Kathryn Morris UK

I can’t believe it has taken me this long to get around to this one.  Before we go any further:  spoilers abound, you have been warned.

American TV show Silk Stalkings had a bumpy ride over its 8 year run.  After initially being broadcast in a prime slot on CBS it got moved to the USA network.  The original male lead (Rob Estes as Sgt. Chris Lorenzo) wanted out before his 5 year contract was done but stuck it out.  His character was killed off during season 5 and his female co-star (Mitzi Kapture as Sgt. Rita Lee Lance) didn’t want to extend her contract beyond the end of that year.

Season 6 saw wholesale changes to cast and crew with two new leads.  I’m sure many fans were not happy about this but the show continued for three more seasons so it must have kept a fair few of them.

Silk Stalkings is a cop show, a procedural like so many others, including Cold Case.  It is set in Palm Beach and has a definite Miami Vice look to it.  Det. Sgt. Cassandra ‘Cassy’ St. John (Janet Gunn) and Det. Tom Ryan (Chris Potter) are the new cops on the beat.  The twist in their relationship is that they used to be partners in anti-crime, were married and then divorced.  Now they are partners again.

Kathryn guest starred in this, the second episode of the 6th season, which aired in September 1996.  It is called Compulsion, a title that, like the best ones, covers various aspects of the story in the way that Cold Case often did.  The crime of the week was a possible murder-suicide of a gay couple, Stewart and Lance, that ran a beachwear company.

We first see Kathryn when the cops go to interview Ricky Rivers, the third partner in the company.    She’s talking to someone (Kathryn) that appears to be her second in command about arrangements for the launch event of a new product line.  But first Ricky.  During her chat with the police officers she describes Judith Millay as being in charge control of quality control, and we’ll soon find out why she’s perfect for the job.

Kathryn is Judith Millay.  Judith is an obsessive compulsive, she is rearranging already perfectly straight chairs when Det. Tom goes to question her.  He thinks he recognises her from some parties around Palm Beach.  Clearly a sensitive soul, Judith is upset about Stewart and Lance and is concerned about the fact that their dog, Bernard, is missing.  She is very sweet.  Judith explains that the business partners did fight but always made up soon afterwards, she also has an alibi for the murder.

Next up Tom and Cassy talk to Chance Reynolds, Ricky’s ex.  Chance was also close to the designer pair but his divorce from Ricky strained relations all around and he claims he hadn’t seen them in a while but they were happy.  Ricky’s finger prints were found on bullets in the murder weapon so it is back to Ricky.

Cassy and Tom argue over the fact that Tom has obviously developed feelings for Judith (and why not ) and won’t treat her as a suspect.  Tom arranges to have breakfast with Judith to get more background information.  Yeah right!  There is plenty more evidence of Judith’s OCD tendencies on display here, such as her watch alarm going off every 15 minutes.  She’s not the full “Monk” but Judith has issues with combining food types like apple and cheese, and spooning small amounts of water from a glass to make it exactly half full.  Throughout the discussion there is definite flirting going on between her and Det. Tom.  There are lots of heart-melting smiles, the sort that only Kathryn can do.  It’s a fun little scene between the two of them.

The upshot of the “interview” is that Chance is not trustworthy and he was given a large chunk of the company in his divorce settlement with Ricky.  Also, Stewart and Lance had a big fight with Ricky.  Back to Chance.  He fesses-up to lying, he saw Stewart and Lance recently and had given his share to them, making Ricky a minority holding.  He throws in a curve ball by claiming he is gay and was lovers with both Stewart and Lance.

All this sleuthing must be making Tom a hungry boy and he likes eating out with Judith (who can blame him 😉 ).  This time it is more of a date and things get off to a rocky start as Judith is unhappy with Tom’s timekeeping (he was 5 minutes late) but soon brightens up and gives him a gift.  Judith wants to bring out the anal retentive in Tom too with an electronic organiser.  Tom’s after more personal information this time but once passed the basics Judith deflects and changes the subject away from her past.  We get some more of those amazing smiles before that though.  Another fun scene for our favourite lady.

Cassy has run a background check on Judith and finds some interesting facts.  Before he gets to confront Judith with that he and Cassy have to prove that Ricky’s gun was not exactly secure.

He’s found Bernard!  Tom meets Judith again and has the pooch with him.  Man, that’s a short skirt!  On Judith, not Tom or the dog   In a particular clever (not) bit of chatting Tom gets around to asking Judith about her rap sheet.  Judith was arrested for drug dealing.  Taking drugs might have started off as a bit of fun but with her addictive personality she got in too deep.  Stewart and Lance helped save her, hence her loyalty to them and fear now they are gone.  Her lack of trust in herself and knowing that Tom is unlikely to fully trust her because of her past behaviour, and her lies to him puts an ends to their relationship.  Kathryn puts in a fine performance in this scene going from happy to upset and a little angry.  Awww, looks like someone needs a hug.  And that is Kathryn done.

Just to round things up:  Stewart and Lance were convinced by Ricky leave their share of the company to her.  Chance found this out by bugging Ricky’s office and killed them before they changed their wills.  A car chase finishes the show with Chance quickly cornered.  There was no little post-case round-up or amusing bit.  Not sure if that was standard for Silk Stalkings.

The End.

I had not seen any episodes of Silk Stalkings before.  I don’t know if it was ever shown in the UK.    The show is nearer the lighter end of the spectrum.  It is not exactly a CSI or Cold Case in terms of taking it seriously.  The banter between the the two leads, much of it based on their past relationship, added a reasonable amount of humour to proceedings.  Based on the evidence this episode it seemed like an entertaining hour.  Apparently the show had a distinct “T&A” element to it but I gather that it was toned down in the last three seasons (6 to 8).  We certainly don’t see much evidence of it in this episode, mores the pity    But more importantly, and why where here, it was great to be able to see Kathryn in one of her earlier roles.  She does a great job portraying a complex character and she looks fantastic in her neck-length blonde locks and various outfits.

Back in December 2010 YouTube user Wendy made this episode of Silk Stalkings available to us all in 4 separate parts.  Later she was able to swap those for another that had the whole thing in it.  You can see my post about it at the time here.

Wendy was kind enough to give me access to her source file used for the upload to YouTube.  This means it is slightly higher quality, suffering less from compression artefacts etc. though the quality is still not great.

I’ve created 216 screencaps which can now be found in the Gallery.

Thanks to Wendy for her assistance.