Shark Bytes

Persnickety, you are confusing your opinion with actual intelligent analysis. What you see in the program is something that very very few would see. This leads me to believe that your perspective is somehow out of tune with actual thinkers. Barney Miller was the standard by which most other comedies, from the 70's to now, are to be judged. Virtually all of them, like your analysis, are desperately wanting.

The post below is directed to "Persnickety".

M*A*S*H was good for a few years, then turned to T*R*A*S*H. The same goes for All in the Family. Barney Miller was of the highest quality from day one until the last episode, AND it stands the test of time. It was anything but a show full of one-liners, as you so ignorantly put it. The phrase "situation comedy" might as well have been invented for this show, because the comedy stemmed from the situations. If anything, latter day M*A*S*H and All in the Family were unending strings of one-liners. The "joke lines" on Barney Miller were, for the most part, classics...and clearly over your head.

It has been WONDERFUL reading the many post giving high praise to one of the best programs ever to grace TV...

One of my favorite lines, out of many, many, many...was when Lt. Scanlon would come in and greet everybody by their last name...

Scanlon: Hello, Detective Yemana...
Yemana: Yeah...it sounds pretty don't it?

persnickety,

For someone who professes to loathe the show, you're certainly very familiar with it.

Your trash is apparently gold to most of us. I think "Barney Miller" combined witty writing, genuinely unique and sympathetic characters in a clearly defined and detailed setting to become a truly classic comedy. The "claustrophobic set" you mention is intentionally so! The fact the show's entire world existed on this one set (more or less) made it original and effectively rooted.

Comparisons to other classic shows are pointless and counterproductive. The show was what it was and didn't aspire to be anything else.

Se la vi, my friend.

Wow - nostalgia sure is blind. Barney Miller sucked. It's the 70's your waxing nostalgic for, not this show. It just oozes saturated 70's 'malaise'. The claustrophobic atmosphere of that drab set, the shallow characters- ick. I can't believe someone compared this shallow crap to 'Taxi'. Barney Miller always WANTED to be a show in the vein of 'MASH' or 'All In The Family' or 'Taxi' which could deftly alternate between genuinely moving drama and laugh out loud comedy, but the scripts lacked depth and were overloaded with that endless litany of witless one liners that sinks so many bad sitcoms. I'm not impressed by the suggestion that some kids find it interesting on DVD; kids find MTV interesting too. The brighter ones are probably more intrigued by the time period than the plot. Go watch some Taxi, Odd Couple, early Mash and All in the Family, then rewatch this Barney Miller crap and see if you still think it's a great show.

Barney Miller never even came close to jumping the shark! To the contrary, Barney Miller reverse-jumped every time that Lt. Scanlon from Internal Affairs showed up! Remember Scanlon’s first appearance: the 12th Precinct was being investigated when some undercover IA officer tried to bribe Harris and Wojo, and then Scanlon shows up in the squad room and introduces himself as “Scanlon; Internal Affairs!” Then Harris responses by saying; “Harris; HUMAN RACE!!”

Even better, the episode when the disillusioned woman tried to accuse Dietrich of sexual misconduct and of course, Scanlon is thrilled with the prospect of busting one of Barney’s men. She later recants the story and Scanlon (in a very sarcastic attempt to show that he held no grudge about the whole situation) offers to give her a ride home by saying, “Can I DROP YOU SOME PLACE?”

That line ranks alongside the “shoot some clams” line from the “Hash Brownies” episode!!

Scanlon was terrific! He ranks alongside Col. Flagg from M*A*S*H (could the two have been related?) Yet another reason why “Barney Miller” NEVER jumped the shark!! Even the supporting/guest characters were among the most memorable in TV history!!

I think this show, along with Taxi and Soap, helped make Thursdays THE television watching night for me. Never Jumped.

Thanks, Bruce! God, that line still cracks me up every time I think of it, even now.

Elaine is right. I loved that line from Yemana, "Let's go down to the beach and shoot some clams." That is definitely a classic line and should be up there with all the other classic lines from old TV Shows.

Barney Miller is one of the greatest shows ever. The characters evolve wonderfully as the seasons progress.My teenage daughter is now hooked on the show--it does hold up over time. Some of my favorite episodes are in the later seasons--am anxious to have them on DVD.

It's funny, because when I first watched the show, Max was probably my least favorite of the actors. Now that I've started watching the eps on DVD again, I see for the first time how incredibly good he was. It was nice the way Wojo was allowed to mature as the series went along, in a believable way, rather than re-writing the character the way too many shows tend to do. Max, I underrated you first time around. You really were one of the many things that made Barney Miller such a uniquely funny and classic show.

I agree with the November 13 poster - I too only watched this show for the he-man manliness of Max Gail!! What a beautiful dirty mug he had!! And those thickly muscled forearms!! Oh my!!!!

Just received Barney Miller Season Two. If you are a fan of this show, show your support and buy it now. It's to be hoped that this great series will achieve enough sales to get the whole eight seasons out on disc. You won't be sorry; getting to see these classic eps again will be some of the best money you'll have spent this year.

Just received Barney Miller Season One for Xmas. Oh god, it was worth the wait, this show is every bit as hilarious and beautifully acted as I remember it. I hadn't seen any episodes in at least 15 years, and I swear I actually remembered the dialogue line-for-line in most of them; best episode for me on this set is "The Bureaucrat" which guest-stars the marvelous David Wayne as a petty Washington functionary who gets hauled into the Twelfth for going on a bender. Jeezus, I can hardly wait for Season Two (on its way even as I type), and they need to get the whole bloody run out on disc ASAP. Seeing this show again has been a blast, and has convinced me more than ever that, no, it never did make the jump. This one's a true TV classic for sure.