A THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY - AN ADAMS FAMILY VOLUME

Usually I post my theories of “relateeveety” on Thursdays, but tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  So since there’s a bit of wikia activity in this post, here yuh go!

"I don't wanna marry Ag-a-ness, Barney. 
It ain't the marrying part; 
it's the Ag-a-ness part!"  
Inspector Frank Luger
‘Barney Miller’

And there’s a reason for that, at least one that makes sense to me.  But you might not like it….

FRANK LUGER

(with Barney Miller)

JONATHAN ADAMS
(with Donald Hollinger)

Franklin D. Luger had a maternal cousin named Jonathan Adams, their mothers being sisters.  And they were that Toobworld standard, identical cousins.  (It makes me wonder what their mothers looked like!)

James Gregory played both roles.

Let’s meet both men.

INSPECTOR FRANK LUGER
From Wikipedia:
A regular character throughout the series, usually seen in about a third to a half of any given season's episodes.  Deputy Inspector Frank Luger (James Gregory) is Miller's rambling, out-of-touch, and unapologetically old-school superior who frequently drops by the precinct to "chat with" Barney.

Luger figured in 66 episodes of ‘Barney Miller’.  For a full listing of them, consult the IMDb page for James Gregory.

JONATHAN ADAMS
As for the publisher of NewsView magazine, not much can be found about the character online.  He was only in four episodes of ‘That Girl’ during its final season, including the penultimate episode.  He thought he was very witty and could come up with funny one-liners, but his employees always saw them as veiled threats.  He as a member of the Adventurers' Club.  Despite his wealth and breeding, Adams is just as gruff as his cousin Frank.

That Girl - Stop the Presses, I Want to Get Off (1970) 
- Super Reporter (1970)   
- An Uncle Herbert for All Seasons (1970) 
- Soot Yourself (1971) 

Besides the money, he had one thing that Frank didn’t have – and that was a beautiful wife, Agnes Adams.

AGNES ADAMS

Agnes Adams was played by Phyllis Hill in the final episode for Jonathan Adams, the penultimate episode of the series entitled “Soot Yourself”.  Because of other conjectures in this theory “relateeveety”, I’m making the assertion that Jonathan and Agnes Adams had children, at the very least a son.

At some point between 1970 and 1975, Jonathan Adams died. 

Toobworld is a visual fictional universe for the most part and the visuals should always be exciting enough to keep the eyeballs glued to the screen.  If I’m going to incorporate real life events into Earth Prime-Time then I’d prefer that it has relevance in the TV world besides news reports. 

As a sad example, the collapse of the Twin Towers in 2001 has been incorporated into many TV shows, from dramas like ‘CSI: NY’ and ‘Without A Trace’ to sitcoms like ‘Becker’ (in the process adding to the death toll in Toobworld with TV characters.)

So I found a real world event in which Jonathan Adams could have been killed off in a way that would have been visually impressive for television.

From Wikipedia:
On September 8, 1974, a Boeing 707-331B (registered N8734) operating as TWA Flight 841 from Tel Aviv to New York City via Athens and Rome crashed into the Ionian Sea, killing all aboard. After stopping for 68 minutes in Athens, it departed for Rome. About 30 minutes after takeoff, the plane crashed into the Ionian Sea.

The out-of-control aircraft was observed by crew on the flight deck of Pan Am Flight 110. They watched the aircraft execute a steep climb, followed by the separation of an engine from the wing and a death spiral. All 79 passengers and nine crew members were killed. The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the plane had been destroyed by a bomb hidden in the cargo hold. The detonation of the bomb destroyed the systems responsible for operating the plane's control surfaces, causing the plane to pitch up until it stalled and dove into the ocean.  

And here is the reason why I chose this event, again from Wikipedia:
The UK TV series Utopia refers to the bombing of TWA Flight 841 and several other real-life incidents around the same time as deliberate and coordinated acts by a fictional organization known as The Network.

This falls into fanfic territory, but there could be a television reason why The Network chose that particular flight.  A diplomatic representative for the King of Suari was believed to have been aboard that flight, traveling surreptitiously on a mission for the King.  His assassination, which caused the deaths of all those other people on board TWA Flight 841 (including Jonathan Adams), was the spark that fomented the political struggles against King Ahmed Khamil that would not be foiled until the following year by a police lieutenant in Los Angeles.

Jonathan Adams had joined the flight in Rome where he had been attending meetings of the Club of Rome as a member of the society.  It was because of his dedication to the environment and the fight against pollution, inspired by an actress named Ann Marie, that Adams was offered the chance to join the society and contribute to their work, “Mankind At The Turning Point”.  In it, the report gave a more optimistic prognosis for the future of the environment.  Pleased with its optimism, Adams headed home on that ill-fated flight to share the news with his wife and to get his top reporter, Don Hollinger, to begin work on an entire issue of NewsView dedicated to the environment.

But it was not to be.

Although he was far from adroit when it came to empathy, Frank Luger did his best in offering solace to his cousin’s widow.  At first, Agnes shied away from him at the funeral and at the wake because he so resembled his identical cousin.  And then there was the curious way in which he pronounced her name – “Ag-uh-ness” – it was so like the way Jonathan used to say it.

(O'Bservation - Agnes never appeared in 'Barney Miller', but was mentioned often.  That helps with this conjectural connection.)

However, over the following year, Agnes requested Luger’s company and as time passed, they grew closer.  Frank Luger never realized that Agnes was seeking a way to replace Jonathan in her heart and Frank came the closest to gaining that completely.  But as their relationship developed, Luger did become ill at ease at the prospect of stepping into his cousin’s footsteps.  He often had a chat with one of the NYPD captains under his command, Barney Miller at the 12th Precinct about his relationship with Agnes (or “Ag-uh-ness” as he called her), but he never let on about the previous relationship which they had with each other.

Eventually Inspector Luger could not live any longer with the relationship as it stood and so he broke it off with her.  Agnes was fine with that, I think; she would have eventually come to the realization that it was not the life path she should be following.

As for Frank, he finally found happiness with Perlita Avilar, a “mail order bride” from the Philippines.

The story of this family did not end with Frank and Jonathan.  The family tree continued with the son of Jonathan and Agnes.  Hundreds of years later, Tristan Adams gained notoriety.

From Memory Alpha:
Dr. Tristan Adams was a male Human civilian in the 23rd century. He was a psychologist and director of the Tantalus Penal Colony in 2266.

Starting around 2246, Adams began work that revolutionized prisons and the treatment of prisoners. His theories transformed prisons from cages into clean, decent hospitals for sick minds. Captain James T. Kirk believed Adams' work had done more than the rest of Humanity had done in the previous forty centuries. This auspicious beginning made Adams' tenure at the Tantalus Penal Colony and subsequent death baffling to those who knew him.

In early 2266, Dr. Simon Van Gelder joined Dr. Adams as an associate. Six months later, Van Gelder was severely ill, barely able to remember his own name. When the USS Enterpris evisited the colony for routine resupply, Van Gelder managed to escape. Dr. Adams provided an explanation for Van Gelder's illness, but Dr. McCoy doubted Adams' account. Regulations required Kirk to investigate; he visited the colony, along with Dr. Helen Noel, to meet with Adams and learn what had happened to Van Gelder.

DR. TRISTAN ADAMS
(with Captain James Kirk)

Spock and McCoy eventually learned that Van Gelder had been injured by Adams himself, who was conducting unauthorized and unethical experiments on all the patients and staff, turning them – with the exception of Van Gelder – into mindless zombies. By the time they learned this, Adams had imprisoned Kirk and Noel, and was subjecting Kirk to the neural neutralizer, with the declared goal of learning more about this form of therapy.

Noel, acting on Kirk's instructions, managed to briefly shut off the power to the facility as part of an escape attempt. During a scuffle that followed, Adams was left stunned on the floor of the neural neutralizer treatment room, and Kirk escaped. When Spock restored power a few moments later, he also unwittingly restored power to the neural neutralizer. Adams was still in the room and was subjected to unsupervised exposure to the beam for an extended period. This exposure emptied his mind, killing him. (TOS: "Dagger of the Mind")

And that’s all you need to know about him, an ignoble end to that branch of the Adams Family. 

And in case you didn’t notice, the DNA strand shared by Frank Luger and Jonathon Adams replicated itself with Dr. Tristan Adams.

BCnU!