I'm sure there were stories about treasure-hunting archaeologists before Indiana Jones, but after Raiders of the Lost Ark came out the genre really exploded. In the 80s especially, tons and tons of knockoffs about guys wth whips braving booby trapped temples flooded movies and television, and though that flood eventually crested and settled down to a creek flow, we're STILL getting these today.

What we're discussing is directly from the post-Raiders gold rush...a pilot ordered by CBS in 1986 that attempted to get as close to Spielberg and Lucas's collaborative pulp serial tribute as possible. Many of the scenes in it are direct knockoffs. It hides no shame about what it tries to be and what its inspiration is. There's just one difference....but it's a big one.

Harrison Ford has been replaced with Shelley Duvall.

Time has a way of changing public perception. If Lily had been discovered twenty years ago, the reaction would have been most likely one of dismissal and snark: "SHELLEY DUVALL? Yeah, THAT'S an action star for you...what were they THINKING?" But Lily got out instead in January of this year, and the public take from those who saw it was "We could have had a Shelley Duvall adventure series? KICK-ASS! We were robbed."

Two reasons for this. One, you don't know what you have until it's gone. There's no more Shelley Duvall, and ir's created an appreciation for the finite number of roles she had. Second, we've seen the grizzled, tough, fist-flying archaeologist so many times that putting someone like Duvall in the lead actually makes it feel fresh again. Lily may not have been a hit in 1986, but it could've taken off today.

Like so many of these tales do, Lily starts off immediately in the midst of action, as the title character struggles with a rival hunter in a cave over a priceless vase. His idea of resolving the situation is to try to stab her with a knife and run off with it. Lily operates a bit differently. Inatead of punching her way out of bad situations, she tries to talk her way out of them. "I saw the vase first, Ollie, that's just how it works! How about the next time we're in a cave and there's a vase, YOU can have it? Is that a deal?" It's not a deal. Lily's next thought is to insult Ollie's Izod shirt ("I bet that's not even a real alligator!") and NO ONE insults his 1980s preppie fashions, so he charges in rage and doesn't see the pit of water in front of him.

"Shoulda taken the deal, Ollie," Lily chirps before leaving. "NOW it's OFF."

Lily escapes the cave and checks the next few scenes off the list: she puts on a pith helmet! She gets on a horse and rides majestically across a barren prairie as brass horns and trumpets play! She reaches her rendezvous point with a small plane, only to find out -- you'll never guess -- that she's been double crossed! The man inside aims an Uzi at her and flatly says "VASE. NOW."

The copter has already taken off, but of course that doesn't stop Lily. "HERE!" she yells, throwing the artifact at his face before performing a death-defying leap out of the copter into the ocean below. To finish the job, the man fires a round of bullets into the water.

But he misses Lily, and not only that he fell for the old swicheroo, She had TWO vases on her, in the event that someone in the helicopter would hold her up! Lily comes prepared for everything. The one he was given is a fake, and she is now holding the real article triumphantly on the beach. "YEEEE-HAH!" Lily yells. Cue opening credits!

Lily Miniver's day job is associate curator at the Jeffersonian Museum in Washington DC...a job that often sends her around the world tracking down lost treasures for the museum. The first thing she does when she clocks in for work the next morning is gleefuly glare at her newly procured vase, now behind glass. Only she knows how much trouble it was to get it and she can't help but feel a bit proud. Her co-worker and friend Claudia cuts her gawking short, pointing out she's late for a gathering of the Board of Trustees.

Her being late is a problem because she's the one who's supposed to give the introductory speech. Darting through the crowd, Lily leaps behind the podium, straightens herself up and says, "Good afternoon and welcome to the Gold Of The Aztecs, part of a collection on loan from the Museum of England! Y'all are the first to see this exhibit before it opens up to the public next week. Now let me turn it over to our director, Mr. John Farnsworth."

Farnsworth says something about the "delicate negotiations" that brought the new vase to the museum, something Lily bristles a bit at, but it's not like they'd all approve of her methods. Also, half the actors on this show pronounce vase "vayse" and the other half pronounce it "vahse" -- this is still unsettled to this day. Duvall appears to be in the "vayse" crowd.

Some guy named Wesley is elsewhere in the crowd, telling one of the trustees that Mr. Farnsworth plans on retiring soon and handing his position to "soneone younger, ahem." Lily comes up from behind him and says she's never heard anything like that. "Farnsworth acts younger than we do at times; I bet we all retire before he does." This scene's purpose is to establish Wesley as the museum's schemer and Lily's at-home rival, something that would've been expanded on had this gone to series.

The next day, while admiring one of the Aztec pieces, Lily notices something that furrows her brow.

She walks into Mr. Farnsworth's office and tells him, "That pendant has a vein of copper running through it."
"So?"
"So they didn't HAVE copper in that period. The piece is a fake."

If one of the pieces isn't authentic, that calls the others into question too. And with just days until the exhibit opens to the public, this problem has to be solved as rapidly as possible. Looks like another job for Lily!

Since the Museum of England said they inspected the pieces prior to sending them over, Lily reasons the switch must have been made during the shipping process. She heads over the sea to check out that museum and investigate further.

At the museum in England, Lily whips out a magnifying glass and takes a close look at the artifacts that stayed home. They seem to have the same copper problem...curiouser and curiouser. And what's curiousest is that someone seems to be watching Lily with a worried look on his face. Figuring him to be her next lead, she discreetly follows him out of the miseum and down to his flat.

He doesn't stay there very long, which gives her an opportunity. Lily picks his lock and, like all good TV detectives, engages in a little breaking and entering. She doesn't find much -- a poetry book, a stack of letters in the trash, nothing incriminating. Unfortunately for her the guy only left to pick up the day's paper. He's come back through the front door already!

Hearing the rattling of dishes, he grabs a cricket bat and slowly sneaks down his hallway toward the kitchen. But he doesn't surprise the unflappable Lily, who appears to have set the table for him.
"Care for some tea?" she coolly says.

"Who are you?" the man demands.
"Why didn't you ask me at the museum?" Lily answers. She's got you there!

Then, like an officer, Lily asks "Can I see some identification?"
"Look, this is MY APARTMENT--"
"Hey, if I went through the trouble of making tea for you the least you can do is show me ID."

His wallet says he is David Rose, a security expert at the British museum. "Looks like we're in the same business, David. Lily Miniver, associate curator at the Jeffersonian Museum. You know, you wouldn't be hanging around that gallery and following me unless something funny was going on."
"What concern could it be to YOU?"

"David, you mind if I say something?"
"I haven't been able to stop you YET."

Lily sits down and stares up at him. "David, I know you've been going through some rough times lately. Three weeks ago you broke up with your girlfriend, her name is Annie and the two of you used to read Keats together. Since she's been gone you threw out all her love letters and you haven't cleaned this place once." Darn, she's good. Sherlock Shelley!

David is completely floored by Lily's detective skills and has to sit down himself. "Three weeks to the DAY. How could you have guessed that?"
"That's when your milk expired," Lily tells him.

She then presses David on how long he's known the exhibit has fakes, and he first feigns ignorance, but realizes all attempts to fool Lily are futile. It's also been three weeks since that happened, but he swears he had nothing to do with it. He's just hoping no one else notices or he'll be fired. Lily offers that they work together.

Later that day Lily tries to find more answers at the British museum. She notices that one of their artifacts isn't in its case and there's a note that says it's been pulled for "restoration." Hmm, what kind? She sneaks into the museum basement to find out...and her luck turns sour when a museum worker heads right down there before she can snoop much. Lily tries hiding behind a giant stuffed lion but it doesn't cover all of her. He demands to know who she is and what she's doing.

"Hey you, this room is for museum members only!"
Lily slips on her best British accent and claims "Just passing through, I didn't know that!"
"If you didn't know that..." the man says, staring her down, "why did you hide from me when I came in the room?"

"Oh, I wasn't hiding, I was...resting! Yeh, these floors are murderous on me arches!"
"Not resting. Hiding. DEFINITELY hiding. WHY were you hiding in the Restoration room?"
"Restoration room? I thought it said Restroom! Excuse me--"

Egad, she's sinking fast! Can she still recover from this one? The man blocks her from leaving with his arm.
"My, you're strong, aren't ya? Ever play football?"

His mood changes: "....A bi when I was a kid, yeh."
"Fancy that! I'm with the Women's Football League of Chester. You've seen us on the telly, haven't you?"
"I don't recall..."
"SURE ya have! We girls can really KICK! We're playing our next match Saturday."
"Izzat so."
"Yup, it's gonna be fulla bum-kicking action! Well, I'll be seeing you."

Lily breathes a sigh of relief as she exits the place.

When David Rose first met Lily he wanted to hit her with a bat. Now he's coming on to her. He invites Lily to his flat for wine and music.
'You can't be too careful on this street, you know. Someone might jump off the wall onto an attractive woman."
Lily laughs at the suggestion.
David: "No, it's true, I've done it."

At his home, David tries to be smooth with Lily, but she doesn't seem all that interested. In fact she bolts from the couch insisting she has something in her eye, which is a classic "You get nothing tonight, sir" if I ever heard one. Thing is, though, she actually DOES seem to have something in her eye, and heads to his "loo" to extract it with a tissue. When she opens his medicine cabinet, she doesn't find tissues, but...a live rattlesnake.

Wait, what? Okay, you've seen that "Chief Wiggum PI" parody of 80s cop shows on The Simpsons, right? Remember the scene where someone plants a "warning alligator" in his room? That wasn't even exaggerated. Plenty of shows like that would stick dangerous animals into scripts as act break peril, usually implausibly planted by whatever bad guy they were getting close to. Someone wants David to stay out of the fake artifacts game and they also happened to have a rattlesnake. Just go with it.

Also, just go with this: after ten seconds of making scared faces, Lily grabs a can of spray deoderant and covers the snake in it, which makes it fall asleep. I'm unsure of the medical science behind this. Don't try it at home.

The next day, Lily has figured out the process for smuggling the real Aztec pieces out of the museum and leaviing behind fakes: the real ones are sold at the gift shop to "plants" who are hired to come in and buy them. David catches one in the act and insists he has to frisk him for "security." Finding his airplane ticket, he gets the info both he and Lily are after: the man is headed to Acapulco. This must be where his boss is waiting.

That means Lily and David have to go to Acapulco too. And exactly how they locate this guy once they get there is not covered; it just cuts to a scene where he's driving through a jungle area and the pair are following him in the car after. They keep good pace up to the point they get a sudden flat....caused by an arrow. Uh-oh.

The thing about shows and movies from the Raiders Boom is that you're just waiting and wincing for the "angry savages" part to show up. And when Lily and David are surrounded by people from a lost Aztec tribe, bound and covered in face paint, and carried to a sacrificial firepit, you're like "Hooboy, here we go." Fortunately despite what it looks like the show is NOT about to go full Mola Ram on us.

The TRUE mastermind behind their kidnapping was Adam Ziaukus, a crooked crime boss and inernational smuggler. He discovered the tribe and, unfortunately for them, really admires Cortez and wants to follow in his footsteps. Wouldn't that mean he's gonna kill half of them and sell the others into slavery? No, this guy just wants to pretend to be their ally so he can rip them off. Lily points out rather loudly that the pieces they're wearing are also fakes. He's keeping the real ones for himself!

No one's pleased to hear that. The crowd turns on him, and he's led away.

The following day, Lily is back at the Jeffersonian, playing cards with Mr. Farnsworth. He nforms her that thanks to her efforts, the true Aztec pieces have all been returned to the museum. Lily gets a sad look on her face and...you almost never saw a tomb raiding series from the 80s take THIS position, but she tells him "I don't think that gold belongs in that museum at all. It belongs back in Mexico, with its rightful owners."

He points out she didn't feel the same way about that vase last week. She counters with "I obtained that vase legally; there was no claim to it. When Cortez conquered the Aztecs he stole all their treasures. Are we no better?"
"What do you expect me to do, call the head of the Museum of England and suggest they shut the entire exhibit down?"
"No, I'd like you to do it in person."

The pilot closes out with Lily in bed, reading a letter from David Rose. The man is still smitten with her, but understands she doesn't feel the same. He wishes her well. "But I do have one more question...." the letter ends with. "...What do I do when the snake wakes up?" Freeze-frame on Lily's grin.

Lily would have been a pretty charming show, and Lily a pretty charming character. I don't know if audiences in the mid-80s would have appreciated that, but I was entertained a lot more by her than by modern quirky network ladies like Elsbeth or Kaitlin Highpotential (or whatever her name is). Duvall never really got a role like this; she was usually typecast as the mousy, nervous woman her wide-eyed face suggested. She clearly wanted to be Lily; she is listed as co-creator of the series.

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