It was my strong feeling that Cagney & Lacey was more than simply a numbers game…a bunch of boxes on a shelf that should be addressed from 1 to 125 without regard to what was actually in those boxes.

To the world at large, Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly are Cagney and Lacey and, since it had been decided before hand that industry practice for the initial release of a vintage television series would be followed (with only a sampler and not the entire series being initially released) I believed we had to go with what people expected: What people knew was the series they loved and supported so strongly.

It was these 22 episodes that brought about the famous write-in campaign that for the first and last time in television history forced a Network to publicly apologize to its viewers for canceling a series and to admit it had “made a mistake.” It was these self-same 22 episodes that set the template for the episodes that would follow and would make “Cagney & Lacey” one of the most honored shows of the 20th century.

So that is how and why we selected this first full season’s work for our DVD debut, yet still there is that question of numbers one through seven. Oscar Hammerstein was right when he wrote that “…nothing comes from nothing…” and, in that regard, I must acknowledge the great debt owed to the predecessors of Sharon Gless in the role of Christine Cagney. The six episodes, starring Meg Foster in that role, as well as the original television movie with Loretta Swit as the ambitious partner to Mary Beth Lacey, are worthy of their own DVD collection. Hopefully, with the success of these initial 22 episodes, the day will soon come when our fans will be able to acquire them as well as the remainder of our award winning series.

Barney Rosenzweig
February 21, 2007

Close Article