Around the dial

We'll start off the week with a twin bill from the "American TV" series I do with Dan Schneider: episode #1 is a look at the history of ABC and its reputation as a network willing to take chances, while episode #2 is a fun change-of-pace, in which we answer questions about how our series started, some of our favorite shows, early TV crushes, and more! 

My friend Alan Hayes has some exciting news on the horizon: Escapades: An Exploration of Avengers Curiosities, a new book co-authored with J.Z. Ferguson, which takes a deep dive into aspects of the classic series that haven't been previously covered, such as the London stage play, the South African radio series, a couple of unmade TV scripts, and a Mexican wrestling film—and that's just for starters! The book is available for pre-order here, and I'd encourage all you Avengers fans to look into it. And stay tuned to this space over the next few weeks, for an interview with Alan and a review of the book.

Let's work it a little more, as Roger's review of The New Avengers continues at A View from the Junkyard, with the latest episode being "Target!" He sees it as "another superb episode in a season that hasn’t put a foot wrong yet," and even ventures that it's better than the original series. What do you think?

The Broadcast Archives has several classic TV stories this week, covering everything from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me to the first made-for-TV movie. They're all fun, but why not start out with the single-season series Mr. Lucky, a Blake Edwards creation starring John Vivyan. 

At bare-bones e-zine, Jack's Hitchcock Project continues with "Total Loss," a fourth-season episode by J.E. Selby that is most assuredly a product of its times. Nancy Olson and Ralph Meeker star; find out if the bad guy gets away with it.

The Rose Medallion is the next series in line in John's continuing "private detective season" at Cult TV Blog. John says that we have to watch this 1981 series about an uncovered skeleton and the quest to find out the rest of the story, and he's a pretty good judge of shows.uuu

The Globe and Mail has this essay on ditching streaming in favor of DVDs. I've been in this camp for quite awhile; aside from the fact that it's difficult to find some of the more obscure programs on streaming, it's too often a case of "here today, gone tomorrow." I'll always be a believer in physical media.

David's journey through 1970s TV at Comfort TV has now come to Wednesday, 1975, and if we can't remember When Things Were Rotten, Kate McShane, and Doctors' Hospital, we can certainly recall Little House on the Prairie, Starsky & Hutch, Cannon, and more.

At RealWeegieMidget, Gill (and Darlin' Husband) take a look at movie recommendations from January, including a miniseries with Barry Bostwick and Stefanie Powers, a movie with brothers Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez, and Gary Coleman as a pint-size arsonist!

Do we ever get tired of the latest schemes cooked up by Sgt. O'Rourke and Corporal Agarn at F Troop? Not if we're Hal at The Horn Section, and the latest sure-to-fail scam, "The West Goes Ghost," involves ghosts, the railroad, and the two passing themselves off as medical men, for starters.

At Drunk TV, Paul reviews the second season of Simon & Simon, one of the quintessentially '80s series of, well, the '80s, with Gerald McRaney and Jameson Parker as the brothers running the Simon & Simon detective agency. Thrilling cases and beautiful women galore!

Martin Grams, who wrote one of the definitive books on The Twilight Zone, looks at books containing adaptations of Rod Serling's TZ scripts (done by Serling himself), as well as adaptations and original stories written by Walter Gibson, all of which were quite successful.

I've written before about Turn On, the legendary one-episode ABC series that was virtually cancelled before that one episode was done. But was it really as bad as history says? Not so fast, says Travalanche, who believes it was far from the worst show of all time. TV