn't like the script editors for that season (even though both have been very nice to me). They just didn't know the characters well enough to make us believe in these episdes, and what in the world is with that weird dining room set? The kitchen extends out into the driveway! It just has the feeling of something done on the cheap and hasty.

And that kid! Both kids! Eee-yuck! I cannot believe they couldn't find talented, likeable child actors for that. Then there's Angie herself -- completely inbelievable. And she leads the judge into offering to cheat on her schoolwork for her -- oh, sure, I believe that from Ol' Hardcase.

Definitely the worst episode of them all, but there's the good news. Third season is coming up and we start right off with a rela humdinger!

[krokkie]

Huh uh folks, this episode was sooo not any way to end a season with. The child characters were just crummy. The story as a whole is disappointing.

[Voyager Tip]

It gave me the impression that they had run out of ideas for a story and so they just put 2 kids into the mix so they'd have something different to write about as the kids interacted with M & M. The writers are so critically important and they just didn't have a great story, but they still could have put some great scenes into the story, but they didn't. I've watched this once since I got the DVD set. Won't mention how many times I've watched some of the others.