Around the dial

A really thoughtful piece from David at Comfort TV leads off the week. It's called "Defending the Traditional," and while it's primarily about traditional television shows, it has a great deal to say about tradition in general, and what it means (or doesn't) today.

At Forbes, Marc Berman notes that it's the 50th anniversary of Rich Man, Poor Man, the series that changed television history. It wasn't the first miniseries, but it was the most influential, and it paved the way for Roots and a succession of others. Ah, what a glorious time!

The "Tony Wright Season" continues at Cult TV Blog, and this week John looks at the 1970 Play for Today episode "The Lie," an English adaptation of an Ingmar Bergman play. There's a fascinating history to go along with this dark story about a loveless marriage.

At The View from the Junkyard, Roger looks at the latest episode of The A-Team, "Fire," in which our heroes are called on to prevent a rival fire department (don't ask) from taking over a town. Just enjoy Hannibal and the team outwitting yet another colonel out to get them.

Terence offers remembrances of two more television stars this week, as we mourn the deaths of the great Catherine O'Hara, and the wonderful Demond Wilson, both of whom died in the past week. The roll call of classic stars is getting long, and we're only in February.

At Classic Film and TV Corner, it's a look at an underappreciated Agatha Christie series, Partners in Crime, which aired in 1983, and do not mistake this version for any other later adaptations you might see; this is the one to stick with.

Finally, given that I offer an MST3K alert (when I can ) in each week's TV Guide review, you'd have to know that I'd be all over Variety's news that the series is coming back for a four-episode run, courtesy of the crew at Rifftrax, which includes the original actors who made the last few seasons of the original series so enjoyable. This promises to be an improvement on the previous three-season revival, and it's such good news that I think I'll have to write at further length about it on Wednesday. TV

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