Dir: Robert Mandel.
Star: Craig T. Nelson, Lynne Thigpen, Roger Aaron Brown, Nastassja Kinski.

This was an almost lost item, which I seemed incapable of tracking down either official or through “the usual sources.” I eventually stumbled across a complete set of The District episodes while I was playing around with the Kodi app on my phone – but by the time I got round to watching it, the particular Kodi repository had been shut down. I re-installed another repo, and was just getting ready to look for it again. So, I googled the title to remind me of the season and episode number… and discovered it had been uploaded to DailyMotion in the meantime. I’m glad to cross it off the list, though it would be a stretch to call this worth the effort.

The District is an American crime drama and police procedural television series which aired on CBS from October 7, 2000, to May 1, 2004. The show followed the work and personal life of the chief of Washington, D.C.’s police department. I begin with this information – shamelessly cribbed from the Wikipedia page about the show – because I had never heard of it before seeing it on Nastassja’s filmography. I had certainly never seen an episode, which perhaps explains why I was largely bemused by watching this solitary entry. It was the eighth episode on the second season, originally airing on November 24, 2001.

Kinski’s role is an odd one, entirely unconnected to the main story, which is about a gang of designer purse snatchers, preying on Washington transit riders. But that seems to be the way the show works, and it’s not necessarily unique in this approach among American police television. The individual episodes will focus on a particular case, but the investigation will also interlaced with other plot arcs, which may run across the course of multiple shows. The 44-minute running time here, for example, also included a thread about a cop who receives a gift of a watch, which may break department rules about such things; and also a more light-hearted subplot concerning the proceeds of an office football pool.

She plays Trish, an old flame of the main character, Jack Mannion (Nelson) – he refers to her as an ex-fiancee, though it feels more like an Overly Attached One-Night Stand to me. She turns up in his office at the police department, having heard that his ex-wife, Sherry, with whom he still has an on and off relationship, has left him. Initially, Trish tries to convince Jack that she is entitled to a share in his restored tugboat, the Betty-O, on which he lives. He dismisses Trish’s claim as one of her “delusional episodes,” but she’s completely unfazed by his rejection, and shows up on the boat [I’d say, for a chief of police, his security protocols seem almost non-existent!]. She’s cooking him dinner, which leads to the following exchange:

“Is there rabbit in there?”
“Mmm, Fatal Attraction. I loved that movie”
“You are that movie…”

As the above suggests, Jack makes absolutely no bones about the fact that he considers Trish to be thoroughly unhinged. It’s a product of its era, I suspect: these days, it seems less likely a TV series would use apparent mental illness as comic relief. Part of me also finds it a bit rich, considering that on the basis of this episode, Mannion seems to have issues of his own. For example, he dresses up as Geppetto – fake mustache and all – in order to make a point to one of his officers. That doesn’t exactly seem normal behavior for a chief of police, though the character was apparently loosely based on Jack Maple who was a New York City deputy police commissioner, and helped create the series.

There are four scenes together in total; three on the boat and one in the office, which makes me think Nastassja probably didn’t have to leave Los Angeles for this job [despite its setting, the show is mostly filmed in LA, save for necessary exterior shots]. The third is probably the most poignant, as Jack tries to explain to Trish that, despite Sherry’s absence, she remains his soulmate, and not someone who can be replaced: “I’m always going to love her.” There’s a fleeting moment where it looks like he has broken through, finally making her understand, and the range of emotions flickering across Trish’s face is palpable. Then it’s gone, as the middle-aged manic pixie dreamgirl returns. [It’s another older man scenario, with Nelson approaching 17 years older than Kinski]

It includes the final scene in the episode, with Trish finally apparently getting the hint and leaving. Though even there, the couple bicker about whether or not Jack is going to take her to the airport. It does feel a little forced, and you wonder how the hell these two people got together to begin with, let alone what led Jack to propose marriage,. It does feel almost as though Trish was intended to be some kind of recurring character, This episode seems more like they are introducing her, rather than providing a fully-formed arc. However, there are some other famous names who also appeared only once, including Ernest Borgnine, John Savage and Danny Trejo, so it may just be the series’s approach to some of its guest stars.

I do have to say, while competent enough, there’s not much here which would compel me to watch any further episodes. Outside of Mannion’s eccentricities, there was little in this forty-five minutes to differentiate it from the host of other shows featuring police departments and their work. I’m quite surprised it lasted as long as four seasons, especially buried in the death slot which is Saturday evening. Nice of the makers to think of Kinski though, and it was probably one of her more high-profile TV appearances, albeit amounting to less than ten minutes, all told. And below, you can find all ten of them.