Around the dial

We'll start this week with a leftover from last week, as F Troop Fridays returns to The Horn Section. Hall looks at the episode "Captain Parmenter, One Man Army," and if you remember the series, you know that's a recipe for disaster. Find out what happens to Fort Courage when everyone but Parmenter is suddenly out of the Army?

At Cult TV Blog, John has moved on from The Prisoner and starts a series on TV shows from the 1980s, beginning with Scully, which has nothing to do with The X-Files and everything to do with the surreal depiction of the life of a British schoolboy. Any other attempt to describe it would be useless, so check out John for all the details.

We'll stick with British TV for a moment, or at least TV with a British connection; Cult TV Lounge explores Hammer Films' 1980 TV series Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense, a co-production with Fox that should have worked, but didn't. Find out why, and whether or not it had anything to do with Hammer's American partners.

At Drunk TV, Jason looks back at the first season of Magnum, P.I. (the original, which as we know is the only real one), and tells us how Thomas, Rick, T.C., Higgins, and that dynamic Ferrari combine with the gorgeous Hawaiian landscape (and a few shapely adorables along the way) to produce a show that's much loved all these years later.

Speaking of Magnum, Realweegiemidget takes a gander at the sixth episode from that first season; Gill tells us how this episode, "Skin Deep," is a tribute to the noir classic Laura, with Tom Sellick assuming the Dana Andrews role of the detective trying to find out who killed Laura—er, Erin.

Over at Comfort TV, David shares the top TV moments from the great Sammy Davis Jr. As David mentions, few big stars appeared on episodic television as often as Davis did (occasionally playing himself), and his appearances on shows from Zane Grey Theatre to Charlie's Angels, with a little All in the Family thrown in. Who can beat that, besides the Candy Man?

Finally, Tim McCarver, one of the most familiar voices on baseball broadcasts of the last few decades, and a pretty fair player as well, died Thursday, aged 81. Here's a look back at his career, and the impact that he made. TV