An archive of articles about US television programmes and production.
Classic TV
Lost Gems: Cover Up (1984-1985)
For years, women in TV action shows were, shall we say, ‘ornamental’. Not often given much by way of character and what they had often revolving around the hero of the show, they were there to be pretty and give the largely male audience something to look at – or to just be secretaries. The heroes? Some were rugged, admittedly, but others could be old and tired, obsese or even one-armed.
Come the 60s, women began to get something to do, thanks to the likes of Cathy Gale and Emma Peel in The Avengers and Honey West in the eponymously named Honey West. What didn’t happen for a long while was for men to become the eye candy for female viewers, the add-on to the heroine.
That took the 80s and with CBS’s Cover Up, women who had been holding out for a hero finally got what they wanted.
