To give you some idea of how utterly bizarre the original run of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles was on the ABC network, consider this movie-length episode – set in 1920 – that I’m about to talk about ran in between the Petrograd, July 1917 episode (later mashed into the Adventures in the Secret Service movie), and the Vienna, November 1908 episode (later mashed into The Perils of Cupid movie).
So one week you’d be watching Indy in 1917, working in the secret service, turning 18, and getting involved with Russian revolutionaries in an episode running under an hour. The next week you’re watching this movie-length piece where Indy is turning 21 and is home in America, working in showbusiness. The week after that, Indy’s a little kid again, and it’s another sub-one-hour episode, where he’s trying to win the affections of Princess Sophie of Hohenberg in pre-WW1 Austria.
I sometimes wonder if the hodge-podge nature of how The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles was broadcast in America – I presume to give a sense of variety – contributed to its mixed viewer reception. This is a series that debuted to over 26 million Americans (compare that figure to what’s considered a ‘hit’ TV series today), but by halfway through its second season, was pulling in the four and five million range.
Joining the strange timeline of episodes, however, is the feeling I’ve had from time to time, but never stronger than when watching The Scandal of 1920 (which apparently went out in some overseas territories as the single episodes New York, June 1920 and New York, July 1920), of wondering just who this content is being made for? On one hand I understand it’s to shoehorn in some historical names and teach viewers some history – Indy’s working for the theatrical producer, George White; he buddies up with the composer George Gershwin; he hangs with the Algonquin Round Table (and throws in a bitchy remark of his own during one visit that impresses them); and even Sidney Bechet pops up again from Young Indiana Jones and the Mystery of the Blues in what’s probably the least-needed cameo of all time.
Throw in a storyline that revolves around Indy dating three women and trying to keep them all ‘sweet’ while running around New York like a madman and working his day job as assistant floor manager on a musical, and you sometimes stop and think, “Is this what people want from their Indiana Jones?”
The plummeting ratings and the show being cancelled answers that question, but I still ask it in a general sense. I get the feeling the the production probably thought it was being very interesting by doing such diverse material, and really stretching its creative wings with musical numbers and choreography. But again, is that what people are expecting? I don’t think it is. Outside of the war and espionage storylines in the series, the more successful peacetime stories always gave Indy some sort of an adventure. His Spring Break Adventure sleuthing with Nancy Drew surrogate, Nancy Stratemeyer, was a delight, and I could have done with more of that. Even investigating the death of “Big Jim” Colosimo in the previous movie, Young Indiana Jones and the Mystery of the Blues, was in the right direction.
Which is not to say that The Scandal of 1920 is bad. In terms of what it’s trying to do – it works. The three love interests for Indy are diverse and feel like real characters. And I was actually saddened to see a young Anne Heche playing one of them – the newspaper critic Kate Rivers – and thinking of how young and talented she is here, and how her life would end so chaotically just under three decades later.
The musical pieces are also quite good. Not just in the stage show that closes the episode, but throughout the rehearsals for the show and even a far-fetched Tin Pan Alley segment where Gershwin introduces Indy to the cream of New York’s songwriters, who all start bursting into song, based on Indy’s comments about his love life. This segment becomes a musical of its own and again, in terms of a realistic scene, it’s as far-fetched as it gets. But as a musical within an episode about a musical that really wants to be a musical, it works. But again, “Is this what people want from their Indiana Jones?”
As such, I want to make it clear that the rating I give this episode here is designed to reflect what it’s trying to do, and how it goes about it, rather than whether it’s a great slice of Young Indy that will interest a wide group of people. And that rating is an 8/10. I genuinely feel comfortable give it that score, but only with the warning that I think many Indiana Jones fans – and especially young kids with a low boredom threshold – would be utterly put off by this. A very diverse episode, in a diverse series.