Around the dial

Let's get right to it, starting at bare-bones e-zine, where Jack's Hitchcock Project looks at Robert Gould's ninth-season episode "How to Get Rid of Your Wife," which, despite the title, is a "lighthearted look" at psychological warfare within an unhappy marriage. Bob Newhart, Jane Withers, and Joyce Jameson star.

At RealWeegieMidget, Gill recalls Gena Rowlands and her small but multifaceted role as the wife of the murderous Oskar Werner in the 1975 Columbo episode "Playback," an episode which star Peter Falk (a longtime friend and collaborator of Rowlands' husband, John Cassavetes) called the series' best.

The Sylvia Coleridge "season" continues at Cult TV Blog, and this week John takes a look at her magnificent performance in the Armchair Thriller six-parter "Quiet as a Nun," based on the novel by Lady Antonia Fraser, in which Coleridge plays—what else?—a nun. 

At Comfort TV, David reviews six episodes from The Twilight Zone's exceptional first season: three that rank as classics (including the all-time "A Stop at Willoughby"), and three that, well, don't quite measure up. For what it's worth, I concur on all six.

Roger continues his episode-by-episode review of The New Avengers at A View from the Junkyard, and this week we're up to "Sleeper," a game of tag that's played for the highest possible stakes: if you get tagged, you die.

In case you weren't aware of it, the television world has been up in arms over the last few days over the move by Warner Bros. to remove their classic theatrical cartoons—Looney Tunes—from WB's streaming service, Max. Terence has his take on it at A Shroud of Thoughts.

I've never liked the "amateur detectives" that the British are so fond of; on the other hand, I have great respect for many of their police dramas, especially the older ones. Cult TV Lounge takes us back to season one of Van Der Valk, starring Barry Foster, based on the characters created by Nicolas Freeling. TV  

Around the dial

At Cult TV Blog, John concludes a week's worth of posts on The Guardians with part 9, "I Want You To Understand Me." Isn't that the way we all feel? But if you're ready for political intrigue that has nothing to do with the upcoming election, here it is.

The Twilight Zone Vortex continues its way through the fifth and final season of the series with "Uncle Simon," It's an episode that, truth be told, seems like it would be a better fit for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. That being said, it's still worth watching, as are so many of the Serling-written episodes.

A Shroud of Thoughts and The Last Drive-In both offer tributes to the late Gena Rowlands, who died a couple of days ago at the age of 94. You can read what Terence has to say here, while Monstergirl's is here. And before you ask, I'd suspect we'll have a post or two about the great Peter Marshall, who died August 15, in next week's roundup.

Television's New Frontier: The 1960s looks at the final 13 episodes of Bronco, the Ty Hardin-starred series that served as one segment of the three-part wheel series that included Cheyenne and Sugarfoot. Many of the episodes from this final year deal with the reconstruction of the United States following the Civil War.

At Realweegiemidget, Gill takes us to the delightfully dishy 1980s primetime soap Dynasty, with five reasons she loves Alexis Carrington, played by the vivacious vixen Joan Collins, said reasons focusing on the lady's serial marriage history. If you're going to do a soap, you'd better do it right, and few shows did it better than Dynasty.

I've written many times about private detective shows on TV, a genre that could stand a revival, but in the meantime Martin Grams has a look at a terrific new book featuring, for the first time, the collected Continental Op stories (including two novels) written by Dashiell Hammett. These truly revolutionized detective fiction; why doesn't one of the prestige networks do a series based on them?

We're back to The Avengers at A View from the Junkyard, as Roger and Mike debate the merits of the sixth-season story "Homicide and Old Lace," a kind of throwback to the old Avengers, where the stories were a little more grounded. What's the verdict? Well, you'll just have to check it out. TV