Around the dial

I'm dating myself again, I know, but I can remember when Space: 1999 was supposed to be the next big thing, the first "adult" science-fiction series since Star Trek. It didn't quite turn out that way, but Captain Video dives into the comic collection to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the series. Fifty years; wow.

At RealWeegieMidget, Gill combines movies and television in one neat package with a look at the 1980 telemovie The Scarlett O'Hara War, the story of David O. Selznick's search for the actress to play the aforementioned leading lady (as well as other backstage tales) in his upcoming epic, Gone with the Wind.  

And now, a trio of posts that have a tangential tie-in to my new book, Darkness in Primetime. First, at Comfort TV, David makes a gracious note of the book in his essay on "When is Classic TV important?" What makes one program more important than another? We all have our answers, but this is a good place to begin the discussion.

At The Twilight Zone Vortex, Brian takes a look at the memorable fifth-season TZ episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You," a frightening story of enforced conformity and loss of individuality; this episode is covered in Chapter 5 of Darkness in Primetime.

At Cult TV Blog, John reviews the mid-1970s series Survivors, a post-apocalyptic drama that explores the aftermath of a deadly global pandemic. John first viewed this series in 2020, in the midst of COVID Theater, which coincidentally was a major factor driving the genesis of Darkness in Primetime. There: self-promotion done.

We're not finished with British TV, though; at Silver Scenes, the Metzinger Sisters tease us with a preview of How, a children's series that ran for 17 seasons between 1966 and 1981. They'll have more on this in the coming weeks, but for now take a look at this clip and see what you think.

One more from across the pond? Why not! At Classic Film and TV Corner, Maddie looks at five British period dramas from the 1970s that more people should watch. Perhaps you've heard of them, perhaps not, but they're all dramas worth checking out.;

At A View from the Junkyard, Roger returns to The A-Team and the episode "Steel," a straightforward and uncompromising look at organized crime in the United States. It's no documentary, but neither does it seek to romanticize the mob, as so many shows continue to do. Let's just say that our fearless heroes aren't going to back down in the face of a formidable foe.

We were touching on trios earlier on, and here's a trio of posts from Television Obscurities: one on the 70th anniversary of The Honeymooners as a stand-alone series; a second on other series, well-known and otherwise, commemorating anniversaries this month; and a third, an audio clip from the opening of CBS's 1969 presentation of Mark Twain Tonight!, sponsored by Xerox, and starring Hal Holbrook.

Terence also has a piece on The Honeymooners over at A Shroud of Thoughts, as well as recognition of yet another series celebrating a 70th anniversary, Alfred Hitchcock Presents. What a great time for television, as we saw in my TV Guide review last Saturday.

And let's keep going with that TV Guide theme, as Martin Grams has more TV Guide trivia from 1959, including pitches for upcoming series (imagine Beetle Bailey starring Mort Sahl!), and a proposal for a big-screen version of Peter Lawford's The Thin Man, which itself was based on a big-screen version of Dashiell Hammett's famous novel.

Finally, if you're fortunate to have multiple sub-channels where you live, Remind Magazine tells you that you might be in luck, as Weigel Broadcasting (MeTV, etc.) has a new classic channel: WEST, featuring all Westerns, all day, every day. You can do worse; much worse. TV

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