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Police Squad! (1982)
Unique series, canceled at the right time
I have to admit, I really liked the Naked Gun movies (especially the third, which is a guilty pleasure of mine), so I was naturally curious about it's roots.
If you've seen the Naked Gun movies, you know what is the basic premise of the show, which is basically a spoof of such TV series like Dragnet or The Streets of San Francisco. Also, most of the gags will be familiar too, as they were reused in the Naked Gun movies.
As a spoof, this series works better than the movies. The acting is more serious, the situations are better, the gags are more subtle. A major problem of the Naked Gun movies is, that they loosed focus too quickly, and started to include situations that were out of place. Here a good balance is maintained. Leslie Nielsen's deadpan acting makes the jokes even funnier, and sometimes saves otherwise lame gags (like for example when Drebin talks to a widow about his marriage to another man). Of course it helps that Nielsen was not a comic actor originally, and he have not yet forgotten his roots at this point.
Another actor that I feel I should mention is Peter Lupus as Norberg. I was never really satisfied with Norberg in the movies, probably because the stupidity of the character was really played up, although that stupidity was played convincingly by O. J. Simpson. Here Norberg is less stupid are more of a comic relief (if such thing is possible in a comedy), and Peter Lupus' comic delivery is perfect.
Of course many people say that it was a crime to cancel the show after only six episodes, and to some degree I agree too. However, I think even these six episodes show, that the writers were running out of steam rapidly. Some of the running gags were becoming tiresome, most notably Johnny, the shoeshiner, a one gag character stretched out into six episodes. The last episode shows probably the best, that they were running out of ideas. Most of the episode is padded out by Leslie Nielsen doing a stand up routine, that is not particularly funny, and singing. Then the episode abruptly ends.
So, in summary, Police Squad was a good show, it was a good parody, had some good acting, an unique kind of humor, and it was canceled probably at the right moment, before becoming dull and repetitive.
Final verdict: 7/10