Around the dial

In our last episode, you may recall, we looked at a new series that John was starting at Cult TV Blog concentrating on actors and their roles rather than simply individual series. This week, we look at Denis Shaw's contribution to The Avengers in the final season episode "Requiem." You may also recall that this is the episode reviewed at The View from the Junkyard last week; now it's time for John's authoritative review.

Dick Powell made one of the great career transitions in history, going from a song-and-dance man in light comedies to a a star of hard-boiled noir crime dramas, and at Classic Film & TV Cafe, Rick takes us back to the movie that started it all: Murder, My Sweet, where Powell lays claim to being the definitive Philip Marlowe.

At The Last Drive In, monstergirl gives us part one of a two-part profile of Adrienne Barbeau, who may be best-known to readers here for her long-running role on Maude, but there's much more to her career, as we see in her autobiography, There Are Worse Things I Could Do. Be sure to come back next week for part two, monstergirl's interview with Adrienne.

Paul returns at Drunk TV with a review of the fantastic 1959 TV adaptation of Budd Schulberg's scorching show-biz expose What Makes Sammy Run?, with a terrific cast that includes Larry Blyden, John Forsythe, Barbara Rush, Dina Merrill, and Norman Fell. Paul sees this as an example of how early television could, at times, rival the quality of anything you'd see in the theater, and I agree.

Terence commemorates 70 years of television's Lassie this week at A Shroud of Thoughts. Seventy years, and many permutations over its nineteen seasons. He also members the late, great James Earl Jones, who died this week at age 93. Besides all the roles he played in his distinguished career, it's hard to imagine CNN without him.

We occasionally touch on Land of the Lost here, and so it seems fitting to stop at Travanche, where it's been 50 years since the debut of that series. I was, for lack of a better word, stuck with that show, living in the World's Worst Town™ at the time, and NBC was the only show in town on Saturday mornings. Of course, not watching television was never an option.

At Shadow & Substance, Paul looks at the Twilight Zone episode "A Game of Pool," starring Jonathan Winters and Jack Klugman, in particular how Rod Serling changed the original ending from George Clayton Johnson's script. I agree with Paul that Serling's change made the episode stronger, but there's a lot to be said for Johnson's as well. And you have to like how Winters holds his own with Klugman. TV  

Around the dial

At bare-bones e-zine, Jack's Hitchcock Project continues with "Mink," Irwin Gielgud and Gwen Bagni's first-season story, a complex story of deception and suspicion that also serves as a time capsule to the mid-1950s.

John turns his attention to documentaries at Cult TV with a look at 24 Hours, a BBC news program that ran from 1965 to 1972; the episode in question, regarding the 1966 assassination of South African prime minister Hendrik Verwoerd, provides a disturbing look at the country's apartheid policy.

Art has been a subtle but significant part of many classic TV series, and at Comfort TV, David proposes a Museum of Classic TV Paintings, along with his suggestions for some of the more prominent exhibits; how many of them ring a bell with you?

Paul takes Drunk TV to one of the great anthologies of the Golden Age, Studio One, with a look at the DVD set Studio One Anthology (a copy of which I'm pleased to say I have), representing seventeen of the series' plays, good and bad; and what it tells us about the early days of television. 

Cult TV Lounge has written in the past about TV tie-in novels, and we have another one of them this week, with "The Cornish Pixie Affair," the fifth original novel based on The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. How well does it mirror the tone of the series? Read on and find out.

In doing the Saturday TV Guide review, I've mentioned a time or two that it doesn't seem there was ever a variety show or special that Bob Hope didn't appear in, and Travalanche backs me up on this assertion with a simple but telling rundown of how many show he hosted, let alone guested in.

At A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence honors a couple of the entertainment world's most recent passings: Darryl Hickman, brother of Dwayne, who did a great deal of movie and voiceover work; and Richard M. Sherman, composer (with his brother Robert) for so many great Disney movies over the years.

Finally, it's back to Land of the Lost at The View from the Junkyard where Mike reviews "Hot-Air Artist," another quixotic episode that displays the show's later tendency away from serious sci-fi to "silly fiction," and again raises the question of where these characters would wind up if they ever escape. TV  

Around the dial

We meet a new writer this week at bare•bones e-zine, as Jack introduces us to the first of two Calvin Clements scripts in the Hitchcock Project: season seven's "Beta Delta Gamma," a creepy episode that I remember well from years past, with Burt Brickerhoff, Joel Crothers, and Duke Howard.

At Cult TV Blog, John reviews The XYZ Man, a 1976-77 British series with an intriguing, if totally discredited premise, that of a man genetically predisposed to crime. Despite the bad reputation the series has had from critics, it's worth checking out if for nothing more than its depiction of the Seventies, and as you know, we're big here on how television accurately presents a period in time.

We've linked to Bobby Ellerbee's fantastic site Eyes of a Generation many times in the past, but never before has Bobby been part of another story we're linking to—until now. Check out Garroway at Large, where Jodie tells us how some of Bobby's prized camera collection is now part of Jodie's prized camera collection!

At Inner Toob, it's a tribute to Jerry Springer, now part of Inner Toob's "Television Crossover Hall of Fame" for the many times he played different versions of himself on other television shows. I've mentioned before that Springer was a character in the first book I ever wrote (but didn't publish; maybe someday), so I'm always up for scenarios like this.

Martin Grams reviews a quartet of books this week, biographies of four varied stars whom you'll surely recognize from their work on television, in the movies, or both: actors Ray Danton, Robert Horton, and Herbert Marshall; and film director Arthur Penn. Each of them has a fascinating life story to tell, and any of these books would be valuable adds to your library.

Speaking of books, at Pop Matters, Peter Thomas Webb has a review of a book on a very interesting topic: Eleanor Patterson’s Bootlegging the Airwaves, a history of radio and television as seen through the eyes of bootlegging communities from the pre-digital era. Regardless of your thoughts on copyright law, groups like these are responsible for keeping alive much of media history.

Terence pays tribute to comedian Richard Lewis at A Shroud of Thoughts. Lewis, who died last week, aged 76, was a much-loved mainstay of the Carson-Letterman shows, as well as co-star of the sitcom Anything But Love and regular on Curb Your Enthusiasm. But, as Terence points out, that barely scratches the surface of his six-decade career.

I usually cover the Avengers reviews at The View from the Junkyard, so I thought I'd remind you that you also get regular summaries of episodes from Land of the Lost, the Seventies Saturday morning series whose theme will stay with you for days once you start to think of it. This week, Mike looks at the episode "A Nice Day," which is what I hope you're having this Friday. TV