In the Heat of the Night (TV Series) A Necessary Evil (1988) User Reviews

Spreading himself real thin

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 25 December 2020]

A couple of guests at the Sparta city jail are causing no end of grief tor Carroll O'Connor and the force. David Orange is there courtesy of a barroom brawl, but the ones brawling now are his sister and a woman who is his bride to be.

But that's only two women. Traveling bible salesman Ted Lange is in for some outstanding polygamy. One wife in Sparta and four others from around the state have come in to file charges against Lange. Both visitors get all kinds of food offerings.

But Lange turns up dead and there's another homicide to solve..

This episode is one of the few in the series run to lean to the comic. Carroll O'Connor might have been thinking retirement might just be the thing.

You know I'll bet there are still some wives Lange still out there.

A Refreshing Interlude from the Dramatic

[spikeluvr · 10/10 · 12 January 2021]

This is one of my favorite Heat episodes. Every year they had at least one episode that had comic elements but this one was pure comedy and they had exactly the right supporting actors for it. Howard Rollins and Carroll O'Connor played the perfect straight men to the chaos around them involving bigamy and sibling jealousy. Ted Lange was really believable as the good hearted Bible salesman and Jennifer Bassey was perfect as the over the top protective older sister. You're just smiling throughout the episode. The show was known for touching on relevant racial and social issues so it was sometimes refreshing to inject some humor in the way that real police departments sometimes have comical situations arise. My sister was a police dispatcher so I was privy to stories ranging from the heart wrenching to the comical. I only discovered Heat in the last year and I'm just sorry I never watched it during its first run, I never liked Archie Bunker so I assumed Heat would be more of the same. That did Carroll O'Connor a great disservice.