Around the dial

I think we'll open the scoring this week at the A.V. Club, where Kayleigh Dray makes a plea to return to the 20+ episode season. (And standalone episodes!) This was, of course, the norm in the classic TV era, and there are sensible reasons why it would be a good idea today.

At bare•bones e-zine, the Hitchcock Project turns to the first of two Richard Fielder teleplays for the hour-long edition, the first being "Night of the Owl," based on a novel by Andrew Garve, with Brian Keith, Claudia Cravey, and Patricia Breslin. A novel fits in very well to the hour-long format, as you'll see from Jack's review.

A few weeks ago, Hal started a deeper look at the 1965-66 ratings for F Troop, and now he's back with part two, looking at the 1966-67 season. Did the move to 8:00 p.m. ET on Thursday night have an effect on the show's ratings? Is it true that F Troop had better ratings than I Dream of Jeannie, Star Trek, The Wild Wild West, and The Monkees, among others? Tune in and find out.

At Cult TV Blog, John's latest series focuses on the idea that The Prisoner's Number 6 (Patrick McGoohan) was actually a plant, not a prisoner. This week, we see him apply this theory to the episode "The Chimes of Big Ben," one of the series' more puzzling episodes. Does the theory still hold up? 

We don't often talk about "seasons" when it comes to a Saturday morning cartoon; most of them just kept running the same episodes over and over. But Star Trek: The Animated Series wasn't your average Saturday fare, and this week's The View from the Junkyard looks at the second season opener, "The Pirates of Orion."

I was watching an episode of Rawhide on MeTV the other day; it's not a series I usually watch, but I had nothing better to do at the time, and the print was so clear, it was hard to believe that the series is now celebrating its 65th anniversary. Terence looks back at the show's history this week at A Shroud of Thoughts.

Good news from Martin Grams: the second volume of The Lone Ranger: The Radio Years is due for publication this year. Volume one, written with Terry Salomonson and covering the early years (1933-37), came out a few years ago; volume two covers the years 1938-42. Stay tuned for more details.

At The Lucky Strike Papers, Andrew has a story that isn't TV related, but it bears reading nonetheless. A woman named Maureen Flavin Sweeney died December 17th last, aged 100. You've probably never heard of her, but the role she played in D-Day is extraordinary. Read it to find out another of those footnotes that make history so interesting.

Finally, Glynis Johns died last week, also at the age of 100. At Classic Film and TV Corner, Maddy has a look back at her remarkable career in the theater, movies, and television. Quite a career; quite a lady. TV