Around the dial

Ah, but it seems as if we lead with the obituaries this week, beginning at A Shroud of Thoughts, where Terence salutes the late, great George Wendt, who died Tuesday at the age of 76, on the 32nd anniversary of the series finale of Cheers. We can double up on the farewell to Norm with this typically offbeat piece at Inner Toob.

Terence also notes the passing of Joe Don Baker, known for everything from Walking Tall to a pair of James Bond movies to a couple of appearances on Mystery Science Theater 3000, which, of course, are the important credits; he was 89. There's also a nice tribute to Baker from Paul at Mavis Movie Madness!

We next move on to RealWeegieMidget, where Gill offers up a tribute to Priscilla Pointer, the former soap actress who played Pam Ewing's mother on Dallas, but also did much more; she died last month, aged 100. We should always balance our sadness at such departures with a sense of gratitude for the great memories they left behind in their bodies of work; that helps keep it all in perspective, I think.

It is, however, nice to turn to something a little lighter, such as Garry Berman's tribute to the 50th anniversary of The Return of the Pink Panther, which certainly has to be one of the funniest movies ever made. It's the third entry in the Pink Panther series, and features some extraordinarly fine work by Herbert Lom as Clouseau's beleaguered boss, Chief Inspector Dreyfus.

At Television Obscurities, Robert passes along the news that NBC is planning a 100th anniversary tribute next year. Back in the day, Orson Welles hosted a 50th anniversary show that was quite good; why is it that I don't have similiar high hopes for this one?

Let's return to The New Avengers at A View from the Junkyard, where Roger reviews "K is for Kill," which is a great title (although I don't suppose you'll see it in those preschool alphabet tutorials), but does it make for a great episode? Well, you'll just have to find out.

Staying across the pond, John is staying with the Sylvia Coleridge Season at Cult TV Blog, and this week he offers "Silver Threads," an episode from the series Village Hall, an anthology in which each episode takes place in, well, a village hall. A quirky episode of an interesting series. TV