Scarecrow and Mrs. King falls somewhere in the middle for me. I never watched it when it was on, by fall of 1983 I was spending my nights out on the town being twenty something and didn’t have mush time for TV. Watching it now it feels very dated because of the clothes and technology.
It also seems weird that Kate Jackson would take a role in which she is a housewife who is supposed to be a bit helpless but lucky. Mrs. King is raising two boys and her mother lives with her. Mom is a pain in the ass ans nowadays her role as meddling Mom would not work. Mrs. King stubles across an agent of some spy type network who hands her a package. She ends up helping to save the mission for the spy and the group he works for brings her into the fold as no one would suspect she’s a spy.
Scarecrow is played by Bruce Boxleitner, not someone you would go to when you need depth of character as his default acting chops is to grin and look pretty. I don’t buy him as tough enough to do the action and he doesn’t really play as clever enough to be a good spy. This would be the guy I’d have driving the car and waiting while the mission was done by real agents.
The rest of the cast is pretty much the same, no one is really stretching here and the roles could have been swapped out and no one would really notice.
The writing is also very bland with some outrageous plots. More often than not I find myself thinking I would be a better spy than any of these people.
Now, I’m not saying the show is all bad, it’s not. But this is most definitely something anyone under the age of 35 is going to watch and be bored. As a over the age of 40 person myself I found it entertaining in the way I find a lot of television to be, I have it on and watch while I do something else. It’s pleasant enough to have on while I do other things as the plots are not really challenging. Kind of the same formula that worked for Murder She Wrote and other non-threatening shows. It was kind of nice to have on before we went to bed to help us wind down.
Final word? While most of our readers won’t find this to be a show they need, it might be a nice gift for the Grandparents.
21 episodes, and no extra features.
