Cagney & Lacey – The True Beginning

In this season, Sharon Gless took over for Meg Foster as Christine Cagney; the producers also replaced the theme song with the Bill Conti piece, which remains strongly identified with the series. Although the show was always first and foremost an action-based police procedural/undercover detective drama, in Season 2, it also began to focus on the trials and lives of two professional women as police detectives in a male-dominated workplace. Strongly capturing the zeitgeist of the rising feminist movement without becoming preachy or strident, episodes from this season include Cagney & Lacey fighting spousal abuse in "A Cry For Help;" date rape in "Date Rape;" and racism in "Let Them Eat Pretzels." Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless together are one of the most compelling detective duos of all time, male or female, and this Emmy Award-winning drama is landmark television at its finest.