Oh, for crying out loud. She would have had to recognize her from the subway train. A subway train that's full of people. And, mind you, Olivia made a point later in the show that you shouldn't talk to people on the subway., something that was very in-character had everybody working with her (aside from Abby, but we know her attitude) would have guessed. So, yeah, it is a bit of a stretch that a blind person would have recognized her under these circumstances. Blind people may have better hearing and a better sense of smell, but they're not dog-level. If they were, guide dogs wouldn't be a thing. And from a writer's standpoint, the joke would not have worked with Dan or his client saying that she recognized Olivia by her voice or by her smell, because Dan pretending that it was the horse that recognized Olivia was the punchline. And cutting the joke in favor of a more realistic correction would have messed with the mood of the bit that was completely about how weird people on the New York subway are, which was the set-up for the entire rest of the episode.
We're just having a conversation about a minor issue. Let's keep it casual, okay? But how would Dan have known that Olivia refused to talk on the subway? Yes, that's exactly my point. The joke as written is flawed, so they could've written a better one, a completely different one from the ground up.
Blind people are apparently all Daredevil-level sensory superheroes. Like all Asians are martial arts masters. Or something. Wait, does this mean deaf people have X-ray vision? That would be so cool. I'll ask my deaf friend. This reminds me of a conversation I had with him once. He was telling me that he uses the word "deaf," and someone once tried to correct him that the proper term was "hearing impared." He told me "I don't care what the proper term is, I'm fucking deaf." I cupped my ear and said "What?" and we laughed together. See, he's not looking to go out of his way to be offended, and he has a sense of humor about himself.
Yes, indeedy! That was he. Also, yeah, the show was so brilliant. I hate that you can't even get decent copies of the episodes anywhere.
Because he's gotten to know her? This is now episode 7, and we have seen them hang out in the cafeteria. And even if she never mentioned to him that she didn't talk on the subway, he certainly has gotten an impression of her general attitude, her specific attitude towards strangers, and considering Olivia shares a good deal of personality traits with Dan (especially his younger self from the original show) could have easily come to the conclusion by himself. And sorry if I appeared short-tempered in my previous post, but to be fair, you have been arguing over this for several days and more than one thread page now.
I wonder though, would a blind person really use "i see you" casually, and not deliberately? Wouldn't they more likely use words like: met, encountered, heard, smelled??? Lt. Commander Data, er Christopher, it's comedy. Do we really need to be in depth here? ANd he suddenly says it's a casual converation despite using a serious word as ableist (on the level of racist or sexist). And misogynist is laughable, as he often points out if a woman is beautiful in a show (but never if a guy is handsome). And WHAT conservative backlash??? I am with you on that. How is it ableist? The defendent suddenly brought up the issue that she and Olivia supposedly had a previous relationship (i don't mean romantic, but rewind that scene several times, as i did, in preparation for this message thread). If that actually happened, Olivia would have had to recuse herself, did she not? And Olivia gave no indication that she had seen the defendent before, despite the defendent somehow knowing the exact time Olivia takes the train. The defendent never said anything like she recognized her voice nor smell of her perfume, or anything. In fact, she didn't allege that she "saw" Olivia -- it was the horse. Which again, is absurd (and part of the joke). You are the one bringing up a serious charge of ableism (which is on the level of racism and sexism). You have been going on and on about how bad this comic scene is. And you are the one acting like the "allegedly blind woman" (according to Olivia)... switching your defense when your first argument is successfully disputed. So, no...we are going to rise to the level of severity you brought this conversation to. No @Kai "the spy" , you are in the right. It is Christopher who is the one who ought to be humble, and admit he was actually wrong, rather than act like the defendent in the episode..
<Groucho>You just said the Secret Word. Divide $100. How you divide it is up to you; it's your $100, after all.</Groucho> Seriously, backlash (and "conservative backlash" is an oxymoron: to be conservative is to seek to slow or stop change, not to revert it; the overwhelming majority of those currently styling themselves as "conservative" are in fact reactionary) is the most potent motivating factor known to Human nature. Backlash starts most wars. Backlash is what put Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump into the White House. It is backlash against post-Communist economic conditions that put Putin in control of Russia, and it is the lack of backlash against the loss of freedoms the Russian people had never known before that has allowed him to impose totalitarian rule in Russia. Backlash is the natural Human emotional response to the impending, ongoing, or fait accompli loss of a perceived boon. Every single word of that definition is significant. The loss can be looming on the horizon, or it can be something that happened a century ago. And if a very real boon is not perceived as such (e.g., freedom in Russia), then there is no backlash against its loss; whereas if a bane is perceived as a boon (e.g., smokers' "rights," or the pre-Great-Depression near-total-lack of financial regulation that led to the 1929 stock market crash), then backlash is going to happen. The Far Right has been harnessing over a century of pent-up backlash: racist backlash against Civil Rights progress; sexist backlash against feminist progress; plutocratic backlash against the former mercantile state having been supplanted by a welfare state; theocratic backlash against legislation and precedent that recognized that Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Wiccans, Agnostics and Atheists are every bit as entitled to religious freedom under the First Amendment as the nonconformist Christians who were the very first advocates of church-state separation. And at any rate (and to pull this back on-topic), Mr. Bennett is right in saying that the teaser of last week's Night Court episode could have been written in a way that was less ableist, and funnier, and better serving of character development.
So, I apologize if this has been mentioned already, I went back a few pages but the threads a bit of a mess. I wanted to point out we did get confirmation that Harry was not an absentee father, and was an active part of Abbey's life as a child, so the revival is fully just ignoring Rauch's real age and pretending it's normal to have two judgeships before you're 30. Which is fine, but I know other posters were saying maybe Abbey was born earlier and Harry didn't know/was an absentee father, so that's been cleared up now.
Is the revival (or the old series, for that matter) pretty solid in dates? It was vague, at least to me, how long Harry and Dan were there after the show ended. Like if we pretended things started in the early 80s and the current takes place mid 20s, we should be good, right?
Yes. I worked with several blind folks and using "see" is such a common part of modern English, they use it all the time.
--Stefan Kopeckne (Kenneth Tigar), Barney Miller, "Werewolf" (season 3, episode 6). -- Igor (Marty Feldman), Young Frankenstein This is the best one yet. Typical parade of nutjobs, and then we find out how Abby's parentsreally met (and it's all Harry).