PICKET FENCES is one of my all-time favorite TV series. Its content is mostly brilliant, and there are some episodes that are worth watching again and again (for example "The body politic"). In my opinion, PICKET FENCES is the most entertaining and intelligent or simply: the BEST TV series of the 1990's.
I want to say something about some of the series' main characters - in order to a) express my opinion on them and b) maybe awake your interest in PICKET FENCES.
Jimmy Brock has to get two tasks under only one hat (in the word's truest meaning): He's a family's father and the Sheriff of the fictional town of Rome, Wisconsin. Mostly, he masters these two tasks in a very human way. That is, because he is a very moral person, who is willing to do nearly everything in order to defend his ideals.
He always acts accordingly to his own principles, but is also able to accept all the critique he sometimes hears (for example when he shot the dancing thief in the back). But his strong belief in his own principles can also be regarded as Jimmy's most negative character trait: At times, he can be so stubborn, that even the members of his own family turn away from him - even if only for a short period of time.
It's this ambivalence, which makes him a highly interesting character. Of all the series' characters, I can identify the most with Jimmy. He is my favorite character.
His wife Jill is a very social person. This seems closely connected to her work as a doctor: It's an everyday experience for her to help people. She doesn't leave it at pills and syringes, but also helps people around her in other fields - even if these people don't want her to help them (as for example in the episode "Paging Dr. God").
Nevertheless, I have some problems with Jill: Firstly, as I said, she often intervenes in business, that is none of hers; she's not able to merely watch something - no, she always feels compelled to act. Secondly, she's very conservative. That became evident for example, when she was in court and confessed, that she believes in the virgin birth of Mary (as seen in "Rights of passage").
I have even more problems with the Brocks' oldest child, their daughter Kimberly: On the one hand she's quite self-confident and ambitious, while on the other hand she's terribly precocious. She doesn't intervene as often as her step-mother Jill does, but she has an opinion on everything - which at times can be even worse. She's not even 20 and should maybe step back a bit. She doesn't know as much about real life as she thinks she does.
I hate Douglas Wambaugh. That's not mainly caused by his profession as an attorney, but more by his attitude towards his profession and by his understanding of right and justice: Wambaugh doesn't really care, whether his client is guilty or not - he simply wants to win his trials. Of course: True justice can't ever be achieved that way.
Wambaugh always goes with the tide, and he would absolutely unscrupulously take any citizen of Rome to testify for his client the one day and destroy the same citizen in court the very next day, if this seems "necessary" (to Wambaugh's definition). As contradictory as it seems: One could describe Wambaugh as "consequently opportunistic". At least he's got a dry humor, which I sometimes like.
Judge Henry Bone is on his best days Rome's conscience. On his worst days he seems to follow that, which was once called "Lex Bone" (in the episode "Without mercy"): This term concerns his sometimes seemingly arbitrary decisions, which sometimes seemed to me to be made following only Bone's very own sense of justice. The most unpardonable example was the acquittal of the murderer nun in the episode "Sacred hearts".
Judge Bone's name already insinuates, that he's sometimes as hard as a bone. His favorite sentence is a legend among the fans of PICKET FENCES: "Get outta here!"
Rome's two most important deputies are Maxine Stewart and Kenny Lacos. Even though they have some problems as well on their own as with one another, they are quite good a team. Maybe that's caused by the fact, that the two of them could hardly be more different from one another than they are: Maxine is insecure and manipulative to a degree, that one has to wonder how she could ever become a police officer. Kenny is a tough guy, who sometimes exaggerates his job and who can't always control himself.
Maxine dreams of true love - which mostly remains unfulfilled. Kenny, although being a strong catholic, is a quite chauvinist character: To him, women should mainly be in kitchen or in bed. I can't really identify with neither Maxine nor Kenny, but their discussions are often very amusing.
Carter Pike is Rome's coroner. He's an absolute authority on his field, but that's about everything positive that can be said about him. That is, because the rest of his life mainly consists of loneliness and failed relationships and the knowledge, that most citizens of Rome regard him as a ridiculous person. Which in a way he is, but that doesn't make him unsympathetic - on the contrary!
I can only recommend everyone to visit Rome, Wisconsin, via TV. I don't think, you'll regret it.
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