May 5, 2017

Around the dial

This week David Hofstede takes a look at the TV books that inspired Comfort TV. It's a great list; I even have a couple of them on my own shelf. Hopefully my TV book, when it comes out, will be able to find a place on David's distinguished shelf. Now if I can only find one of his publishers...

Like Rick at Classic Film and TV CafĂ© , I've always liked James Garner's performance as Philip Marlowe in the 1969 movie of the same name. I also agree that Bogart's version of The Big Sleep, as much fun as it is, is not my favorite Marlowe movie. (Too much Bacall, to the detriment of Chandler's story. The Maltese Falcon is much better.)  I would have enjoyed seeing Garner tackling that story, about the men and women sleeping the big sleep.

In our British TV section, British TV Detectives reviews Taggart, the long-running, gritty police drama, while Cult TV Blog looks at the Special Branch episode "Intercept." Between these two blogs and Stephen Bowie's piece from last week, I'm finding more and more Brit TV that looks worth exploring.

The Twilight Zone Vortex reviews "Little Girl Lost," one of my favorite TZ episodes. I agree with the various shortcomings that Jordan mentions, but like him I'm most impressed by Charles Aidman's terrific performance as a physicist exploring a new dimension, and Bernard Herrmann's brilliant score. The Twilight Zone did very well by those two, not to mention Richard Matheson, who wrote the script.

A tip of the hat to the return of Profesor Barnhardt's Journal, which links to several Slate articles on how Twin Peaks changed television, and related topics. I'm hopeful that the new show will retain some of the magic of the original (the returning cast members certainly helps), but there's no way for people who didn't see the original series to understand how that series was unlike anything that had ever been seen on television, or at least anything I'd seen.

Ken Levine goes off-topic for a moment to explain why he no longer engages in text conversations. I'll go off-topic as well and say I agree with him! For as many times as I lament the loss of collective experiences - like watching TV - I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't give a thumbs-up to the idea that personal conversations might be a nice thing to resurrect.

Television Obscurities is taking a tour down memory lane with a look (or listen) to TV theme songs. I had two or three of those albums (when we bought albums), and I'm a sucker for those compilation videos on YouTube. Do people still feel as attached to today's themes? Not rhetorical; I really do wonder.

One thing I don't wonder about: I'l be back tomorrow with yet another TV Guide, this time taking a trip back to the 1960s for the first time in almost two months! TV  

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for another honourable mention!

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  2. "Little Girl Lost" scared the hell out of me when I was 8...my older sister had me watch it with her because she would get scared! We watched the original broadcast...

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Thanks for writing! Drive safely!