Thursday, June 23, 2011

THE O'HARA LINE: A THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY

When 'Psych' returns for a new season, William Shatner will be making a special guest appearance in an episode - playing the father of Detective Juliet O'Hara. Frank O'Hara is a con man, long estranged from his daughter (probably because of the career path she chose.) But he comes to Santa Barbara to mend their relationship. (I wonder if this means that his character is dying?)

This would mean that he's also the father of Ewan O'Hara as well, but I don't know if John Cena is returning to reprise that role. (If I was in charge, I'd let the upcoming episode be Shatner's showcase and then bring them both back for an O'Hara family reunion - if Pops O'Hara survives his debut, that is.)

As the Toobworld caretaker, I'll be curious to see if Shatner's character mentions his own Dad; because as it stands now, I have a theory of relateeveety that says Juliet's grandfather was the chief of police in Gotham City. And that Jules chose to follow in his footsteps rather than her own father's.

I'm tempted to add Tim O'Hara, the Los Angeles Sun reporter who co-habited with an extraterrestrial humanoid during the 1960's to the family tree, but I hesitate to say that he was also a son of Chief O'Hara. It would be easier to make the claim that he was the son of Chief O'Hara's brother, thus making him Frank O'Hara's cousin. (Tim had a cousin Harvey and a great-uncle named Shamus.)

The age difference between William Shatner and Stafford Repp was a lot closer than appeared, but Repp played Chief O'Hara as somewhat older than he really was at the time.

Since the fashion sense in Gotham City was very conservative and a bit out of date, it might be possible that Frank O'Hara visited his dear old Dad at Gotham City police headquarters wearing a suit like this.....

But then again, being a con man, he may have avoided Gotham City and its Dynamic Duo crime-fighters at the cost of his relationship with his old man........

SHOWS CITED:
'Psych'
'Batman'
'My Favorite Martian'
'Star Trek'

BCnU!

1 comment:

PDXWiz said...

Great theory!

Okay, your idea that conman Frank avoided Gotham City and lost his relationship with his police officer father, works well when combined with his long estrangement from detective daughter Juliet.

As far as Tim goes, a reporter investigates just like cops do. Clearly in the family gene pool is a desire to seek out the truth.

There was a film made based on My Favorite Martian, which used a tv reporter named Tim O'Hara. He could not be Tim's son, but could be a nephew or more likely, cousin of the original (therefore, a younger brother of Harvey). Ray Walston appeared as a Martian who had been stuck on the planet since 1964, a clear homage to the original.

There was an episode of MFM introduction Uncle Martin's real nephew, and Tim, Martin, and the nephew and landlady and detective all appeared (with different actors) on the 70s cartoon version of the show.

Since nephew Andromeda was able to come and go (one live appearance, then a later return), I suspect Uncle Martin was really on a fact-finding mission. He was still on the mission for the movie, although he had changed his name. The replacement Martin is there to replace the original Martin, and will team up with the younger Tim (the older Tim being deceased by now...) to further study humans.

Gordon