Around the dial

Now that's style!

We're a little thin on blog updates this week, so I thought we'd take a spin through some podcasts and YouTube videos and see what's up.

Over at TV Confidential, Ed Robinson has more than enough to keep you busy, including a pair of episodes on Groucho Marx, Joan Van Ark talking about her famous Val Ewing character, and a birthday nod to Howard Hesseman.

From last month, Closer Classic TV talks with MeTV's Neal Saban, who, as it says, takes us inside the world of classic TV.

The To Tell the Truth YouTube page has all you could ask for in the way of episodes, including this one with a woman who ran for president of the United States in 1964. Between LBJ and AuH2O, I'm afraid she didn't stand a chance.

One of the YouTube channels I've enjoyed has the charming name of Free the Kinescopes! I think you'll enjoy it as well, no matter what you choose to watch.

For sci-fi fans, here's the very first episode of the British cult hit Blake's 7, which was always a topic of conversation among the Whovians I hung around with back in the day.

Back at our more conventional fare, at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear, Ivan returns to the world of Dark Shadows, with this look at the beginning of a 1967 story arc involving “a time-traveling excursion that finds series heroine Victoria Winters in the Collinsport of 1795 and interacting with ancestors of the family she knows from the present day.” I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure this is the only time that sentence has ever been typed in conjunction with a soap opera, at least of the retro era.

Cult TV Blog comes back with another British series with which I’m not familiar: Minder, a long-running comedy-drama about the London underworld. This week, John looks back at the 1978 episode “Gunfight at the OK Launderette,” and its roots in a real-life botched robbery in 1975.

It’s interview time at Classic Film & TV Café, and this week Rick interviews John Greco, author of the short story collection The Late Show, combining of classic cinema with mystery and murder (!) to create eight provocative stories. Sounds like a lot of fun, and of course that's what we're all about around here. TV  

Around the dial

Full disclosure: I was never a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Oh, there was a time after the horror of Star Trek V when I thought TNG showed a level of gravitas that the movie sadly lacked; but after about a year, I'd had more than I could take and quit watching. My wife hung in there for another year or so before she did the same. So perhaps I'm not the right person to judge what makes an awful episode of TNG, but you'll still want to check out Rob Bricken's article at Gismodo about the amazing number of terrible episodes the series had while still managing to be good.

At The Ringer, Brian Phillips has a typically thoughtful piece on the fascination that murder holds for us, on television as well as podcasts. As Phillips says, "we can’t ask 'where is murder going?' without also asking 'where are we?'" You'll want to read the rest.

There aren't many entertainment sites more iconic than the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and this week at Comfort TV, David celebrates the classic TV stars who have their star on the Walk—and the many who should have them, but don't.

It's F Troop Friday at The Horn Section, and Hal's focus this week is on the season two episode "Bye, Bye, Balloon," with Harvey Korman as the aptly named balloon expert Colonel Heindrich von Zeppel.

At The Secret Sanctum of Captain Video, it's the exciting conclusion of the Untouchables comic book story "The Conspirators," with comic-book Eliot Ness looking every bit as tough as Robert Stack does on-screen. (For part one, go here.)

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet is in its tenth season as 1961 rolls around, and that's the focus of the latest Television's New Frontier: The 1960s. Well, that and the transient nature of the Nelson boys' girlfriends.

The bizarre, glorious world of Dark Shadows is the subject of Ivan's musings at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear. There are certainly soaps that have had longer runs (Ivan mentions that Days of Our Lives is headed for season 56), but I don't know of many that are more fondly remembered than the Gothic wonder of Shadows.

Carol looks back at the origins of Bob Crane: The Authorized Biography, especially the need to broadcast the true story of Bob's life in order to counter the distortions of Auto Focus, at Bob Crane: Life and Legacy, You can also catch the latest episode of "Flipside," the podcast hosted by Carol and her co-author, Linda Groundwater.

Finally, Jim Lehrer died yesterday at 85. Like his partner Robert MacNeil, Jim Lehrer was one of the last of the old-time reporters on network news; whether or not you agreed with the opinions on The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, it was always a stimulating show, one with the gravitas that's completely gone from network news today, not to mention the rest of television.

Where will this week's TV Guide take us? Tune in tomorrow and find out. TV