October 14, 2016

Around the dial

L
et's start off the week with a few episode recaps, shall we?

The Twilight Zone Vortex continues its October tribute to Halloween with a review of the sinister little episode "Night Call," starring Gladys Cooper, whom I like so much in the one-season NBC series The Rogues. Really, be sure to check out the Vortex every day this month, for more reviews of classic TZ creepers.

I just recently saw Victor Jory in an episode of Wanted: Dead or Alive in which he co-starred with Warren Oates and Michael Landon, opposite Steve McQueen. What a cast! The Secret Sanctum of Captain Video briefs us on another Jory appearance, this time in The Green Hornet episode "Frog is a Deadly Weapon."

If you're ready for some more Hitchcock, bare-bones e-zine has it, with a recap of the second-season episode "The Rose Garden," starring John Williams. Williams usually plays a police inspector; here, its a slight change-of-pace: a book publisher's representative, who winds up investigating a possible murder.

The Horn Section covers a 1967 episode of the Western Hondo with the intriguing title "Hondo and the Mad Dog." I really like the picture caption that opens Hal's piece: "Your lives are meaningless compared to Hondo!"

Cult TV Blog is back with a look at the mid-50s series Colonel March of Scotland Yard, which comes from the era "before television executives began smoking copious amounts of weed in the 1960s and came up with the weird shows I post about here." (Don't you love that!) Read and find out a bit about the series, and a bit more about star Boris Karloff.

Let's stay with the genre, but travel to British TV Detectives, and a look at the A-rated mystery series Shetland, based on the well-regarded novels by Ann Cleeves. If you like this type of British mystery, I think you'll like this one.

Is Night Gallery one of your first choices when thinking about Christmas episodes? Maybe, maybe not. It should be, considering Rod Serling's talent at writing them, and as Christmas TV History points out, this episode is no exception: "The Messiah on Mott Street," starring the legendary Edward G. Robinson.

Comfort TV has a fine recap of David Janssen's sadly overlooked detective series Harry O, which has at least been released on DVD. The two-season series was not a hit, but as David succinctly puts it, "it’s also proof that yesterday’s also-rans are more appealing than many of today’s most successful shows."

That should hold you over until tomorrow, don't you think? TV  

2 comments:

Thanks for writing! Drive safely!