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Production Information
"Swallowed Alive" - episode #44
First Aired - 5th Feb 1989
W - Eric Blakeney
Dir - James Contner
Guest Cast - Joshua Cox, Jeremy Roberts, Randy Brooks, Michael Champion, Ian Tracey
Background
21 Jump St was the youthful Fox network's excursion into what we in the UK refer to as "Yoof TV". For those unfamiliar with the term, "Yoof TV" usually assumes one of two forms: embarrassingly bad studio shows of the type so accurately satirized by the Young Ones "Nosin' Around" insert, or gritty "reality" based dramas, featuring a reasonably pretty cast, aggressively marketed to an audience of 13-16 year olds. 21 Jump St belongs in the latter category. Based on a similar justice experiment in LA, the show revolves around a group of improbably youthful-looking undercover police officers, assigned to highschools and other locations as an exercise in preventative policing - the objective being to apprehend and rehabilitate young transgressors, before they embarked on full-blown deviant careers. This scenario permitted the exploration of a number of social issues - drug and alcohol abuse, prostitution, rape, runaways and homelessness, petty crime etc, thought to be of particular relevance to teenagers.
Although the programme was intended to secure Fox a viable share of the adolescent market, 21 Jump St became an unexpected success in a number of other age groups, running for 4 series from April 1987, before being cancelled in May 1990. Despite this cancellation and the departure of 2 of the leading players, the show was held in sufficiently high esteem to be revived for a 5th series, which ran between 1990 and 1991. According to fans of the programme, this popularity stemmed from the fact that 12 Jump St was pretty good for what it was. The characters they maintain, were both well developed and reasonably convincing, the plots to some extent mature, thoughtful and incisive, and at least some effort was taken to present each of the subjects examined within a broader social context. I haven't really seen enough of it to comment either way.
Cast:
Regulars:
· Johnny Depp as Officer Tom Hanson [ seasons 1 - 4 ] · Holly Robinson as Detective Judy Hoffs · Peter DeLuise as Officer Doug Penhall [ episodes 1 - 91 ] · Dustin Nguyen as Officer Harry Truman Ioki (a.k.a. Vinh Van Tran) [ seasons 1 - 4 ] · Frederic Forrest as Captain Richard Jenko [ episodes 1 - 6 ] · Steven Williams as Captain Adam Fuller [ episodes 7 - 103 ] · David Barry Gray as Officer Dean Garrett [ episodes 80 - 103 ] · Michael Bendetti as Officer Tony "Mac" McCann [ season 5 ] · Michael DeLuise as Officer Joey Penhall [ episodes 46, 88 - 103 ]
Recurring characters:
· Richard Grieco as Officer Dennis Booker [ season 3, episode #65 ] · Gina Nemo as Dorothy Pezzino [ episodes 26 - 45 ] · Sal Jenco as Sal "Blowfish" Banduchi [ seasons 1 - 4 ] · Yvette Nipar as Jackie Garret [ episodes 36 - 51 ] · Alexandra Powers as Officer Kati Rocky [ season 5 ]
Drivel
I'll admit that my first response to reading a description of 21 Jump St - a late 80's teen orientated cop show, featuring Johnny Depp, of all people, was not an overwhelming vote of confidence. Not only do I find Mr Depp faintly annoying but, having been a teenager during the late 80's, I've seen enough of this type of programme to last me a lifetime.
I was, however, pleasantly surprised. Despite the gruesome theme song, choked out by a woman who sounded as though she'd been partially strangled, the blatant moral didacticism, and social commentary only slightly less understated than a rhino horn up the backside, "Swallowed Alive" boasted a pleasing degree of substance and dramatic complexity. Well - actually it didn't. But it was Saturday morning, I had a hangover, and consequently I didn't mind pretending;-)
The episode involves 4 officers being assigned to infiltrate a Youth Authority detention centre, to examine the drugs related murder of an inmate. In so doing they are confronted rather abruptly with the consequences of the penal system they help to uphold. Obviously this involves a standard portrayal of prisons as draconian regimes that, far from reforming their subjects serve only to brutalize them further, but the writers did manage to re-package the subject matter in the type of histrionic bleakness that makes it almost funny to watch.
The script contrasts the tempered idealism of those devoted to positive intervention sharply against the institution's preferred method of enforcing discipline and obedience - an abusive and illegal system of inmate self-regulation. The latter contrivance was probably designed to behave as a microcosm of the penal system en masse, or as a representation of broader values in a competitive society founded on the principle of self-interest, in which an individual's success is judged on the basis of their ability to subjugate and mistreat others to one extent or another. The head of this system is known as "The Hammer" - a title that provides some idea of the brick-like subtelty pervading the entire show, and the undercover officers are compelled not only to participate but, to become actively complicit in this in this dubious arrangement in order to pursue their investigation.
What emerges by the end, is that this system can neither be reformed, nor safely dispensed with, that the average young offender is not enormously interested in Pre-Raphaelite painting, and that "Moby Dick" by Herman Melville is the only work of literature ever written.
Now, I realize that this sounds more than a little depressing, but I found 21 Jump St quite enjoyable to watch. A work of dazzling brilliance, like Roy Minton's "Scum" it is not, but if you're in the market for a dose of well meaning but dreary late 80's nostalgia, then this is diverting as any. Furthermore Josh turns in an extensive, and exceedingly credible performance as a subtly sinister, possibly drug assisted, and thoroughly twisted young inmate. While, admittedly I have no direct experience of the penal system in any country, juvenile or otherwise, I've been in enough psychiatric hospitals to know who does and doesn't look convincingly unbalanced. It has to be said that Josh looked very convincing indeed.
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