Barney Miller: Season 2

undefined

Product Description ------------------- The three-disc DVD set includes all 22 episodes from the second season, with guest stars Linda Lavin (TV’s Alice), David Doyle (TV’s General Hospital), and Adam Arkin (Hitch). Barney Miller is the kind of cop we'd all like to meet. He somehow manages to maintain order at New York City’s 12th Precinct in Greenwich Village and remains level-headed while dealing with a group of off-the-wall inner-city detectives. Among them is a gambler, another who attends renaissance philosophy conventions for fun, and a third who spends most of his time daydreaming about being an author. This season, the precinct deals with potential layoffs, a man who threatens to blow up the station unless he can speak with President Nixon, marijuana evidence that suspiciously disappears, and a job offer from Florida for Barney. .com ---- Changes are in store for the men of the 12th Precinct in the second season of Barney Miller, which is presented in its entirety in this three-disc, no-frills collection. Chief among the s to the show's proven formula are the departure of Gregory Sierra's Chano Amenguale, who would leave for his own series after this season; also, Barbara Barrie, who made a strong impression as Barney's wife Liz in the first season, would be relegated to the sidelines for much of this episode run before leaving the series, though she does earn her own storyline for the first and only time in "Social Worker." Otherwise, the second season is focused largely on Barney and the rest of the detectives (as most fans preferred) as they wrangle with crazed men ("The Sniper"), a marauding rodent ("You Dirty Rat"), job insecurity ("The Layoff") and a punishing New York city summer ("Heat Wave"). Hal Linden's smart performance as Barney remains the glue that holds the series together, though there is excellent work from Abe Vigoda as Fish and Max Gail as Wojciehowicz, especially in "The Kid" (Fish becomes enamored of a pickpocket's mother) and "Discovery" (Wojo investigates harassment of a gay couple). Series followers will also note the presence of future cast members Steve Landesburg and Ron Carey among the guest cast; both would join the show (as Detective Arthur Dietrich and Office Carl Levitt) in the third season. Video quality is a little worse for wear in certain episodes; the set also features two superfluous "mini-episodes" of Charlie's Angels and The Facts of Life as its supplemental features. --Paul Gaita