Photograph: Werner Schmidt

Monday, February 25, 2013

Keen Eddie.. how do you like me so far?

In 2003, Fox Network here in America showed an action-comedy called Keen Eddie. Thirteen episodes were made but Fox only aired seven of them, while the TV-channel Bravo picked up the show and ran all the episodes in 2004. Watching the show in 2003, I really enjoyed it as there were plenty of funny American-British culture clashes. Yes, most of them were the stereotyped kind, but hey, it is comedy. I do not know if it was ever shown in England, I doubt it.

The plot in short, Keen Eddie is about the New York police detective Eddie Arlette, played by Mark Valley, who messes up a case in New York and is sent to London to wrap up the case. Eddie solves the case with the help of Inspector Monty Pippin (Julian Rhind-Tuut) and somehow manages to impress Superintendent Nathanial Johnson (Colin Salmon) of New Scotland Yard who offers him a job at Scotland Yard. Working in London, Eddie is renting a flat which is also occupied by Fiona Bickerton, played by Sienna Miller. Fiona does not want Eddie to stay in the flat, but he threatens to tell her mother, who owns the flat, that Fiona is not at the university studying, which they believe, instead she is working in a high-end perfume shop. Added to this mix is Eddie’s ill-behaved bull terrier Pete, which Inspector Pippin managed to get out from quarantine by claiming that Pete is a famous police dog.

Eddie is flirting with Superintendent Johnson’s assistant Carol Ross (Rachael Buckley), whom he calls ‘Ms. Moneypenny’. Her replies to his questions about how she is doing always have a sexual inclination, which only Eddie (in his fantasy, maybe) can hear, no one else. Catching a bad guy, Eddie has a catchphrase: ‘Hi, I’m Eddie... how do you like me so far?’

As the TV show first was cancelled, I bought the DVD set when it came out (unfortunately, it is not the original music from the TV series), and every evening for a week I have watched the show again, and I still find it entertaining. As Eddie is moving around in London, I have paid special attention to if any rowers can be seen in the background when Eddie is by the Thames, but no. However, in one of the episodes, when Fiona is talking on the phone with Eddie, in the background a TV set is showing rowing, I think from Henley Royal Regatta. This is in the episode called 'Keeping up Appearances' in which Eddie inherits an old Bentley with a chauffeur from an eccentric lady. The scene with the rowing on TV begins at 36:43 and runs to 37:18. Watch it here below (all Keen Eddie episodes are to be found on YouTube). Enjoy...



No comments:

Post a Comment