Double your pleasure! Double your fun! Well, actually, it’s more like double the trouble when Woody rolls into town. CMT just aired “Too Many Roscos”, bound to be a favorite with Rosco fans since it features twice as much of him.
An old standby of TV writers, the doppleganger episode (also see Baa Baa White Sheep, Double Dukes) ranks right up there with those other writer favorites, amnesia (My Son Bo Hogg) and getting trapped in a bank vault (Dukescam Scam – you may also substitute an elevator, meat locker, etc.) prevalent in 1980’s television.
At any rate, this episode gives James Best a chance to step out of the Rosco role for a minute and play it a little more serious. It’s obvious he relishes every minute of it. Rosco was a naive character and therefore mostly harmless. Woody, however, is Rosco all grown up and from the wrong side of the tracks. And unlike the Star Trek episode “Mirror, Mirror”, we don’t even get the benefit of a goatee to tell them apart. In the end, Rosco’s childlike demeanor and naivete is what convinces Boss he’s the real deal.Â
This episode also reinforces what we already knew. Even though there’s no love lost between the Dukes and Boss and Rosco, neither side wants to see the other harmed in any way. In the end, it shows us that **Uncle Jesse News Flash** “Rosco was a human bein’!” and Hazzard wouldn’t be the same without him.
-Meadowmufn