"The Lieutenant" Cool of the Evening (TV Episode 1963) Poster

(TV Series)

(1963)

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7/10
Yet another Courtroom drama with the Lieutenant. And Teachers are not paid enough money.
FloridaFred23 February 2024
We have the very annoying Norman Fell, and the equally annoying and rather petulant school teacher Ms. Wayden. Why the school teacher is accusing Lt. Rice of accosting her is the theme of this episode.

Looking for action, but too much drama? Keep in mind, the producer of this show was Gene Roddenberry, who brought us "Star Trek". One of the complaints about Star Trek (yes, there were some) was that the show was not concentrated on Aliens, Outer Space Creatures, and Space ships. Star Trek was drama, human interest, questions of morals and ethics. And so here, on "The Lieutenant", we are looking for fighting and battles and combat and tanks and rocket launchers... but that is not what Gene Roddenberry and the writers focused on. It was the same moral stories, human conflicts, and personal drama that we would see a few years later on Star Trek.

So, if you are looking for the kind of action in the classic TV show "Combat", or the epic battles in Hollywood movies like "Sands of Iwo Jima" with John Wayne, then The Lieutenant will let you down. But if drama and human interest stories are your thing, this story is for you.

We do get a nice plot twist as the show approaches the end. Good job by the writers; the story was starting to drag a bit, this peps it back up.

One problem here, it was mentioned by a previous reviewer, is the tired old line that "Teachers do not get paid enough money". It was not true then, it is certainly not true today. Public school teachers are some of the highest paid (and many would argue overpaid) Government employees in the country.

* * * * * * * 7 Stars for "Cool of the Evening" * * * * * * *

Florida Fred.
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9/10
Well written and acted. It deals with several very important issues
headhunter4619 November 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Our hero, gets accused of attacking the young woman he intended to rescue from another man who was attacking her. It doesn't get graphic, he was being very rough and being rude to her.

She has a secret. She is a teacher who needs to preserve her image of an upright, lady like person. But she was working at a slightly rough around the edges nightclub that at that time might have been looked down upon by uppper level society. She needed the money to continue her education and pay off debts. She feared if it was revealed she worked there she would be dismissed from her job teaching elementary students. So when police arrived and saw Lt, Rice close to her they accused him of tearing the sleeve on her dress and she did nothing to change their mind. If she had given them the name of the real attacker it might have exposed her as working at that club.

So the episode addresses Lt. Rice trying to keep his name clear and her struggling with lying to protect self. There is a surprise ending which provides a somewhat happy ending. Life is not always fair or perfect and this episode shows us how life can be.
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4/10
Well made, but rings false.
westernone8 January 2014
Warning: Spoilers
CONTAINS SPOILERS. The story involves a woman's pride overriding her obligations to honesty. She's attacked outside a low-rent nightclub where she's moonlighting as a cigarette girl to augment her salary as a grade school teacher. The attacker is none other than the crummy club's even crummier comedian, a horny, overaggressive creep that tears her jacket sleeve. Lt. Rice pulls him off her, but as the police arrive, they see only him and the girl, so they take him off to be booked. To save herself from being exposed as being in such a grimy place, she lets Rice take the rap, but declines to press charges. However the incident is put in the paper, and despite pleadings from Rice and his C.O.,she now has to go through a trial, formally accusing him of the attack, which will of course destroy our hero's career. Fortunately, (and improbably) the creepy stand up man attends a preliminary hearing and exposes her lies, and Rice is vindicated. The bad thing about this episode is that it's full of irrelevant propaganda venting about how poorly teachers are treated and compensated, complete with the stock "even day laborers are paid better" trope. This is the kind of political wisdom Hollywood and others on the political left held about teachers then. If she needed extra money, why couldn't she get a side job doing something more socially acceptable? If she worked in say, a diner, then you'd have no story. So is she a wholesome, earnest ideal that we are supposed to see teachers as, or is she a cognizant adult that chooses to work in a sleazy dive because she wants to?
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5/10
Off Bounds
TheFearmakers21 November 2018
Seems as if there wasn't very much faith in a show taking place at Camp Pendleton as, the second episode in, we're outside the barracks, dealing with a theme about a teacher with a secret (which would be revisited years later on The White Shadow) who falsely accuses our man Lt. Rice, played by Gary Lockwood. Strange for a second episode, departing from the plot and theme so early in.
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2/10
Makes a Mockery of Sexual Assault
mark-1977515 March 2024
Warning: Spoilers
This is a very strange second episode for a show that is basically a military procedural. Lt. Rice is off base when he witnesses a woman being physically harassed by her co-worker at a late night bar. When the police show up they apparently haul in Rice and the woman for questioning. Even thought Rice was trying to help, the woman accuses him of being the "masher" who attacked her. She does this because her day job is as a teacher and accusing the co-worker would reveal she's moonlighting at an adult establishment. Why she needed to accuse anyone of anything is beyond me.

Eventually she goes as far as to press charges against Rice. They would have stuck too, if the actual masher hadn't come forward and revealed the woman's night job. He gets away uncharged, by the way. The only person who goes down is the teacher for lying.

There's so many layers here. There's talk about teachers not getting paid fairly and having to met unrealistic moral standards. There's the very real problem of workplace harassment. But it's all overshadowed by the teacher falsely accusing Rice and nearly ruining his career. And the actual villain somehow becomes the hero. The mental gymnastics needed to get us to this ending are olympic level.

It's especially a shame because sexual assault in the military is rampant. Perpetrators rarely ever see justice. The system is rigged to make it this way. Yet here we see a completely false accusation nearly bring down an innocent man. It's a warning without a real world precedent. It only serves to misinform the public and make victims stay silent.
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