At Comfort TV, David offers a fond remembrance of John Karlen, who came on the scene in Dark Shadows and won an Emmy for Cagney and Lacey. In particular, David examines how the death of Karlen's character in Dark Shadows changed the show completely—a first in the Comfort TV Era?
As John points out at Cult TV, the Jon Pertwee era of Doctor Who was rarely as good as it was when The Doctor's nemesis, The Master, appears—and boy, does he appear in Terror of the Autons. It's a terrific episode with a healthy skepticism about technology. We could use a little of that today.
"The New Exhibit" is the focus of this week's Twilight Zone Vortex, and it's an intriguing episode, with the great Martin Balsam in a killer's row display at a wax museum. Ultimately the episode fails to make the concept pay off, but it's still far from a failure.
Sterling Silliphant is back on the job at the Hitchcock show, and Jack's back on the case with his Hitchcock Project at bare•bones e-zine. This week's episode is "The Return of the Hero," a very unusual Hitchcock with an unforgettable conclusion—and no cheeky comments by the host afterward.
"A Hitch in Time" has nothing to do with Alfred Hitchcock; it's a 1978 children's movie from England, and as Silver Scenes reveals, the professor who's invented the time machine that he and a couple of schoolkids use to travel—well, it's none other that that old time traveler himself, Patrick Troughton.
And finally, at Classic Film and TV Café, Rick gives us seven delightful things to know about Eva Gabor, including #2: playing Lisa Douglas on Green Acres was "the best six years of my life...I adored every minute of it." She wasn't the only one, I'm sure. TV
A point here, a point there:
ReplyDelete- First off, 'Willie Loomis', John Karlen's first character on Dark Shadows, didn't die in that scene - quite the opposite, actually.
The DECADES channel is running Shadows nightly these days, and as it happens they're right in the middle of Barnabas's introductory story - and Willie is far from dead, he's front and center throughout.
You can see for yourself, if you can get Decades in your area.
- In a few days, I expect to take delivery on some old stuff that I'd like to see and read for myself.
One item in particular is relevant here: The Naked City, a 1958 paperback tie-in which adapts some stories from the first half-hour season into prose form.
The by-line reads "Stirling Silliphant", who of course wrote the original scripts.
However …
... I've since read that the stories were actually written by Charles Einstein, who had considerable credits in TV ("No Time At All" from Playhouse 90), film (While The City Sleeps, from Einstein's novel The Bloody Spur), and of course print fiction (the two novels I just referenced, plus many more over the '50s) and nonfiction (the Fireside Books Of Baseball, as well as many memoirs).
You might also know Charles Einstein as the elder half-brother of Albert Brooks and Super Dave Osborne ( their father was, of course, Parkyakarkus …).
- Thinking of sending you some more duplications from my half-vast library of stuff, if you're up for it.
One such item has relevance to one of the other entries today - no spoilers, but you and yours might get a kick out of seeing it (details when and if).
Thanks, Mitchell!
ReplyDelete