What I've been watching: April, 2026

Shows I've Watched:

War and Peace

The Ellery Queen Mysteries

Danger Man

I mentioned, one of the last times that this feature appeared, that we hadn't introduced very many new shows into our viewing lineup, and that trend has continued through early spring. It's going to change, though, and in the next few months, you can expect to see new, and more, titles popping up: shows like The Gallant Men, The Time Tunnel, Cade's County, Car 54, and even The Monkees. Until then, you—and us—continue to work our ways through the last few episodes of some shows that have been on the schedule for awhile.

l  l  l

All right, I admit it; I'm a cretin. The 1972 British version of War and Peace is considered one of the finest miniseries of all time. And how could it not be? Consisting of 20 episodes, running for a total of 15 hours, epic in scope, daring to plumb the depths of human emotion, based on one of the great books in all literature and boasting a cast headed by Anthony Hopkins, this ought to be a must for anyone who, like me, consistently beats the drum for finer television. My friend Paul Mavis wrote that "It positively luxuriates in its expansive format, giving the viewer a remarkable chance to fully experience the various nuances of character and the myriad permutations of shifting relationships," and gave it four stars.

And yet I was bored stiff through most of it. I found it dragging to the point that I asked my wife, who's read the book, if this was supposed to be the Thousand Years' War. So it's got to be me, and I'm fine with that. There are some genres that just don't appeal to me, and this apparently is one of them. Perhaps it's the portrayal of the Russian upper class that grated on me; I've never been able to understand or appreciate the dynamics of the aristocracy in British costume dramas, and at least War and Peace confirmed that my dislike isn't confined to Anglos. I'm about as anti-communist as they come, and yet, even though it would have been a historical anachronism, I kept hoping against hope that the Bolsheviks would show up and put them out of our misery. (It does give me a finer appreciation of the nuances of the Russian Revolution, however, but that's another story.) 

I consider myself an honorable man, for the most part, but the mores and manners of the upper crust aristocracy is as impenetrable to me as the most obscure foreign language. For some reason, I kept coming back to that Monty Python skit about the about the Upper Class Twit of the Year competition. Let me tell you, most of these characters would have been high in the standings. And you think there's drama in social media? That's nothing compared to the "everything's a disaster and my life is in total ruins!" whining that accompanies virtually everything that happens here. No wonder Anna Karenina threw herself under a train.

It didn't help that it took me a half dozen episodes to keep track of who's who. All those Russian names, the Nicolais and Andreis and Vasilis, are hard enough to keep straight in the best of times, but I had to keep asking my wife, "Now, which one is he?" until I finally skipped to the Wikipedia synopsis of the book and read the whole story. Even though I knew how the story ended, I can't say I was sorry that I did it. (At least Hopkins's character is named Pierre; it only took me two episodes to remember that.) It also doesn't work to the show's advantage that all the women sounded like shrill, privileged fishwives, especially the insufferable Morag Hood, who as Natasha is supposed to be a beguiler of men, but I kept wanting to shout at the screen, "Shut up, you stupid cow!" I have, at least, been confirmed in my suspicions that her casting was considered the weak link in the whole series.

Maybe part of the problem stems from the "war" part of War and Peace. Frankly, I was never sure who I should be rooting for. Maybe it's that British penchant for not having actors attempt to simulate foreign accents (which usually works quite well), but if it weren't for the generals and aides repeatedly calling some short guy "Napoleon," I'm not sure I would have been able to tell the French from the Russians in the first place. Still, I was puzzled; I mean, I'm no Francophile, I have a fairly strong contempt for the cheese-eating surrender monkeys. And yet was I supposed to be hoping that they would win, or were the Russians the ones I should be casting my lot with? And doesn't siding with Russia mean that I'm actively hoping for the defeat of Ukraine? Whoops, wrong war. Well, you can forgive me; it only seems as if that war lasted this long.  

What I can say about War and Peace is that, amidst a cast of largely unlikable characters, Anthony Hopkins is magnificent. Every time he appeared on screen, he made me put down whatever I was doing and watch. He projects a gravitas that is totally appropriate to the source material, and if someone, back in 1972, were to have told me that he'd someday win two Academy Awards, I'd have had no trouble believing it. The only other character with whom I could really identify was Rupert Davies as Count Rostov, who sounds from the name as if he should be working with Boris Badenov, but in reality was someone's husband and someone else's father, I'm not quite sure whose. I loved Davies as the French police detective Maigret, so I was more than willing to give him the benefit of the doubt here; still, he did seem to be one of the few characters who projected a natural humanity and warmth that I could identify with.

As I say, this isn't meant as an indictment of War and Peace. Perhaps if I read the book, or saw the Russian version of the story, I'd feel quite different about it. It didn't work for me, and that's probably my fault. And on balance, television is probably better off having a series like this than not. So sue me.

l  l  l

There have been a number of attempts to bring Ellery Queen's epynomous mystery writer/sleuth to the small screen, but in my opinion none of them worked quite as well as the 1975-76 edition that starred Jim Hutton as the absent-minded Ellery and David Wayne as his often-exasperated father, Inspector Richard Queen. The series only ran for 22 episodes plus the pilot, which is a real shame; it has, however, been out for quite some time on DVD, which not only is not a shame but gives us the kind of television we could really use right now: thoughtful, intelligent, well-cast, with mysteries that are challenging but not impossible to solve, and stories that won't make your brain hurt after a long and trying day.

The concept of the amateur detective (often called a "cozy" in literary terms) is not one of my favorite tropes, but in the case of the Ellery Queen novels, it's always worked quite well. For one thing, Ellery's not really an amateur; with a shelf full of mysteries to his credit, he knows a thing or two about crime, making him a little more like, say, Jessica Fletcher. But whereas Jessica always and inexplicably seems to be at the right place at the right time (if one wants to become involved in a murder case), Ellery always has a good reason for being where he is: his dad is a high-ranking homicide inspector, who often coaxes his son into accompanying him on the more intriguing cases. (It also helps that the series is set in New York City rather than Cabot Cove, which makes the death toll much more plausible.)

Oftentimes, a series stands or falls on the casting of its main characters, and here Ellery Queen excels. Both Hutton and Wayne are real pros, and the chemistry between the two, as father and son, is both warm and believable. The elder Queen combines both parental affection and perennial exasperation at his son's absent-mindedness (an exaggeration from the Ellery character in the books) in a way that's very easy to buy, and he has a keen appreciation for the way Ellery's mind works. He may occasionally indulge him, but more often he has a real respect for Ellery's abilities, and isn't so stubborn or set in his ways that he won't let Ellery's deductions change his mind. Watching the two of them on screen together is a real pleasure. They're aided by Tom Reese's fine performance as Sergeant Velie, who is presented as a hard-working and dependable detective, not an eccentric sidekick or someone who exists only to serve as the surrogate for the audience when explaining the solution to the crime. It's also fun to see the all-star casts that populate each episode, as was the case in the early days of Murder, She Wrote. Never mind that many of the stars are either B-list actors and actresses, stars who've seen their time come and go, or character actors whose names you can never quite recall. Their presence just adds to the fun.

The early episodes of Ellery Queen were, I thought, overly dependent on a trope that can get tiresome: the dying man's clue. It seems that almost all of these victims were either puzzle aficionados or enjoyers of word play, because their dying clues, meant to point to the identity of their murderer, are often incredibly obscure, frequently too clever by half, and generally require much more of a leap of plausibility than the crimes themselves. I don't know about you, but if I'm about to die, I'm probably either overcome by pain or too focused on pleading for God's mercy to spend my dying breaths concocting a clue in hopes that someone as clever as Ellery Queen will come along to figure it out. 

That's a small quibble, though, and it is more than made up for by Ellery's breaking of the fourth wall in the last moments of each episode to address the viewers directly, asking them if they've figured out who dunnit. It's a conceit taken directly from the early Queen books, and it was an inspired choice to bring the concept to television. As Ellery points out, the clues are all there; nothing has been withheld from the viewers, who know as much about the crime as he does. 

I wonder, though, if there might be room someday for what I'd call a "straight" version of Ellery Queen, without the absent-mindedness and the comic relief, without the fourth wall-breaking, and without the proverbial New York City that always has a parking spot open right in front of the building where everyone goes. Some of the Queen mysteries are quite dark, not to say disturbing, such as one that ends with Ellery handing the suspect a gun with the suggestion that he knows what he needs to do with it, followed by Ellery leaving the room and, a few moments later, hearing a single gunshot. Would that have ever flown in early-Seventies television? Probably not, but it would today, and although Ellery Queen isn't the household name that, say, Perry Mason is, maybe a revival is worth a look.

l  l  l

The only other series we're finishing up with is a repeat viewing of the hour-long episodes of Danger Man, which will flow right into The Prisoner, and it probably makes sense to cover them at the same time, given that—as we all know—John Drake is Number 6. Right? Right. TV

If you enjoy the content here and want to support my broader creative work, please consider leaving a tip at my Ko-fi page. Any amount you contribute helps me continue writing, researching, and sharing these articles and projects. Thank you!

What I've been watching: February, 2026

Shows I've Watched:

The Rebel

Blue Light

Nixon in China

Aou may recall my occasional series "If I Ran the Network," in which I propose ideas for various series that might run on a fictional television network. (Then again, you might have a better chance of remembering it if I did a better job of running it more than just occasionally.) Anyway, one idea that has come true, more or less, is that of the Saturday Night Opera, which we've taken to watching the past couple of months. Most of these have been 20th-century operas, including one I reviewed last month, Doctor Atomic by John Adams.

This month features another Adams work, Nixon in China, based on President Richard Nixon's historic 1972 trip to Communist China. Now, if that seems like an unlikely subject for an opera, you're right; even Adams was somewhat skeptical when he received the commission. However, the result was one of the greatest operas of the late 20th century, a work that manages to be both historic and creative, and unlike anything that anyone might have expected. In this Metropolitan Opera performance from 2011, James Maddalena reprises his role as Nixon (which he created in 1987 for the opera's world premiere in Houston), with Janis Kelly as Pat Nixon, Robert Brubaker as Chairman Mao, and Russell Braun as Chou En-lai, and Adams himself conducting.

Adams's music could best be described as a pleasing minimalism, with elements of atonality that nevertheless avoid many of the less pleasant aspects of dissonance. The story is built around four major events: the arrival of the Nixons and the president's meeting with Mao; a tour by Mrs. Nixon of various sites in China; a visit to the Peking Opera where a Chinese political ballet is performed; and the final night of the trip, in which the principals reflect on the events that brought them to this time and place.

In interviews, director Peter Sellars has talked about how the production of the opera has evolved over the years, particularly since more and more of the atrocities committed by Mao have come to light, while Maddalena has mentioned the depth and complexity of Nixon's character, which he describes as peeling away various layers of an onion. This, along with the historical nature of the opera's events, should enable it to remain in the repertoire without undergoing some of the more bizarre reinterpretations that have become commonplace in modern opera productions; it would be difficult, for instance, to stage it as science fiction or to place it in the American antebellum South, as I've seen in some operas I won't mention right now.

Two things that stand out every time I see this opera: first, the second act political ballet, "The Red Detachment of Women," in which the villain of the piece, an unscrupulous landlord taking advantage of the peasants, is played by the same singer who portrays Henry Kissinger, in this case Richard Paul Fink (who played Dr. Edward Teller in Doctor Atomic). Fink's portrayal, which includes a fair amount of interaction with the ballet dancers, is both harrowing and hilarious, given that everyone recognizes that the character so closely resembles Kissinger.

But the real power of the opera comes to light in the final act, in which Dick and Pat reminisce about his time in the Pacific during World War II; Mao and Chiang Ch'ing dance together; and Chou, dying of cancer, looks back with the faint air of disillusionment carried by a man who, with glistening eyes looks into the distance, asks rhetorically "How much of what we did was good?" It is a profoundly moving moment in an act that transcends everything we've seen to this point, a surrealistic look at the ways in which these characters have been scarred in one way or another by how their lives have played out. It is as good a meditation as one will ever see of the immense price that history demands from those who dare to shape it. Whatever one might have been expecting in this opera, this would not have been it; it provides a powerful conclusion to an opera of unique depth and emotion, and well worth the investment in time.

l  l  l

As we seem to be on the subject of historical events, let's go back now to that post-antebellum time following the American Civil War, and the philosophical Western, The Rebel, co-created by and starring Nick Adams. I wrote about this series at some length a few years ago, so I'm not going to go into great detail about the existential meaning of the war, or of this series. Instead, let's look at it for what it is: a very effective half-hour drama that provides both action and an opportunity for reflection.

Adams plays Johnny Yuma, a former Confederate soldier looking for both adventure and a meaning to his life following the war. In that sense, it's reminiscent of another Western, Rod Serling's The Loner, which sought to break away from the conventions of the genre. The Rebel doesn't quite go that far; its situations are more traditional, and Adams's character is a more conventional Western hero. He does, however, have one trait that stands out: a journal that he keeps as he tries to come to terms with the horrors of war and the things he sees and experiences during his journeys.

Although Adams would be nominated for an Academy Award for Supporting Actor in 1963's Twilight of Honor, I'd never really paid that much attention to him in the roles I'd seen him play. He famously self-funded his Oscar campaign, and I'd frequently seen his name used as a punch line for such campaigns. Well, he's really good in The Rebel, and I mean really good. Perhaps it's just me, but he seems to infuse his character with a certain depth, a dignity and gravitas that one doesn't often see in shows like this. I recall a particular moment where he encounters a man who had deserted his unit during a critical battle; notwithstanding the "fog of war" that can cause men to do strange things under stress, Yuma reacts with a subtle but visible disgust that this man would have actually run from his duty—and, perhaps more important, his brothers-in-arms. 

Yuma does the things you'd expect him to do: fights for the underdog, fights against injustice, sees both sides of the conflict with the Indians, etc. He stops to help those who need help, and helps fight their battles even though they're not his battles. But Adams displays a toughness in the role that I hadn't expected. He's more than willing to beat the crap out of the bad guys or hold their heads under water until they cry uncle, and quite honestly, I'm much more partial to that than I am to seeing a hero who tries to get everyone together to talk it out like reasonable adults. Screw that; I say, if you've got a gun, use it! (Of course, with an attitude like that, you can see how television shows got in so much trouble over excessive violence.)

The Rebel may not be a great show, although it ran for two seasons. It is, however, a good one, and frequently a very good one. As I say, I've come to have a greater respect for Adams as an actor, and I like his character. The Rebel is a rare example of a Goodson-Todman production that isn't a game show, and for the most part it's a successful one. There is one sour note though, and that's the theme song, played at the beginning and end, and sung by Johnny Cash. There's nothing wrong with the song per se, and Cash is, of course, a legend, but the song's line doesn't do Cash's voice any favors, calling for a certain smoothness in the high notes that doesn't really suit his style. It's a small quibble, though, and I suspect that Cash fans are fine with it. I'm not his biggest fan myself, but who am I to complain?

l  l  l

Our trio of "based on historical events" ends with a World War II drama, Blue Light, that stars Robert Goulet as David March, an American journalist who has supposedly renounced his American citizenship and joined the Nazis in their campaign to conquer the world. It's a ruse, however, as we're shown in the premiere episode; Goulet is actually a deep-cover sleeper agent; having successfully been planted in Germany prior to the war, he ingratiated himself with the Nazi hierarchy, even taking orders from Hitler, while secretly reporting back to the Americans under the code name "Blue Light," and occasionally being called on to sabotage Nazi war efforts. We're frequently reminded of the importance of March's mission: he is the lone survivor of a 18-man infiltration unit, thus he must be protected. He receives his orders from French underground member Suzanne Duchard (played by Christine Carère), who herself poses as a Gestapo officer.

This is another of the half-hour dramas that used to be common on television in the 1950s and 1960s before the networks were forced to give up a half-hour of prime time to local affiliates. The format works both for and against the show; stories are forced to cut extraneous events in favor of spare, lean storytelling that can work under the right circumstances. It can also be a detriment if the stories are forced to wrap up too quickly and too conveniently. Blue Light is not immune to to the latter, but what helps mitigate this tendency is that the series functions much like a serial, with each episode leading into the next, so much so that the first four episodes were edited into a feature-length movie after the show's cancellation.

Now, this is by no means a perfect series. It's been said that Goulet, who was a star on Broadway and in television for such hits as Camelot, Brigadoon, and Carousel, to branch out into truly dramatic acting, and in Blue Light there's nary a hint of Goulet the recording star; it's very much to the series' credit that they made David March a journalist rather than an entertainer, which would have given the excuse to have Goulet sing a couple of songs in each episode. On the other hand, perhaps the series would have lasted more than 17 episodes if they had done that; one of the drawbacks, one would suppose, of the half-hour format.

Goulet does, however, acquit himself very well as a dramatic actor. He's credible as a tough, smarmy turncoat who secretly carries the burden of playing the heel (his girlfriend was so distressed at his apparent act of treason that she committed suicide; he had been unable to tell even her of his true mission), and at times he shows a true ambivalance about his work, such as an early episode in which March is ordered to kill a fellow double-agent to assuage the Nazis of their suspicions about him; the fellow agent is not only an American but a friend with whom he's worked in the past. The fact that this agent was suffering from an incurable disease and had volunteered for the mission to give his death some meaning was no real solace to March, who worked to find a way in which he could throw the ever-suspicious Nazis off his trail while not having to kill his friend. ("There might yet be a cure!") All right, that was perhaps a little too neat of an ending, but the premise was really good, and posed an interesting moral dilemma.

Something difficult to accept, however, is the many scenes in which March and Duchard discuss his secret plans in settings where they're literally surrounded by German officers and Gestapo agents. Yes, I know they're supposed to be talking sotto voce, and the only reason they seem to be talking so openly is so they're audible to the viewers. Still, it works against the show's credibility, which is important when you're dealing with a premise such as this. Blue Light is not particularly a good show (in fact, the most recent episode we watched was average at best, managing to pack more than a half-hour's worth of cliches into its story), but it's not a bad show either, which is something, and it's an enjoyable show to watch, which is something more. The Rebel may be the better show of our hour-long bloc, but Blue Light mostly holds up its end of the bargain. TV

If you enjoy the content here and want to support my broader creative work, please consider making a donation at my Ko-fi page. Any amount you contribute helps me continue writing, researching, and sharing these articles and projects. Thank you!

What I've been watching: January, 2026

Shows I’ve Watched:
Leonard Bernstein Doctor Atomic The Bell Telephone Hour The Iceman Cometh

Most of the time, my choices in this space focus on television series, and for good reason: this is called "It's About TV," after all, not "It's About Everything Else." (If you want to read that, go to my new author Substance, "In Other Words," which just started yesterday.) It occurs to me, however, that this is a somewhat self-limiting proposition, in that you can watch many different things on television—assuming you don't use your laptop or phone, just about everything you stream comes through your television set. And if you expand the definition of "TV" to include that, it opens up a whole new horizon of things to write about. This comes in especially handy when you've been watching the same series of shows for the past few months.

l  l  l

Having spent an entire paragraph explaining this, it therefore makes perfect sense to start my review of the last month's viewing with an actual television series—two of them, in fact. The first might more properly be considered an occasional series of specials: Leonard Bernstein's series of music lectures that were first presented on (or in place of) Omnibus, the public affairs variety show that aired on all three networks, at one time or another, during the 1950s and 1960s. These aren't the Young People's Concerts that many of you might be familiar with; these are programs done for a general audience, not limited to children. And it shows; while Bernstein, to his eternal credit, never dumbed down his programming for young people, the shows he presented on Omnibus attain a much higher level. So high, in fact, that I have trouble keeping up with some of his concepts.

I have no trouble watching, though, because even if you don't understand everything Bernstein is talking about, you get the gist of it, and when it starts to make sense—when the pieces begin falling into place—it actually gives you a bit of a rush, sort of like answering a question correctly on the old College Bowl series. On one recent program we watched, Leonard Bernstein on Rhythm, which was originally broadcast on March 13, 1960, Bernstein opens the program with films of a beating heart. He then goes to show how rhythms are built upon this natural part of the body: not just the simple beat-beat-beat rhythm, but the in-and-out of breathing, for example—in and out, one and two. He then elaborates on how classical music has been built on these rhythms: four beats, one-two, one-two; followed by a matching set that maintains the same rhythm even though the notes may be varied. These couplets of four-note sections now make up eight beats. This is then multiplied to create various passages that may repeat themselves in various ways throughout the piece. In fact, almost all music written prior to the 20th Century was composed in this manner, either in sets of two or sets of three, but always based on the number two. It is, he says, just like a mathematical equation. I hasten to add that I may not have all this right; I was struggling a bit to keep up. But you get the idea. 

Bernstein then goes on to demonstrate, both at the keyboard and while conducting the New York Philharmonic, how this changed in the 20th Century, using examples that range from Stravinsky to Copland to Gershwin. The patterns become more unpredictable, less symmetric, which helps give them the excitement and movement that can make Stravinsky, for instance, so enthralling to hear. By the end, even though I didn't understand everything, I understood enough. What made it most enthralling, though, was Bernstein's obvious love for his subject and the passion and excitement he was able to transmit to the viewing audience. Anyone with even a vague interest in music will find it impossible to resist. Richard Nixon once wrote that what separates leaders from thinkers is that leaders express their ideas in such a way to inspire, if not compel, others to follow them. If you can't articulate your ideas in such a way, then you're not a leader; you're a thinker. Bernstein comes across the same way; no matter how music was presented to you in school by your music appreciation teacher, it probably didn't captivate you the way Bernstein does. The man's enthusiasm is infectious. I've remarked before that Bernstein left a mixed legacy: his private life was often suspect, and his political ideology was idiotic at best. But when it comes to teaching, to injecting a love of music in those listening to him, to even just talking about music, he has no equal. Of all that he contributed during his lifetime, nothing can even come close to this, and we should all be grateful. It's one of the reasons why, despite all his flaws, I can't help but love Bernstein when I see him in these shows.

l  l  l

Another kind of music appreciation comes to us from The Bell Telephone Hour, the long-running series that was broadcast on NBC from 1959 to 1968. If you remember this, it might well be from the live Christmas specials presented each year, often on or near Christmas Day itself. But there's so much more to it than that, and thankfully, there are some episodes out there, thanks to YouTube, that you can watch and enjoy.

Earlier this week, we saw Robert Young host an hour on the American musical, and while Young might seem at first an odd choice for this—I've never thought of him as having a particular relationship to music—he does a very good job. As I mentioned, for most of its run, Telephone Hour was shown live, which means that in an episode like this, done before a live studio audience, with many separate segments, you need someone who can project the right amount of gravitas, combined with a personable personality and the knack of getting things right. Young certainly fills the bill there, whether he's introducing ballet stars Patricia McBride and Edward Vilella doing the Slaughter on Tenth Avenue dance sequence, the Brothers Four performing a song from Porgy and Bess, or Andre Previn and his trio doing the overture from West Side Story, the show is in good hands. Throw in songs from stars of the time such as Lainie Kazan, Earl Wrightson and Lois Hunt, and a monologue by Young to commemorate Thanksgiving Day (which was less than a week away), and you've got the kind of entertainment that makes people of our age ask why there isn't anything like that anymore.

So Telephone Hour was closely identified with both classical and popular music. In its last season or two, however, its emphasis shifted to filmed documentaries exploring various music topies, whether the history of jazz (Jazz, the Intimate Art, which includes profiles of and performances by Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck and Charles Lloyd and is ten times better than anything Ken Burns could put on, at one-tenth the length, or South Carolina's Spoletto Festival. One of the many lingering gripes I have with my childhood is that The Bell Telephone Hour was frequently preempted in the Twin Cities by other programming; I suppose it was thought too highbrow for some of us yocals. Thankfully, with the internet, I'm at last having my revenge.

l  l  l

What's this, you say? More music? In a word, yes. Most of the Metropolitan Opera presentations done in HD for movie theaters were later repeated on PBS's Great Performances at the Met, so this counts as television. And recently we went back to look at one performance that we did see in the theater, many years ago: Doctor Atomic, the stunning opera by John Adams that tells the story of the testing of the atomic bomb. Now, you might not think that the bomb is a natural subject for an opera, and you'd be right; how many productions can you remember where a mock-up of "the gadget" (as the bomb was frequently referred to during its development) is the centerpiece of the set, always present even when you can't see it? 

As is typical of most modern opera, Doctor Atomic is mostly sung-through, meaning that instead of traditional arias, duets, choral pieces and the like, the dialogue (taken from the notes, memos, diaries, and letters of those people who actually worked on the Manhattan Project) is set to music and sung without repetitions. In the wrong hands, this can make for an extremely boring few hours. Adams pulls it off though, in the same way that he did with another unlikely subject for an opera, Nixon in China. This is due in no small part to the performance of Gerald Finley as J. Robert Oppenheimer, Sasha Cooke as Kitty Oppenheimer, Richard Paul Fink as Edward Teller, and Eric Owens as General Leslie Groves, the head of the project. The first act features a scene with Oppenheimer and his wife Kitty, which is unspeakably intimate without either of them taking off their clothes or even kissing; it's all carried by the choreography and the words, and it is breathtaking. Having seen the movie Oppenheimer a couple of years ago, it gives us a slightly different view of their relationship, but it is fascinating nonetheless.

The moment is exceeded by the concluding aria of Act One—the opera's only aria—"Batter My Heart," set to the text of John Donne's "Holy Sonnet XIV." Finley is spellbinding, and the music, especially at the act's conclusion, is dynamic, driving, propulsive—and laced with dark overtones that hint at what the scientists are well aware of: after the development of the Bomb, the world will never be the same again. The YouTube description calls it "thrilling," and that sums it up pretty well. Opera in general, and this opera in particular, might not be your cup of tea; it doesn't have to be. But it packs a wallop nonetheless.

l  l  l

I've been saving the longest for last. When The Iceman Cometh has been presented on television, it's usually been over two parts: sensible, given that Eugene O'Neill's play runs for nearly four hours, without commercial interruption. However, having watched it a couple of weeks ago, I can vouch that this is the only way to watch it. (Thankfully, it comes with an intermission for bathroom breaks.)

The television version, which aired on Play of the Week in 1960 and starred Jason Robards in the lead as Hickey (and Robert Redford as Parritt), is very good. That, however, is not the version we watched; instead, we opted for the 1973 film adaptation, which was directed by John Frankenheimer, and features a dynamite cast that includes Lee Marvin as Hickey, Fredric March as Harry Hope, Robert Ryan as Larry Slade, Tom Pedi as Rocky Pioggi, Bradford Dillman as Willie Oban, Sorrell Booke as Hugo Kalmar, and Jeff Bridges as Don Parritt. It's a faithful adaptation of the play, trimmed for time but otherwise intact, and it is a brutal experience; the flophouse at which the action takes place resembles nothing so much as hell on earth; Hickey, the travelling salesman whose regular appearances everyone anticipates, arrives this time not as the life of the party, but as a harbinger of doom, an avenging angel, a man preaching a unique type of repentance that involves giving one's self up to the freedom of nihilism.  Make sure you've got some antidepressants available while you're watching it.

Frankenheimer, of course, cut his teeth on live television, and his direction here is steady. And while the performances are uniformly good, a couple of them really stand out, those of Marvin and Robert Ryan. This was Ryan's final screen performance, and he conjures up every bit of world-weariness as a former political anarchist who no longer believes in the cause, and is now simply waiting for death to overtake him. In any other play, his role as a kind of Greek chorus would be what everyone talks about afterward, because he's twice as good as anyone else (including March, as good an actor as has ever graced the stage). However (and you knew there had to be one of those in here somewhere, didn't you?), when Marvin takes the stage, it's as if nobody else exists. Truly. He underplays the role with his patented menace; the quieter he is, the calmer and more collected, the more dangerous he becomes. When he's on camera, he's twice as good as Ryan, and in this play, that's really saying something. It's a performance that legitimizes Marvin's Oscar win (for the comedy Cat Ballou), and certainly could have scored another nomination here. I have a few qualms about O'Neill's play; I would have preferred a slightly different twist at the end, which I won't bore you with here, but who am I to compare myself to O'Neill? Anyway, like Doctor Atomic, this is not for everyone. But if it is for you, you'll thank me for introducing it to you. TV

If you enjoy the content here and want to support my broader creative work, please consider making a donation at my Ko-fi page. Any amount you contribute helps me continue writing, researching, and sharing these articles and projects. Thank you!

What I've been watching: Summer, 2025

Shows I’ve Watched:	Shows I’ve Added:
Waiting for Godot The Power and the Glory	None

If it seems as if we haven't done one of these in awhile, you're right; the last time was in June, if my memory is correct. And there's a good reason for this: there hasn't been much of a change in my viewing habits over the summer and fall. It's been the same shows, week after week, month after month, and while they wouldn't be part of the regular rotation if they weren't fun to begin with, all good things have to end sometime. (And for some, not a moment too soon; I'm looking at you, Joe Mannix!) Following the break for sustained Christmas programming, you can expect to see a shakeup in the lineup, but in the meantime, let's take a look at a couple of notable episodes from the dramatic anthologies of the past, and see what they tell us.

l  l  l

I must admit that it's taken me far too long to watch Samuel Beckett's controversial absurdist play "Waiting for Godot," and while I'm not going to pretend for one minute that I understand it, I will say, with confidence, that my cultural experience has been enhanced by watching the edition that appeared on the 1961 NET Play of the Week production, starring Burgess Meredith and Zero Mostel as  Vladimir and Estragon, the play's protagonists, who spend a couple of hours doing—well, doing nothing. Add in Kurt Kasznar as Pozzo, and Alvin Epstein as Lucky, the slave, and you have it. What it is is, of course, up to interpretation.

I'm not going to presume to try and explain the premise of "Godot," other than to say that the titular character, Godot, never shows up. Will he? Did he ever intend to? Is there, in fact, any such person as Godot? We'll never know, and Beckett doesn't intend to help us figure out the answers to any of these questions, or anything else, for that matter. 

So what does one do when confronted with a story that one can't really describe? Describe it, naturally! Not the story per se but the production, which I enjoyed a great deal—more than many of the contemporary critics, if the reviews I've read are any indication. For one thing, it was clearly and undeniably a television adaptation; the limits of the set were apparent, the staging was minimal, and the direction clearly a product of the live TV era. I am, of course, a sucker for all of these things. Given the choice between the Metropolitan Opera's "Live in HD" series of broadcasts and the old, studio-bound operas of NBC Opera Theatre, I'll opt for the latter any time. I suppose it's a product of being a television historian, or maybe it's just misplaced nostalgia for a time that preceded my own viewing, but I do enjoy the limitations inherent in even the best of these old made-for-TV productions. And even though this wasn't a live broadcast, it well could have been, based on what we saw.

Burgess Meredith is, without question, one of those actors who elevate everything in which he appears. He's one of the most natural of actors, and here he tosses off Beckett's challenging absurdities as if they were the most natural thing in the world. Zero Mostel, on the other hand, can be a bit broad, and we see that here. Now, I didn't bring any preconceived notions or prejudices to my viewing of this, which means that I don't have a definite idea of how Estragon, Mostel's character, is usually played, or should be played. What I do know is that he and Meredith made, I thought, an effective team; more so than some of the gimmick casting that Broadway has been known to indulge in over the years. 

But here's the thing—and, as I often point out, there's always a thing:I did actually find that "Godot" made more sense than I thought it would. Now, this might be my own personal interpretation, or perhaps I'm seeing it through a more contemporary influence than others, but when you look at this Godot character, who's talked about constantly but never seen, what does he remind you of? For me, it was the endless series of promises that comprise so much of what we're fed nowadays. Politicians promise us they'll take care of what ails us, but do they? Doctors promise the latest vaccine will keep us healthy, but does it? We're always being told that we have to be more patient, more understanding, willing to come back day after day after mind-numbing day, with the promise that things might have improved by then.

You notice all the similarities here? We're always being promised something that never comes to pass, just like Godot's promises that he'll be here tomorrow, or perhaps the day after tomorrow, or possibly the day after that. Godot is, if you want to look at it, the Big Brother of absurdist theatre, unseen but influencing everything. Or, like The Prisoner, Godot could be us, only we don't see ourselves as we truly are, which only underlines our own weakness. Perhaps he's dead. Perhaps he doesn't even exist. Maybe he never did; maybe we're all just being fed a line. And yet: he continues to control our lives, and nothing ever changes.

To me, it makes perfect sense, which is to say that it makes no sense at all.

l  l  l

And now for something completely different, namely Graham Greene's magnificent novel The Power and the Glory, which was translated into a somewhat less magnificent 1961 television broadcast produced by David Susskind, starring Sir Laurence Olivier, and co-starring George C. Scott, Julie Harris, Martin Gabel, Roddy McDowall, Keenan Wynn, Patty Duke, and Cyril Cusack, among others. Like "Godot," The Power and the Glory has the feel of a television play, rather than a movie. Perhaps something from the Hallmark Hall of Fame, back in the day what one could count on quality from that series.

Unlike "Godot," which actually benefits from the claustrophic atmosphere created by the studio-bound production, The Power and the Glory is a sprawling, epic saga taking in a priest's twin journey: one that takes him through various parts of Mexico during the persecution of Catholics, in search of safety and rest; the other, a journey of self, as he discovers how, despite his many flaws and failings, the priesthood is something that fundamentally, and permanently, changes a man. He can leave the active priesthood, he can be defrocked or laicized, but the mark remains on him: he can never escape the fact that he will always be a priest.

Our whiskey priest, played by Olivier, is only too well-aware of his limitations: not only is he an alcoholic, more concerned about getting his next drink than anything else, he also fathered an illegitimate child while in the clerical state. His failings have imposed a crushing burden on him, a sense of unworthiness that is painful and heartbreaking to witness. Although Olivier has a tendency to chew the scenery, especially in the early going, the pain he exhibits is undeniable, and impossible to ignore; it is present in every syllable he utters, every motion he makes, every thought he espouses. His quest for wine to be used as a sacramental for the Mass, which ends with him drunk and held in a squalid jail cell, is typical: his inability to procure the wine is both cause and effect of his desire for drink. His drinks to forget his failures as a man, a father, a priest. His depression over his condition merely reinforces his weaknesses, his dependency on alcohol. It is a most vicious circle.

I wrote about The Power and the Glory in a TV Guide feature from a couple of weeks ago, when the production was looked upon with great anticipation. For Olivier, it was a return to the medium which had given him an Emmy for his performance in The Moon and Sixpence, and it was expected that The Power and the Glory would be equally heralded. In the event, it was not. It was good, and at times better than that; the performances, especially those by Scott as the relentless office obsessed with the priest's capture (think The Fugitive's Lieutenant Gerard, only with a Spanish accent and a persecution complex) and Martin Gabel as Scott's cynical superior, are intense. And as I say, even though the great Sir Laurence's essay on the role—broad at times, mannered at others—still conveys the sense of nobility that remains embedded in this man who finally realizes that his death may afford a dignity to his life that life itself often failed to deliver.

What these two productions do have in common, above all, is that they both exist today, a somewhat unlikely result given all of the television history that has been lost in the mists of time (or the dumpsters of various networks). That dramas such as these might show up on television today is a pretty unlikely thought. Maybe "Godot," because for all its inscrutability, it does, as I said earlier, lend itself to gimmick casting, the type that PBS is so fond of (think Steve Martin and Martin Short, for example). The Power and the Glory, however, is far less likely to show up any time soon, especially given its subject matter of religion, the third rail of American culture. And the idea that human dignity can rise above even the greatest of a man's failings and give his life (or any life, for that matter) meaning? Well, talk about absurd. TV

If you enjoy the content here and want to support my broader creative work, please consider making a donation at my Ko-fi page. Any amount you contribute helps me continue writing, researching, and sharing these articles and projects. Thank you!

What I've been watching: June, 2025

Shows I’ve Watched:	Shows I’ve Added:
Adventures in Paradise New York: A Documentary Film Sherlock Holmes	Danger Man

If it seems a little lame to be writing about a series I'm watching for the second time, then I'm afraid I'll have to plead guilty. Thursday evenings have been problematic for a while, between finishing work on the book (Darkness in Primetime, for those of you scoring at home, or even if you're just watching) and keeping up with this here blog. What makes them more challenging is that the Friday "Around the Dial" feature can't really be finished until Thursday, to make sure I include as many blogs as possible. Additionally, if I've fallen behind on my weekend TV Guide essay, Thursday evening becomes an advantageous time to catch up. Therefore, it had become a kind of "To Be Announced" evening, one in which I might be viewing, or I might be typing. What better way to fill in a tentative gap than with a rerun of a beloved series that won't suffer if I happen to miss a week here and there?

This all brings us to Jeremy Brett's definitive portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in the succession of adventures bearing the Holmes name. I won't take a lot of time to recap, because I've written about the show before, but suffice it to say that Brett, who played Holmes from 1984-94 is everything you'd want Holmes to be: quirky, quick-witted, self-assured, occasionally tortured, frequently arrogant, and virtually always right. He's also surprisingly nimble, of body as well as mind, and I bring that up because it points out how important the physical portrayal of Holmes can be. That physicality projects not only his determination, but the rapidity of his mind; and his body language establishes that, for the criminal, he truly is a dangerous man.

Holmes is aided in his sleuthing by his loyal comrade, Dr. Watson, played by David Burke in the first season and Edward Hardwicke in subsequent seasons. This is a Watson who is very smart indeed, a far cry from the bumbling Watson we see in Nigel Bruce's portrayal; he's not at the level of Holmes, of course, but he's learned well from his compatriot, and each episode contains a bit in which Watson demonstrates how he's picked up on the art of observation, often listing the very same clues that Holmes has seen. The difference, of course, is that Watson frequently fails to come to the same conclusion—that is, the correct conclusion—as Holmes, and the cutting retort from Holmes can sometimes be painful, to us as well as to the good doctor, who is the most loyal of friends. Holmes is always quick to temper his remarks, though, and there's no doubt that when he compliments Watson, it is no mere flattery. The chemistry between Brett and both of his Watsons is excellent; it makes them a truly compatible, and formidable, team. Throw in literate, even elegant, scripts (many by John Hawkesworth) and period details that create a perfect atmosphere, and you've got just the thing for those nights when you're looking for a break. Oh, and did I mention that since plugging the Holmes repeats into the schedule, I haven't had to spend even one evening working on the blog? No mere coincidence, I suspect.

l  l  l

The second half of Thursday night's dynamic duo—and, if I'm being honest, the program most likely to get preempted if I do have work to catch up on—is Adventures in Paradise, or if we're going to be precise about it, James A. Michener's Adventures in Paradise, which ran on ABC for three seasons and 91 episodes between 1959 and 1962. The show has the look and feel of a Warner Bros. production, with an exotic location, and impressive list of guest stars, and a hunky hero who winds up being involved in solving mysteries. Not all the time, perhaps, but more often than you or I are probably called upon. (The last mystery I had to solve was tracking down where I'd left my missing brain.) 

It's not a WB show, however, but one from 20th Century Fox, and the man responsible for it as co-executive producer was Dominick Dunne, who, prior to reinventing himself as a true crime author and raconteur par excellence, was a television executive looking to cast the lead in his new series. As Dunne tells it, the studio had been screen-testing "all the best-looking young actors in Hollywood" for the part, and Ron Ely had the inside track. Then, along came Gardner McKay:

One day in a coffee shop, I saw, sitting at a nearby table in a languid pose, reading a book of poetry, a startlingly handsome young man with attitude, whom I later described to Martin Manulis, the head of television at Fox, as "a little Gary Cooper, a little Cary Grant, a little Ty Power and a lot of Errol Flynn." He was at the time, in the parlance of the town, nobody, absolutely nobody, but his attitude declared that he was somebody. I dropped my Fox business card on his table and said, "If you’re interested in discussing a television series, call me." He did, and we tested him. Gardner’s test was certainly not among the top three or four in the acting department, but as the production staff sat in the projection room, we’d keep going back to it, and one of us would say, "This guy’s got something." Finally, we gave him the part. 

That's exactly it, I think; it fits my perception of the series perfectly. Watching it, you come away with two things: McKay's not a great actor, by any stretch; and there's something about him, a presence that makes you certain of two qualities that all television heroes have to have: everything's going to turn out right in the end, and the villain of the piece is going to be sorry he tangled with him. He also comes across as a very interesting person—McKay, I mean, not the character he plays, Captain Adam Troy, although Troy is a pleasant-enough character. And indeed McKay was an interesting man: he wrote books and plays, was a newspaper drama critic, and taught a writing class. He didn't really like acting, although, as Dunne says, he liked being a star, and he was good at it.

The point is that, while Adventures in Paradise is not great television, it is fun television, another reason I make the comparison to the WB detective shows. Each week Captain Troy and his schooner Tiki III, sailing the South Pacific "looking for passengers and adventure" and finding it; else, where would the series be? I don't know if your life is going to be dramatically enhanced by watching the episodes available on YouTube, and you're not going to be taxed if you do something else while you're watching it, but I've never found it less than enjoyable, and sometimes you just aren't in the mood for hate-watching a series.

l  l  l

In 1999, PBS premiered a documentary series called New York, which was about the history of the city so nice they named it twice. It was directed and co-written by Ric Burns (brother of Ken), and at the time of its premiere, it was far behind schedule and was shaping up to last far longer than its scheduled 10-hour duration. Finally, the decision was made to release the first five episodes (ten hours in all), covering the years 1609-1931, on five consecutive nights in November 1999; the concluding episode (which quickly ballooned to two episodes) would air at a later date. 

As fate would have it, those two episodes, dealing with the city from the Great Depression to the present, aired on September 30 and October 1, 2001: 19 days after the destruction of the World Trade Center. The final episode was quickly edited to include a reference to the terrorist attack, and then, in September, 2003, came yet another episode, a three-hour special that focused solely on the Twin Towers and their own history. In all, the series ran for eight episodes and 17½ hours. 

Watching it again for the first time since its original run, I'm struck by several things. First is how overwhelmingly unlikeable the city is, and how exaggerated in importance it is. Note that I said "importance" there, not "influence," because there's no question that New York City pulled the strings in this country for many years, for good and ill. What hits you, though, is how much ill there is to it: not only an obsession with democracy and diversity that even the series can't convince you has been successful; but the sheer arrogance of it all, the idea that the rest of the country really is "flyover" territory, good only for providing tourist dollars. (And wouldn't it be great if one could get the dollars without having to deal with the tourists!) For decades, people have looked at New York as not really being a part of the United States at all, but something separate, strange, alien. New York serves to reinforce that attitude two, three, four times over. When you see the famous "Ford to City: Drop Dead" headline from the 1970s, you want to stand up and cheer.

And yet.

New York: A Documentary Film is, without a doubt, one of the most fascinating, compelling documentary series I've ever seen. It comes by that honestly, with a cast of colorful characters that rivals any fictional series television ever came up with, from Al Smith to Fiorello La Guardia to Robert Moses; an architectural history that spans Central Park, the Empire State Building, and the aforementioned World Trade Center; a history that does seem to encompass the whole of American history; a remarkable place, all in all, with something that other places just seem to lack. Even the hatred one might have for the city has to acknowledge this.

And the series, for my money, is the equal of anything brother Ken ever produced. David Ogden Stiers's overall narration is superb, neither cloyingly emotional nor deadly dull; the voice talent, provided by well-known actors and personalities reading letters, newspaper articles, and speeches, is completely appropriate, letting the written words speak for themselves; the commentary, from noted historians and public figures, is both knowledgeable and articulate, and even if you disagree with what they're saying, you can't stop listening to them. The combination of paintings, still photographs, and video (some of it quite remarkable) is riveting, and the score, primarily that composed by Brian Keane, is heart-rendingly evocative.

The final three episodes, which cover New York's fall into disrepair and disgrace, its recovery and rejuvenation, and the horror and heartbreak of September 11, are the most outstanding parts of this series, but without the previous five episodes to set the stage, they wouldn't be nearly as good, which is one reason why the entire 17½ hours need to be consumed. And at the end—or is it? Another two episodes have, for some time, been said to be in the works, bringing the series up to date—a viewer comes away from it exhausted and exhilarated, inspired and disgusted, and understanding that great cities, like great people, can inspire both love and hatred at the same time. And why shouldn't that be the case? After all, a city remains, ultimately, a collection of people: good and bad, rich and poor, beautiful and ugly, admirable and dissolute. In the case of New York, it just seems to have more of all of it than anyplace else. And perhaps that's just the way they'd have it. TV  

What I've been watching: April, 2025

Shows I’ve Watched:	Shows I’ve Added:
World War I	Owen Marshall Sherlock Holmes The New Avengers

It might seem hard to belive for television viewers today, but back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the idea of a weekly series using only documentary footage was not only possible, it was done several times. In the early part of the 1950s, NBC had scored a big success with its 26-episode Victory at Sea, chronicling the naval campaigns of World War II to a soundtrack by Richard Rodgers that was a success in its own right. 

The ’60s saw networks leaning hard into historical nonfiction, especially on ABC and CBS, where series like ABC’s FDR (1965) and Churchill: The Valiant Years (1960–61) joined CBS’s own The 20th Century (1957–66) and Air Power (1956–57). These shows were cut from the same cloth: big stories about big figures and eras, told with a mix of gravitas and thrift. FDR (with narration by Arthur Kennedy, and Charlton Heston reading the words of FDR) traced Roosevelt’s life over 27 episodes, while Churchill leaned on Sir Winston’s own words (as delivered by Richard Burton), winning an Emmy for its trouble. 

While FDR and Churchill both aired in prime time, CBS’s The 20th Century, a follow-up to Air Power, was a Sunday afternoon staple for a decade. Narrated by Walter Cronkite, The 20th Century tackled everything from the Wright brothers to the Russian Revolution, while Air Power (also voiced by Cronkite) zeroed in on aviation’s military leap. What tied them together? Archival footage was the secret sauce—miles of it, often dirt-cheap or free from government and private collections. This let producers keep budgets lean while delivering authenticity no soundstage could match. In an era before CGI, those flickering images were TV’s time machine, making history feel immediate without breaking the bank.

I mention these not because I'm about to review them for you; I'm not. But it helps put in perspective CBS's 1964-65 series World War I, which is this month's feature attraction. The series aired first on Tuesdays at 8:00 p.m., later shifting to Sundays at 6:30 to sidestep ABC’s Combat! With actor Robert Ryan providing the narration, and a soundtrack by Morton Gould that is both evocative and haunting, the series led viewers from pre-war saber-rattling to the bitter Versailles Treaty, with no gimmicky sound effects, no somber readings by famous voice artists, no on-camera experts talking about what we were seeing. No, the network wisely let the grainy still images and jerky movie footage carry the weight—and carry it it does, over 26 episodes that provide some of the starkest, most sobering images of war ever seen on television. If ever you've wondered about mankind's ability to be both evil and stupid, often at the same time, you'll get your answers here.

What set World War I apart in the crowded ’60s TV grid was its scope. This wasn’t just about battles—it dug into the why and how: empires collapsing, technology rewriting warfare, entire continents reshaped. Episodes spanned Sarajevo’s spark to the armistice’s fallout, touching on propaganda, civilians, and the global chessboard. CBS News, with heavyweights like Burton Benjamin and Isaac Kleinerman, treated TV as a public square, not a circus. In a decade where Vietnam was creeping onto screens and the Cold War loomed, a series about a distant war felt like a quiet warning.

It's true that none of these series broke ratings records; in fact, when you browse through TV Guides of the era, you'll see that there were a fair number of affiliates that chose to either substitute their own programming or move these documentaries to a time when their low viewership wouldn't be such a drain on the advertising dollar. However, their critical success, combined with the obvious attention to historical detail, were the networks' answer to the rising criticism coming from influential circles (i.e. Washington) regarding the lack of substance of network programming. Oh, and did I mention that they were relatively easy on the programming budget?

But back to World War I for a moment: it's a part of history that holds a particular interest for me, and I've seen a good number of documentaries over the years telling of the futility of the Great War, and the horrible price the world paid for such folly. Over the 13 hours of this series, you'll see that folly on display over and over again: how naive everyone was in thinking the war would last only a few years; the muck and mire of trench warfare; the evil of the generals sending young men to be slaughtered while they remained safely behind the lines; the utter destruction of countrysides, forests, cities and towns. And for what? So we could do it all over again a couple of decades later? That might be a bit of a simplification, but not by much.

World War I is not easy to find online; I was fortunate enough to cop the DVD set at Half Price Books a couple of years ago. But if you get the chance, make a commitment to find it and watch it. I can't say you'll be sorry, because one of the overriding emotions to come from this series is sorrow: for those who suffered in the past, and those who will suffer in the future. Becuase if there's one thing we learn from history, it's that we don't learn anything from history. TV