Nancy Drew--Revisited

Earlier this year, when I wrote about the Nancy Drew movie starring Emma Roberts, I mentioned that I added two TV shows about Nancy to our Netflix instant queue. We watched a few episodes the other night--both shows were disappointing.

First up--we watched two episodes of the 1995 TV show starring Tracy Ryan. Nothing worked for me. Nancy didn't look right with her bright red lipstick; she didn't seem very bright or savvy. Nancy was also a smart ass to a professor telling him about problems she had with one of his papers. This was when she was asking for a spot in his class after missing the registration period. Bess and George were simply goofy.

Worst of all, the mysteries weren't any good. In the first episode, it was more misunderstanding than mystery. The second featured a villain who practically had "bad guy" stamped on his forehead. Although the episodes suffered from being only a half hour long, they were so bad a longer running time wouldn't have saved them.

Next we watched the The Mystery of the Diamond Triangle. This was the first Nancy Drew episode of The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries from 1977. It was better than the 1995 series, but not particularly good.

The episode begins with a no-nonsense Nancy attempting to get some kind of gliding (sailplane) certification. But her passenger George was scared and complaining. This is not the George from the books and took me out of the scene. Ned looked and acted more like a stereotypical nerd than the smart college football player from the books. When he and Nancy go gliding, he refuses to wear his glasses and almost crashes into trees before Nancy takes the controls.

The mystery is unbelievably complicated. But Nancy, George and Ned make some silly moves. Nancy takes George sleuthing in a secluded area off a closed road in late afternoon. Doesn't everyone wear a white jacket and wave a flashlight around while sneaking up on criminals in the woods? Nancy and George make enough noise to alert the crooks and are captured. Their later attempts to escape with Ned are comical. It was fun to see Len Lesser (Uncle Leo from Seinfeld) as one of the bad guys. But overall, this weak episode didn't inspire me to watch more.