"CHANGE UP" Under Suspicion April 22, 2001

by
Gordon Hom

At the start of this season, we found out that Cassidy had gone through police academy training, and there she was, all spiffy in her uniform and blue sunglasses. Next thing you know, she's on the SIU, partnered with Rachel. She's running around acting tough and cop-like.

But something was wrong - NASH BRIDGES had taken a wrong turn. NASH BRIDGES has always bordered on being a lightweight cop show, what with the comedy mixed in with the cop stuff. But making Cassidy an SIU cop was a pure Hollywood turn, a move that would never give it the respect of a solid cop show like, say, for example MIAMI VICE, HUNTER, KOJAK or HAWAII FIVE-O. This was bush-league glamor cops on the level of CHARLIE'S ANGELS. Big Daddy Nash had his sweet daughter Cassidy on the SIU squad, an elite unit in the SFPD. NASH World is an incredible and often times over-the-top place, but this move strained even that.

As if to give contrast to Cassidy, Betty-Anne is used in "Change Up" as a foil. She's super efficient, but she's crazy. Betty-Anne thinks Nash is the High Commander of the Serrabithians, and that Joe is an Insecturan assassin. In contrast, Cassidy is the serious rookie, having acted accordingly in a tough situation. Betty-Anne was a part of Nash's household, but Nash fired her. Cassidy is a part of the Nash household, and Nash defends her. Betty-Anne is clearly unfit; in contrast Cassidy is fit and qualified. It's apples and oranges.

Cassidy doesn't take back her badge and gun, but Daddy Nash takes it back for her. Has she quit the police force? She's been cleared, she toughed it out. The torrid murder plot (the marriage counselor fooling around with her client, the super greedy peripheral dot-commer who has murdered his wife) has been uncovered. Let's hope that Cassidy will go back and finish college, or join mother Lisa in Paris.

For more, see synopsis for Episode 120

Copyright © 1996-2022 Gordon Hom. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy