Around the dial

You might recall me writing a couple of years ago about The Man in Room 17, a British show that I quite enjoyed watching, although I was only able to see the first season. You might even be familiar with it, if you enjoy British shows from the 1960s. If so, you'll be as glad as I was to hear about the first-ever guidbook to the first season, Behind Door 17: An Unofficial Guide to The Man in Room 17, by Martin Gregory. Beside being an episode guide, it includes essays, mini-bios, and insights into a show that I found both intelligent and entertaining, with a liberal dose of humor included. You can read more about it at Martin's Substack, and hopefully we'll be looking at a review of this in the future.

The lastest episode of Eventually Supertrain is now available, in which your erstwhile correspondent joins Dan for another around of Garrison's Gorillas, plus more neat stuff. Please do give it a listen when you have some time, and if you haven't already added Supertrain to your list of favorite podcasts, now's a great time to do so.

Love That Bob returns at The Horn Section, as Hal reviews the 1959 episode "Bob and the Ballerina." We're at a point in the fifth season where the series tries to get back on track after an unsuccessful attempt to domesticize our hero. Find out how successful it was.

The "Sylvia Coleridge Season" continues at Cult TV Blog, and this week John looks at her appearance in the supernatural 1981 movie Artemus 81, a movie that almost defies explanation. Well, almost, but John gives you a pretty good idea of what to expect if you decide to watch it here.

At The View from the Junkyard, Roger's episode-by-episode recap of The New Avengers arrives at "Three Handed Game," the final episode of the first season, a story that blends mind-swapping, people with amazing memories, spies, and, of course, another great performance by Joanna Lumley as Purdy.

This doesn't really have anything to do with television, but Travalanche reviews Danny Fingeroth's book Jack Ruby: The Many Faces of Oswald's Assassin, and given that I've visited the topic of the Kennedy assassination many times here, you know why I'd be interested in this.

Television's New Frontier: The 1960s returns with the 1962 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which follows the successful formula that's kept the show going for seven successful seasons. Is the show in a rut, or is it following the maxim that you don't mess with success?

Speaking of Hitchcock (and isn't it too bad that Jack's Hitchcock Project isn't this week?), A Shroud of Thoughts reviews the fifth season episode "Arthur," starring Laurence Harvey, which Terence ranks as one of his favorites from the entire run of the series.

Television Obscurities has a note that the Paley Center in New York has now opened the Paley Archive at the Beverly Hills Public Library. It's no more likely I'll make it there than I would get to NYC, but I can always hope that they digitize their archives someday.

At The Lucky Strike Papers, Andrew uses the upcoming 24th anniversary of the death of his mother, Sue Bennett, looking back at her career in New York and Boston television. By the way, if you haven't read The Lucky Strike Papers, you should; it's an excellent book about family, television, and the 1950s. TV