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I always thought that Amy Allen was a character with such great potential, and that the woman who played her -- Melinda Culea -- was one of the most underrated TV beauties of the 80's. This was especially true when she wore her hair long and wavy, as opposed to the more boyish cut that she displayed in later episodes. |
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I'll have to see if I can dig up some more pics of Melinda sometime. Suffice to say that at times, she could look positively glamorous. |
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Anyway, her character was dropped abruptly, in the middle of the second season. Before that, the writers were clearly faltering, trying to find ways to fit her into the action. The problem was that they hadn't threshed her character history out beforehand. They could have given her some combat skills, or some field medicine training, or other ways to contribute apart from her journalistic skills and the occasional scam. If she had some previous experience with firearms, that would have been helpful, and hardly implausible. (Heck, remember the episode where she learned archery from a native American romantic interest? They could have used that!) |
| The show faltered after she left. I won't claim that it started to decline specifically due to her absence, as that would be overly simplistic. Indeed, I'm sure that this decline is symptomatic of the poor planning which the writers and producers put into the show's future. However, I do think that the absence of an outsider's role within the team did damage the concept somewhat. |
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