Cagney and Lacey is American detective television series aired on CBS television network for seven seasons. The television series have been accorded as first serious drama depicting police procedurals and comprising Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly as New York City police detectives.
Sharon Gless plays the role of Christine Cagney, and is shown as celibate with focused career goals which she wants to achieve in her life. Tyne Daly is depicted in the role of Mary Beth Lacey, who is a happily married woman and is enjoying motherhood along with her work. She loves her family and is seriously committed towards it.
Some of the common society taboos that a story line depicts include, birth of Lacey’s third child, AIDS becoming prominent concern in the school system and homophobia. Likewise, Cagney suffers the pangs of date rape and ultimately she recluses into alcoholism.
Both Cagney and Lacey are thorough professionals when it comes to solving the cases of gruesome nature and it is this very professionalism that calls for their respect and demand in the department, and also respect among her colleagues. You cannot simply miss an account where Cagney or Lacey play fast and loose to track down the criminals.
Both are equally committed, though Cagney shows her commitment towards the work in a more serious way. Lacey on the other hand gets entangled in the family life, and quite often, it becomes difficult for her to carry out and balance her personal life with the professional one.
Cagney had an alcoholic father, and she gets disturbed on reclining back to the bygone days of her father’s attitude and demeanour. There’s absolutely nothing that actually sets forth confidence in Cagney, when she recluses back to her previous life.
All that is known about her father is alcoholism, and in the later series, Cagney also comes under the effect of alcohol. She starts loving alcohol like anything, and ultimately gets overpowered by it.
Lacey is busy in her motherhood, and family. She loves the family life more than professional life. However, this doesn’t mean that she has got out of the professional life, or that she has given a break to her professional career. No way!
Lacey is a die hard detective who knows well how to tract the criminals down. You will never find Lacey out of focus when it comes to offering the professional duty. Lacey as we know is the lady with maturity and sense of responsibility.
She can handle her assignments in a better way than her colleagues, and together with Cagney, solves homicide cases as well as cases of adultery and corruption.
What’s more, first-season main-titles are coupled with theme song titled “Ain’t That the Way”, which is sung by Marie Cain, and subsequently find Cagney and Lacey upholding the position of plainclothes detectives, and later seen as prostitutes, ready to track down the hooligans.
Cagney and Lacey have high sense of intellectuality in them, and both are great assets for New York police department.
