Around the dial

I don't generally begin things with a non-television thought, but Bob Sassone had a very interesting piece last week that's stuck with me the more I've read it. It's called URL vs. IRL, and it's all about how we ought to be spending more time in real life (IRL) rather than on social media (URL). I won't attempt to summarize it here; I'd prefer that you go to the link and read it for yourself, because then you won't be deprived of either his fine writing or his excellent reasoning. 

Suffice it to say that, as someone who spends a pretty fair amount of time online, I not only feel his pain (to coin a phrase), I feel it myself. This may sound strange coming from me, given how I not only write four pieces a week for this site, but also spend time on X, Facebook, and other platforms in support of my writing projects. Quite frankly, though, I'm sick and tired of it all. I've met some wonderful friends through these platforms, and I've been the beneficial recipient of some brilliant insight from others (I'm not shy about admitting it), but it all gets quite tiresome and demoralizing to witness all the internecine fights among (and between) various cliques, the clickbait masquerading as news, the dull-witted stupidity of some people, the elitist condescenation of others, the cheapening and coarsening of debate and conversation, and the effort required to make one's way through it all. It's harder to get through X or Facebook while avoiding all this crap than, one supposes, it is to make your way through quicksand. (Which isn't usually all that deep, as it happens.)  

Again, this has nothing to do with television, except that I think it's good for all of us to reflect on it periodically and do something about it, So instead of hate-surfing the web, watch a decent television show from the past. Better yet, instead of streaming some mindless stupidity on YouTube, go out for a walk. Don't worry about the resolution of your screen; think more about the amazing experience of real-life HD that can be found simply by looking all around you at the miracle and wonder of God's creation. You might even find yourself making a habit of it, as I hope will be the case with me. 

At Comfort TV, David's journey through the 1970s continues with Saturday night, 1976: CBS's heavyweight lineup starts to show signs of fatigue, but can anyone else catch up? Holmes and Yoyo, Mr. T and Tina, and Doc suggest that the answer is "no." 

The 50th anniversary Space: 1999 celebration concludes at Captain Video with a comic book and record set of the pilot. "It's fun to read as you hear!" I don't know if we have tie-ins like that anymore; I suppose in the era of streaming and DVD, why would you bother?

At Cult TV Blog, John's investigation as to whether The Prisoner references Soviet Russia brings us to the episode "A, B and C," in which the analogy actually matches up pretty well. Food for thought, for us Prisoner aficionados, the next time we watch the series.

Our friend Gill is celebrating the tenth anniversary of Realweegiemidget with a look back at some of her biggest posts from the past ten years, as well as a preview of coming attractions. I hope you're making her a part of your regular blog reading.

At Mavis Movie Madness, Paul looks at the seriously intense (not to mention kinky) 1975 telemovie thriller The Legend of Lizzie Borden, with Elizabeth Montgomery's spellbinding star turn as the title character. It's a fascinating part of Americana; you can actually read the trial transcripts online!

One of the last greats from the Golden Age of movies and television (Lassie, Lost in Space, and Petticoat Junction to name a few) was the great June Lockhart, who made it all the way to age 100 before dying last week, and Terence has a very nice tribute to her at A Shroud of Thoughts.

If you're out trick-or-treating tonight, be careful, and watch out for the goblins—not just those in costume, but the ones in real life. 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!

Around the dial

Are you ready for more Space: 1999? You'd better be, because that's where we begin this week, as the 50th anniversary celebration continues at Captain Video. Instead of graphic adaptations, though, this time, it's a short story version of the pilot episode.

Back in the days when Hallmark made more than Christmasy romcom telemovies, Teri Garr appeared in the 1987 Hall of Fame adaptation of Pack of Lies, a British Cold War drama that makes for compelling viewing, according to Gill at RealWeegieMidget. Those were the days.

There's not much to add to this 1960 ad for RCA televisions at the Broadcast Archives, except this: I wish I looked this good while I was watching TV.

Hard for me to believe that Halloween is just a week away, but for those of you celebrating, at Classic Film & TV Cafe, Rick has an excellent list of the 25 greatest classic horror films. But why wait; if you feel like it, watch one of them tonight!

\

More spooky favorites? Let's go over to Mavis Movie Madness, where Paul looks at the 1973 ABC Movie of the Week Dying Room Only, written by Richard Matheson, and starring Cloris Leachman, Ned B eatty, Ross Martin, and Dabney Coleman. Fine story, terrific cast.

John continues with his series on The Prisoner and Soviet-era Russia at Cult TV Blog. This week, it's "The Chimes of Big Ben," and how the episode suggests such Soviet concepts as social parsitism, the refusal to work, and how Number 2 mirrors Joseph Stalin. Fascinating stuff.

Completing our terrifying trio is Martin Grams's review of The Creeping Unknown, the 1956 movie better known, perhaps, as The Quatermass Experiment, based on the much-loved BBC TV series of the early 1950s (and its sequels), and written by the great Nigel Kneale.

Eventually, Roger will come to the end of A-Team episodes, and then we'll be searching for something else to link to; in the meantime, the show continues, and now we're up to the episode "In Plane Sight," a nice turn of phrase for a story of a pilot falsely accused of drug smuggling.

I'll admit I didn't remember the 1973 sitcom Thicker Than Water, starring Julie Harris and Richard Long; the last show I recalled Long from was Nanny and the Professor, and quite frankly, my attention back then was directed elsewhere. Remember it now with this commercial, at Television Obscurities. 

Samantha Eggar was one of those actresses I would describe as "handsome," a type of beauty that is in no way denigrated by the masculine suggestion. She was very lovely, if you prefer. She died last week, aged 86, and Terence has a tribute to her career at A Shroud of Thoughts. 

What's this? No Hadley self-promotion this week? Sorry, but you knew it had to be coming: my latest appearance with Dan Schneider is another two-fer, regarding two of the most prominent religious figures in television history, Billy Graham and Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. God Bless! 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!

Around the dial

Ary as I might to avoid it, I can't keep from promoting my latest podcast apperances. We'll lead off with Tumbleweeds and Cowboys, where I join Hunter to discuss three episodes of The Twilight Zone that take place in the Old West. This is a terrific podcast, by the way; I can warmly recommend you make it a part of your classic television podcast listening. After that, it's the latest episode of Eventually Supertrain, as Dan and I discuss Garrison's Gorillas; you'll also want to catch segments on Ghosted and one of Dan's all-time favorites, Bronk. (Just kidding, there!) And now, a return to our regular programming.

At Cult TV Blog, John continues his in-depth look at "Arrival," the first episode of The Prisoner, and whether or not the series serves as an allegory for Soviet Russia. I really enjoy this kind of speculative analysis, epecially when dealing with a series as deep and complex as this one.

Speaking of continuations, at Captain Video we're on to the third version of the Space: 1999 pilot, "Moonless Night," as seen in the comics. It's all a part of the 50th anniversary of the premiere of the series. 

A quick but classic entry at the Broadcast Archives, with an ad for Ernie Kovacs's morning drive-time radio program on WABC, done even as Kovacs also was doing a mid-morning show on NBC-TV. Monday through Friday for both of these; mayhem in the a.m. indeed!

'Tis the season for a classic Halloween TV movie, don't you think? David has the answer at Comfort TV, with the 1978 telemovie Are You in the House Alone?, an excellent demonstration of how television didn't need blood and gore to portray horror. 

Did we know that the guys on the A-Team were venture capitalists? Well, why the heck not? Over at The View from the Junkyard, Roger's latest on The A-Team takes us to the episode "The Maltese Cow" because, again, why not?

One of the shows on my "want" list is the 1962 drama The Gallant Men, and at Television's New Frontier: The 1960s, it's a look at episodes from the one and only season of the World War II drama. A big thanks for the shout-out to my interview with Brandon Hollinsworth from a few years back!

This has nothing to do with television other than the connection that we've probably all seen The Moody Blues on the tube, but at A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence pays tribute to the great John Lodge, who died late last week. I was fortunate enough to see the Moodys live twice; they were always one of my favorite groups, and I wouldn't pass up the chance to make mention of him here. 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!

Around the dial

It's been awhile, but at Cult TV Blog, John returns to the world of The Prisoner with his continuing series in which he looks at various interpretations of the series. This week, it's a very interesting look at The Prisoner as an allegory of the Soviet Union.

Captain Video continues his own series, in which we look at various comic adaptations of the pilot for Space: 1999. Compare and contrast with last week's edition, which did a much more complete job with the same episode.

Speaking of comic book adaptations, at bare•bones e-zine, Jack and Peter continue their survey of DC's 1960s Batman comics. You can certainly see the resemblance between the TV series and the comics from the late 60s, and don't worry: Batgirl is there too!

At A Shroud of Thoughts, Terence pays tribute to Dame Patricia Routledge, who died last week at 96; best-known for the British classic Keeping Up Appearances, she had a long and varied career in both television and movies, including To Sir, With Love and If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium.

At Classic Film & TV Corner, Maddie revisits one of Kurosawa's great films, Stray Dogs, starring the incomparable Toshiro Minfue and Takashi Shimura; I mention this as a happy reminder of when we subscribed to the Criterion Channel, and got to discover the gems in Japanese noir.

The View from the Junkyard takes on politics in The A-Team episode "The White Ballot," and as Roger points out, the episode gives us some insight into political corruption; I particularly like the idea of returning to the days of tar and feathers, myself.

At The Lucky Strike Papers, Andrew has some thoughts on recent interviews with Rob Reiner, as it relates to early television. In particular, he talked about how his family bought their first set so they could see father Carl on Saturday night's Your Show of Shows. What a radical change TV was.

Finally at Television Obscurities, Robert has a brief clip from CBS from an undetermined date, at a time when they were promoting themselves as "America’s No. 1 Network for 17 Years In A Row." I wonder where today's top shows, whatever they are, would fit in those rankings; probably right at the top. 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!

Around the dial

I'm dating myself again, I know, but I can remember when Space: 1999 was supposed to be the next big thing, the first "adult" science-fiction series since Star Trek. It didn't quite turn out that way, but Captain Video dives into the comic collection to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the series. Fifty years; wow.

At RealWeegieMidget, Gill combines movies and television in one neat package with a look at the 1980 telemovie The Scarlett O'Hara War, the story of David O. Selznick's search for the actress to play the aforementioned leading lady (as well as other backstage tales) in his upcoming epic, Gone with the Wind.  

And now, a trio of posts that have a tangential tie-in to my new book, Darkness in Primetime. First, at Comfort TV, David makes a gracious note of the book in his essay on "When is Classic TV important?" What makes one program more important than another? We all have our answers, but this is a good place to begin the discussion.

At The Twilight Zone Vortex, Brian takes a look at the memorable fifth-season TZ episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You," a frightening story of enforced conformity and loss of individuality; this episode is covered in Chapter 5 of Darkness in Primetime.

At Cult TV Blog, John reviews the mid-1970s series Survivors, a post-apocalyptic drama that explores the aftermath of a deadly global pandemic. John first viewed this series in 2020, in the midst of COVID Theater, which coincidentally was a major factor driving the genesis of Darkness in Primetime. There: self-promotion done.

We're not finished with British TV, though; at Silver Scenes, the Metzinger Sisters tease us with a preview of How, a children's series that ran for 17 seasons between 1966 and 1981. They'll have more on this in the coming weeks, but for now take a look at this clip and see what you think.

One more from across the pond? Why not! At Classic Film and TV Corner, Maddie looks at five British period dramas from the 1970s that more people should watch. Perhaps you've heard of them, perhaps not, but they're all dramas worth checking out.;

At A View from the Junkyard, Roger returns to The A-Team and the episode "Steel," a straightforward and uncompromising look at organized crime in the United States. It's no documentary, but neither does it seek to romanticize the mob, as so many shows continue to do. Let's just say that our fearless heroes aren't going to back down in the face of a formidable foe.

We were touching on trios earlier on, and here's a trio of posts from Television Obscurities: one on the 70th anniversary of The Honeymooners as a stand-alone series; a second on other series, well-known and otherwise, commemorating anniversaries this month; and a third, an audio clip from the opening of CBS's 1969 presentation of Mark Twain Tonight!, sponsored by Xerox, and starring Hal Holbrook.

Terence also has a piece on The Honeymooners over at A Shroud of Thoughts, as well as recognition of yet another series celebrating a 70th anniversary, Alfred Hitchcock Presents. What a great time for television, as we saw in my TV Guide review last Saturday.

And let's keep going with that TV Guide theme, as Martin Grams has more TV Guide trivia from 1959, including pitches for upcoming series (imagine Beetle Bailey starring Mort Sahl!), and a proposal for a big-screen version of Peter Lawford's The Thin Man, which itself was based on a big-screen version of Dashiell Hammett's famous novel.

Finally, if you're fortunate to have multiple sub-channels where you live, Remind Magazine tells you that you might be in luck, as Weigel Broadcasting (MeTV, etc.) has a new classic channel: WEST, featuring all Westerns, all day, every day. You can do worse; much worse. 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!