January 8, 2016

Around the dial

Happy New Year everyone. It's our first Around the Dial of the year, in fact the first one in awhile. Which means there should be some interesting fodder out there, don't you think?

I've surely enjoyed "The Hitchcock Project" entries at bare-bones e-zine, and this week we have another, and it's also from an episode I've had the pleasure of seeing. It's the Robert C. Dennis adaptation "One for the Road." I don't know what the rest of you think, but I think this half-hour would have made a great premise for an episode of Columbo.

Another favorite of mine, Raymond Chandler, is examined at Classic Film and TV Cafe - it's not television per se, but you've probably seen Chandler's adaptation of The Blue Dahlia on TV, A terrific movie, and a terrific article.

Speaking of Columbo as were a paragraph ago, here's a great quote from The Horn Section's review of the Get Christie Love! episode "Fatal Image": star Teresa Graves telling the Lakeland Ledger that Get Christie Love! would be "more like a Columbo than a Mannix". Now that would have been something - and how would she have investigated the case of "One for the Road"?

'Tis the season for looking back as well as looking forward. I did that myself on New Year's Day, and at Christmas TV History, Joanna reviews the blog's most popular posts of 2015. Sometimes we tend to forget things not long after we read them, so it's a nice reminder of some very good writing.

David Hofstede at Comfort TV always asks interesting questions, and last week's is thought-provoking indeed: what are five things that TV used to do that it doesn't do anymore?

We've grown used to it now, but back in the day it was quite unusual to see a show axed when it was only three or four episodes into its run (one of the things which makes Turn-On a continuing fascination). Hence a very interesting look at Television Obscurities on The Tammy Grimes Show, which folded after a mere four airings.

I talked a bit about Route 66 in my obituary of Martin Milner, but Television's New Frontier has a lot more to say about this fascinating yet (to me, at least) often frustrating series.

Tomorrow's TV Guide issue promises to be an interesting one - I hope you'll make it a point to come back. TV  

1 comment:

  1. Thanks, Mitchell. Your blog brings up a question. Has anyone ever archived the old TV Guides digitally? They would be such a great resource for those of us researching TV history!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for writing! Drive safely!