Sept. 9-15, 2012 TV Club- The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries- Season 1-Ep. 2

[MacGyver]

Leave your thoughts, comments and reviews here on the 2nd. episode of Season 1 of The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries- "The Mystery of Pirate's Cove". This episode is the first to feature Nancy Drew and serves as the pilot episode of sorts for the concurrent Nancy Drew portion of the show.

[MacGyver]

Hopefully I will get a chance to watch this one soon and get a full review up- but I don't know if I'll be quite as detailed as I was on the last one. We'll see- but if I haven't said it before already, I love this show! So I'm excited to do these reviews.

[MacGyver]

Okay- I watched this episode last night. Thus far, I seem to be keeping with the original airdate of Sunday evenings for this show, though definitely not at the same time slot.
     But anyway, I'll try to briefly note a few of my impressions of this episode, the pilot episode for the Nancy Drew half of the series. I noted that this episode was also written by Glen A. Larson and his credit and the acknowledgement that the Nancy Drew episodes of the show are based on the Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene both came during the end credits. Perhaps it's just in the second season that those credits were moved to the start of the episode.
      While I'm talking about the credits, let me also take a moment to point out that for this episode, the opening credits and theme song are mostly the same, but since this episode features Nancy Drew, Pamela Sue Martin is credited first and then Shaun Cassidy and Parker Stevenson get their credits, to acknowledge the three series' leads. And of course, the credits end on a shot of Nancy Drew running up to the camera with the announcer announcing the title of the episode. (i.e. "Tonight on Nancy Drew- Nancy Drew in "The Mystery of Pirate's Cove")
         As with The Hardy Boys' first episode, this introductory episode for Nancy Drew primarily happens in the evening and at night. There are a few more moments during the daylight here, but mostly the action takes place in the cover of darkness for a lot of the episode, which of course just adds to the mood. I noticed that both pilot episodes for The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew involve a haunted place of some sort. For The Hardy Boys, it was "The Haunted House" and for Nancy Drew, it's a haunted lighthouse. (Though Nancy comes closer to an actual possible haunting of the lighthouse by a ghost.)
         To start off the scene, we are first introduced to Nancy Drew at a beachside party in the evening, at a friend's house on a cliff overlooking the beach. Nancy is dancing with this friend who threw the party, Brandon, and Ned Nickerson is gazing at her longingly with George Fayne noticing and encouraging him to admit his feelings for Nancy and ask her out. We have sort of a reverse and interesting dynamic here from the setup with The Hardy Boys. Callie Shaw works for Fenton Hardy and mainly relates to Frank and Joe in that sense, just as a friend. (Though of course we know from the books that Frank and Callie are a couple, though this is not mentioned in this series.) However, with Nancy Drew, we also find Ned Nickerson working for her father, Carson Drew, and so has a relation with Nancy in a professional sense, since Nancy also works as a part-time investigator, as she says. (She corrects both George and Ned when they refer to her as a detective- I guess Nancy prefers this term because perhaps it makes her sound more professional.)
      But at least Ned still has an attraction to Nancy and they have perhaps a budding romance going, but it's generally Ned who wants to be Nancy's boyfriend but Nancy thinking of him mainly like an older brother. In any case, it's not something that is generally played up much during the series.
     I like Jean Rasey's portrayal of George, but she does seem to be a bit like an amalgamation of George and Bess, in that she generally seems to be afraid to go with Nancy when investigating a possible ghost and such. From what I recall of the books, I think George has generally been portrayed as more of an adventurous and daring character and athletic as well. But in spite of differences from the books, I still enjoy all the casting of the characters.
     Sometimes I find I just have to accept a certain character as this particular depiction of them for a series or movie, etc. and just move on. Of course, I'm just happy to even have these characters appear at all in any form. (And as we'll see in the 2nd. Season of the show, Bess Marvin eventually does show up and we can see a bit more of a distinction between her and George.)
           Ned Nickerson seems to be a bit more nervous and reluctant to engage in investigations, but he also comes through for Nancy when she needs him. He definitely plays the protective role for her.
           One other general note about casting with this series- I particularly like all three leads (Pamela Sue Martin, Shaun Cassidy, and Parker Stevenson) in their respective roles- and their respective father figures are both perfectly cast, in my opinion. Ed Gilbert did a great job as Fenton Hardy and William Schallert was excellent as Carson Drew.
          One other thing to remember with this series is the number of guest stars that showed up on the the show, many of whom were already famous then and others who became more famous later on. Just in this episode, I recognized Joe Penny (best known to me from his 1980s TV series, Riptide and Jake and the Fatman) and Monte Markham (best known to me from his role on Baywatch). There are tons of others of course, in both The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew episodes, and that's a fun thing to look out for, as with any series.
           As to the plot of the actual episode, Nancy Drew goes with Brandon and Ned and George (after some deliberation on Ned's part) on a boat ride that evening. They find a lot of dead flying fish and then notice a light on at what should be an abandoned lighthouse. Since Nancy's dad is helping a client with selling that lighthouse, both Nancy and Ned have a vested interest in it (though of course Nancy would be interested regardless of that) and they promptly call the police to check the place out for vandals.
        There doesn't seem to be any way anyone could be in there, as the lock on the door does not seem to have been disturbed in quite a long time.
This will prove to be one of the first of a number of run-ins with the police for Nancy as she reports things to the proper authorities but is not always believed- at which point, she takes matters into her own hands of course. So Nancy continues with the investigating the next day and she and George hack off the lock and go check out the lighthouse. George winds up getting scared off after finding a bat in the lighthouse and goes to check out some tire tracks near the cliff that Nancy found. Nancy discovers a set of footprints in the dust near the top window.
       She eventually runs into a professor there, who is the one who is buying the lighthouse. He says he is a parapsychologist, studying the lighthouse for ghosts. Nancy and George wind up spending the night with him in the lighthouse (after a visit with her father to get permission- Ned is on hand too, but opts not to go.) Nancy exposes the parapsychologist as a fraud, as he has recording equipment he is using to make scraping noises to make it look like a ghost is there. As it turns out, he is actually there after a lost treasure from pirate days and was using the idea of a ghost to scare everyone off so he could look for the treasure in solitude and peace. (Much like a Scooby-Doo episode at this point.) But the mystery doesn't end there. George goes off to a library to check out a book that the professor was consulting about the treasure- and makes an important discovery.
       Nancy and George find out that there is more to this mystery than simply pirate's treasure. Nancy and Ned almost drown as they explore a cave on the beachside that leads them up into the lighthouse, with high tide coming in to cut off their escape. And Nancy winds up confronting the professor on her own and is almost pushed off the cliff to her death, but Ned comes in with the calvary (i.e. the police) just in time.
         After a wrap up of details at Nancy's house with her father, George and Ned all there, Nancy ends the episode with a cute joke to Ned and thus, we have the end of the episode and the launch of a number of characters and relationships. We see the relationship between Nancy and Ned, Nancy and George and Nancy and her father. As George is one of Nancy's best friends, Carson Drew tends to treat her like a daughter too. And though he and Ned primarily have an employer and employee relationship, there is something of a father and son relationship there as well. (Which would be fitting as Ned may have aspirations of being his son-in-law one day. ) As I mentioned earlier, we also see a bit of Nancy's relationship with the local police.

[MacGyver]

  I wanted to mention something quickly on the settings. I like the layout for River Heights- we get to see a bit more of the layout of the city during the day for a bit (compared to the little we've seen of Bayport thus far, from The Hardy Boys' first episode. But we've seen their house and we do see more of Bayport as the show goes on.)  Also, Bayport is supposed to be a coastal town somewhere near New York, but from what I remember of the Nancy Drew books, I've always understood River Heights to be somewhere in Illinois. If that's the case, I'm curious as to the coastal setting in this episode, unless this is supposed to be set somewhere near Lake Michigan. The Great Lakes area does have some manmade beaches and that could be possible...though it seems unlikely that pirates would have been sailing through there.... This will have to be one of those issues that can be chalked up to the vagueness in the books regarding River Heights location, I suppose. Oh well- it's still an enjoyable episode and I'm glad for a beach setting mystery, as I'm just fond of the beach and the ocean in general. And there's something that seems to make it a great spot for a mystery, especially with a spooky old abandoned lighthouse.
          Overall, I thought this was a great start for the Nancy Drew episodes, with the characters and setting established. This first episode for Nancy Drew is also set in her hometown of River Heights, just as The Hardy Boys' first episode was set in their hometown of Bayport, so I like that for the start of the show. We'll soon see both The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew travelling a lot of other places too of course, both in the pursuit of mysteries and just for vacation or errands, etc. and then the mysteries find them.

[MacGyver]

Again, I have managed to go over the 10,000 characters limit on that review- lol. We'll see if this trend actually keeps up for all the other episodes.