#remington steele

Who are you?  Where did you come from?  These questions were a constant in that first year.  If they didn’t pass her lips every day, she was, at bear minimum, thinking them.  Stewing, trying to use her investigators mind to determine the answers for herself.  She had a few leads, but his five passports in five different names from five different countries gave her endless threads to follow.

The people from his past who popped into their lives from time to time were of no help either.  They were just as mysterious, with multiple names themselves, protecting their secrets as well as his.  Daniel, Felicia, all of the others were of no help, only gave her more threads to follow.

When Murphy and Bernice left her she still wondered- Who was he?  Where did he come from?  But the questions were no longer her constant companions.  She was filled with worry instead.  Would they be able to make this work?  The two of them, when she didn’t even know his real name.  He was there though.  That was more than could be said for the others.  The questions only flared now.  Came upon her when she was scared.  Scared that he was getting too close to her, to being the Remington Steele she had imagined.  The perfect man and partner.

She had said things.  He had said things.  They both had said things that she wished they had never said.  Now they were both asking- Who are you?  Where did you come from?  Both searching for answers, separately.  He wouldn’t be back without answers for her.  She was beginning to think she didn’t need answers, she just needed him, Remington Steele.  Follow the leads, she told herself, and you’ll find him.  He may have found his own answers.

It seemed every time they thought they had found the answers to- Who are you?  Where did you come from?  They found that it was just more lies.  Ireland was all they seemed to know for sure.  His mother had died.  In childbirth, not long after, just a few years ago?  They couldn’t be sure.  A father was found, then lost in the same day.  He had the wrong color eyes.  She no longer cared, but he did now.  He wanted to be able to give her something other than the Remington Steele lie.

They were forced to marry.  Again they said things to each other, did things to each other.  She couldn’t believe that- Who are you?  Where did you come from?  Had come to this.  They may have found his father, under their noses the whole time, hidden by lies upon lies.  They would never know for sure.  He was dead and buried.  In Russia, completing his final con.  A castle and a title, a gift from a father who was not to be but claimed him in the stead of his own lost son.

Now he is Lord Remington Steele, The Earl of Claridge.  Not the answer she had expected when she had asked: Who are you? all those times, but neither had she expected to become Lady Laura Holt-Steele, Countess of Claridge.

fictionadventurer:

fictionadventurer:

I hate that everything is being rebooted, but the one and only show I’dwant to see rebooted is Remington Steele. Because it’s such a fun premise, but they wasted a lot of the potential because they focused so much on the romance angle.

(Actually,Iwant to reboot it, because Hollywood would make it More Sexy and a lot of the problems stem from Focusing on the Sexy.)

Possible changes:

• Keep the general premise of “female private eye invents a fictitious male boss so people will hire her”, but get rid of Murphy. It doesn’t make much sense that they’d have to invent a fictional male boss when they already had a male detective on the firm.
  
• Wecouldgender-flip Murphy, perhaps. Create a partner female detective who doesn’t believe that this elaborate charade is necessary and keeps trying to convince Laura to abandon it. It would be nice to see Laura have some female friends, and just have different female detective perspectives.
  
• If we musthave the love triangle (with Steele as someone pulling Laura away from a more conventional partner) you couldhave Murphy be a non-detective potential love interest. But it’s not necessary because the other side of the plot is much more interesting.
  
• Namely: Steele’s identity is assumed by a con man who has been in the criminal world for so long that he literally doesn’t remember his real name. How can you focus on the romance angle when you have thatas a plot?
  
• There would be a muchlonger period of doubt over whether or not to trust this guy. And he’d have a harder time adjusting to the detective role. Not just because his knowledge of detective work comes from movies (which is hilarious and we should absolutely keep it) but because his crime knowledge comes from criminals. There should be more temptation to use criminal methods. More people from his past who present dangers. And a lot more character exploration of what it means for him to suddenly have a “real” identity with a job and a house and a history.
  
• The main trouble with a reboot is that I have no idea how you’d recast Steele. Who among current actors can pull off the “extremely handsome and debonair and mysterious but also a huge idiot goofball” vibe that Steele requires? I suppose one could consider casting Brosnan again, but then everyone would expect a sequel series, and I want a full reboot so we can fully explore the missed potential of the premise.
  

Now I’m getting attached to this gender-flipped version of Murphy.

• She’s a younger, less experienced detective than Laura, but less caught up in ideas about the glamour of the profession. She tends more toward the methodical, detail-oriented side of detective work, which, to her frustration, led to other agencies treating her as a glorified secretary, so she jumped at the opportunity when Laura offered her a job at her firm.
  
• At first, she assumes that Remington Steele is just a company name. Branding stuff. Like, gosh, naming it after a gun and metal? Laura’s trying way too hard to make this firm sound tough and masculine, but whatever. Laura says it’ll bring in clients and Murphy has no reason to doubt her.
  
• Eventually, she realizes that Laura tells clients that Remington Steele is a personwho is their bossand Murphy kind of freaks out. This is fraud, Laura! That’s a crime! We are going to jail!
• Laura talks her down and tries to explain that this is just necessary marketing to draw in clients in a sexist business. Murphy is less than convinced, especially when she finds out that Laura is maintaining the ruse with elaborate measures like renting and stocking an apartment and a car and even suitsfor the guy. But this is also the best job she’s ever had, so she stays with the firm while continually trying to convince Laura that they’ve had enough success that they can establish the business in their own names.
  
• When a mysterious con man steps into the role of Remington Steele and into the life that Laura has built for him, Murphy thinks that at lastLaura will see how dangerous this ruse is and end this Remington Steele nonsense once and for all.
  
• What do you meanhe’s sticking around??????
• Did you not notice that he is a criminal? A jewel thief? A repeated liar who has taken on at leastthree different identities in the, like, 48 hours that we’ve known him? How can we possibly trust him with the running of our detective firm?
• Okay, yes, he was a big help. Yes, it was nice to have an actual Mr. Steele around for clients to talk to. He can stay if he must, but he will be on a veryshort leash and I will be using all my boring paperwork skills to figure out just whothis guy is.
  
• Turns out that this guy might be no one and that’s really scary. Just how good of a criminal ishe not to leave a trail to his real identity?
• (I just think it’s really funny to imagine her discreetly trying to, like, fingerprint him and stuff as he’s going around the office. And he continually dodges her efforts while appearing to be totally oblivious to her attempts, and she’s not sure if he’s a genius or an idiot and it drives her nuts.)
• Laura doesn’t trust this guy either, but she’s also alarmingly susceptible to his charm, and Murphy realizes that she’s going to have to be the one who keeps a clear head when it comes to this guy. She’s completely immune to him. Which kind of drives himnuts, and he does try to flirt with her, to boost his own ego (with the added bonus of making Laura jealous), with zero success. To Murphy, Steele is not a man, he is an archnemesis, and she refusesto look at him with anything less than total suspicion.
  
• When he realizes he’s never going to win her over, Steele doesn’t bother with the charm and just joins in the rivalry. They constantly snipe at each other, though over time, it does become a bit more of a frenemy thing.
• The main benefit of a female Murphy is that she can be in the role of the girl who is desperately trying to save Laura from making horrible relationship decisions, without any love triangle ulterior motives. Yes, Laura, he’s objectively hot. He is still a criminal.You must remain strong.
  
• What do you MEANyouKISSEDhim????
• In some ways, this is just combining Murphy and that secretary from the first season (whose name I forget) into one character, but also it’s fun to have the skeptical detective partner be a woman who has no love-triangle ulterior motives to break Laura and Steele apart. She is just there to be a rational voice in this insane situation, the person trying to minimize the damage from this train wreck. And making her a woman with detective skills also makes her a more interesting foil to Laura, while making it reallyfunny that she’s stuck in this situation.