The running men

From The Fugitive to The Immortal, Run for Your Life to Run Buddy Run, classic television has told the stories of people on the run—from the law, from criminals, from death itself. The Fugitive was praised for its decision to bring to an end the premise which had sustained the series for four seasons; in this era of closed-loop storytelling, which suggests that every series contains an overall arc with a beginning, a middle and an end, it’s difficult to imagine a series that doesn’t provide some type of closure—"The Day the Running Stopped." The notable exception to this, of course, is the final episode of The Sopranos, which ends with an abrupt cut to black, and leaves the viewer forever in the dark as to what happens next. Considering the hue and cry accompanying that ending, it's probably unlikely we’ll ever see an ending like that again, or at least one left open to so many possibilities.

In a way, though, there’s something fitting about those series for which no end is provided. I’m not suggesting they do this intentionally; usually, the decision is made for them, in the form of low ratings, stars ready to move on, or recalcitrant network executives. Still, it seems to me that perhaps leaving things open-ended isn’t really such a bad idea, at least in some instances. It forces both the show's viewers and its creators to consider the existential implications of life, and how their characters fit into that scheme. Viewers, for instance, are left to fill in the blanks after the ending of a show like The Sopranos, and in doing so, they not only display their perspective on what the show was all about, they also reveal a great deal about themselves and their own way of thinking: their values, their moral convictions, their philosophy of life. 

And what do those shows themselves tell us? In providing for an end to the four-season odyssey of Richard Kimble, Quinn Martin was following in the footsteps of Route 66, which also provided for an end to the journey—at least for Tod, when he decided it was time to settle down and marry Barbara Eden. (Smart man!) That suggests our heroes were not so much running away from something, as running toward something. Tod finds that, or at least thinks he has, but we’re not sure about Linc, let alone Buz. The question remains, though: if they were running toward life, toward something that they perhaps can’t define but will recognize when they see it, what are they running away from? A life without hope, without meaning, a boring, 9-to-5 job that provides security, whereas the adrenaline that is the spice of life comes from insecurity?*

*You could include Then Came Bronson in that discussion as well. And then, as someone pointed out to me, there's The Incredible Hulk, that most melancholic of superhero series, in which our tragic hero David Banner finds himself in a dual race, running not only from the pursuing journalist, but from himself as well.

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Is The Immortal really running away from his pursuers, or is he running away from the burden of being immortal? The setup of having the hero pursued by the heavy was not only exceedingly conventional, it was probably necessary in order to get the show on the air. But there’s a twist to the convention: Ben Richards is useless to Jordan Braddock if he’s dead; Richards must be kept alive in order to produce the rare blood that enables him to cheat death, the blood that Braddock wants. If the implication is that Braddock wants to keep Richards alive, then it also follows that by running from Braddock’s henchman Fletcher, Richards is also running from eternity, or at least natural eternity. One could say that he is running from a false life, running toward death, or the possibility of death, which is the only way a man can truly feel alive. Think of this series in another way, one which probably never would make it to television, but is intriguing nonetheless: Ben Richards, unable to experience death in a natural way and unwilling to take his own life (because he still has scruples) dedicates his life to taking outrageous risks for the purpose of helping others. It could be anything from climbing a tree to rescue an old woman’s cat to dashing into a flaming house to rescue a small child. Perhaps he takes on the mob to save the life of a young man who’s fallen into debt, or offers himself as a human hostage to prevent an international incident. There are an endless number of ways to risk your own life, after all, and if you can’t do something good with the life you’ve been given, what good is it? 

I think you get the picture here. The most existential question of all is that of the meaning of life; while Dr. Richard Kimble hoped to get his life back after being exonerated of the murder of his wife, his real-life counterpart, Dr. Sam Sheppard, was never able to recover what had been his, and stumbled through years of wrestling professionally and drinking heavily before meeting a premature death. Sam Sheppard could not return to the life he once lived—but having died as a man, he continues to live as a legal precedent, and if that precedent (Sheppard v. Maxwell) makes a difference in the lives of others, perhaps even saving the lives of others by ensuring them a fair trial, could he be said to have died at all—or did he, in some mysterious way, experience the suffering of a life lost in order to provide life to others? Does that make him any different from our alternate version of Ben Richards? And what hope does that give Dr. Kimble? Unlike Sheppard, he was able to continue interacting with others during his journey, rather than spending years in prison—will the life of a successful pediatrician still appeal to him? 

Perhaps the most profound lesson we can learn is from the story of Paul Bryan, the protagonist of Run for Your Life. Like Kimble, he is running for his life, but whereas Kimble is trying to escape the death house, Bryan is attempting to outrun the disease that will claim his life in two or three years. We don’t see how his race ends; there was much derision over a series about a man with two years to live running for three seasons, but remember: television doesn’t measure time in the same way that calendars do. (Otherwise, M*A*S*H never would have lasted as long as it did—or the Korean War would have lasted a lot longer.) And, in fact, we never know what happens to Paul Bryan. Since Run for Your Life ends without an episode wrapping up all the loose ends, we don’t know for a fact that Bryan actually dies. His doctor did tell him to stay in contact, that advances in medical science are being made all the time. It’s unlikely, perhaps, but it could be that Paul Bryan beats the odds, that he hangs on long enough for his doctors to provide him with the treatment that cures him of his fatal illness. And then what? Having finally learned how to live a life of gusto (he’d told his doctor he hadn’t had a day off since law school), does he return to the world of a corporate lawyer, or does he continue living a life of adventure, as a latter-day Hemingway? And will he find the extra years he’s been given as satisfying as those years he’d lived when he had nothing to lose, and therefore everything to gain? Given time, would he have traded places with Ben Richards, living with an antibody that would likely have prevented his fatal illness, if it meant he wouldn’t have learned how to really live? That’s an interesting question.

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The world today can often seem like a patient in extremely critical condition, but too stubborn to ask for the Last Rites. Under such circumstances, who wouldn't look to run? (Unless you're one of the ones causing the problems in the first place, in which case you're not only running, you want to bring everyone and everything along with you.) Trying to predict the future is often a fool's errand, and anyone looking for certainties right now is certain only of being a fool. 

In a sense, these running men are trying to both escape from and head toward the same thing simultaneously, as if they were caught on an endless treadmill comprised of an existential mobius strip. By ending the series without a conclusion, or leaving the viewer uncertain as to the rest of the story, the showrunners ensuring that everything will always be just out of reach; the man freed from punishment, the man free to experience death, the man hoping for a second act he hadn't realized he wanted. It is life that they seek, it is life from which they run. And that's appropriate, because after all, can we ever really escape what we’re running from? Can we ever truly arrive at what we’re running toward? In a way, the running never stops, and never can; we're all on a treadmill to eternity, running toward a goal we'll never reach. The second we reach the future it becomes the present, and the next second it becomes part of the past. Sportscaster Sid Collins famously said that we all speed toward death at the rate of 60 minutes every hour; we speed toward the future in the same way, but like death, we'll never truly experience it for ourselves. 

And that's why some answers are better left unsaid, and why it might not be so bad for a television series to end while leaving the question unanswered. For that unanswered question is the exploration of life itself, and what it means to be fully present in that life—as a participant, not merely an observer. 

In the meantime, we keep running, always running. TV

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Around the dial

Let's start this week at bare-bones e-zine, where Jack welcomes a new writer to the Hitchcock Project. It's Dick Carr, author of the first season episode "The Big Switch," a story of gunfighters and possibly divine intervention, with a stirling cast including Gene Barry, Darren McGavin, and Ellen Corby.

At Classic Film & TV Cafe, Rick applies his "Seven Things to Know" talent to Zorro, the late-1950s Walt Disney-produced series for ABC, starring Guy Williams as the famed masked crimefighter. Did you know that Annette was a big fan of Zorro and appeared on four episodes?

The Secret Sanctum of Captain Video goes the graphic route, with this Kung Fu story "The Rising Storm." Excellent artwork in this adaptation, which reminds me that I really should go back and watch this series again at some point.

Roger takes on the 1995 Columbo episode "Strange Bedfellows" over at The View from the Junkyard. Reading the description, the story didn't sound familiar, and I've got the Columbo boxed set. It made sense when I saw the 1995 date; we skipped most of the movies, which failed to live up to the standards of the original series. As for this episode? Sounds like we made the right choice.

A couple of anniversary recognitions from Terence at A Shroud of Thoughts. First, it's the 60th anniversary of The Fugitive, one of the great TV shows of all time. Next, it's 60 years for The Patty Duke Show, the series that made "identical cousins" a thing, even though the odds on that happening are something like a billion to one. (Like so much else, you can actually look it up online!)

At The Hits Just Keep On Comin', JB posts some random thoughts, including a review of what sounds like an interesting book, TV Snapshots: An Archive of Everyday Life, by Lynn Spigel. (Embedded is a link to another interesting piece, this one by Drew Magary, on the meaning a television set can have.)

David raises an interesting question at Comfort TV: what does it mean when we say a television character has "integrity"? Some interesting examples follow; I always enjoy it when someone measures television charactes as if they were actual people, and David does a very good job of it. Good comments here as well.

At Cult TV Blog, John wraps up (for now) his excellent series on The X-Files and the American Dream, and comes to some conclusions. You'll want to make sure to catch up on the latest entries from the past week, Thought-provoking as always.  TV  

This week in TV Guide: February 27, 1965

Imagine, if you will, a popular television show with a mystery at the core of its plot. This mystery has become central to its core of loyal fans, who can't keep from speculating on the show's outcome. Theories and countertheories are proposed, viewers reach out to the producers with suggestions, and even the show's stars are confronted in public by those demanding to know what's going on behind the scenes. There's even a theory, labeled "wild speculation" by some, that the producers already know how the show will end, that the final episode has already been written, and that some people have even seen it via bootleg videos, and this theory has gained such a following that it's become the subject of a national magazine, with denials being issued that only fuel the speculation. It's nice to have such devoted fans, but still . . .

The Sopranos. Mad Men. Breaking Bad. Game of Thrones. Yes, of course, to all of them. But remember, this is 1965, and the series in question is The Fugitive.

It's a little hard to say how or where this rumor started, but as Henry Harding's "For the Record" feature recounts, this rumor, "running rampant around the country," which

has been detailed in hundreds of letters to TV GUDE and Fugitive producer Quinn Martin, says that the final episode of the series has been shot, has already been shown on some stations, and that the one- armed man did not kill Dr. Kimble’s wife after all. In the episode, the one-armed man purportedly tells Dr. Kimble that he saw Lieutenant Gerard do it—during what appeared to be a lovers’ quarrel. They haven’t actually seen this episode, the letter-writers say, but they know people who know people who have.

As if to prove the accuracy of this observation, the week's letters to the editor section includes a letter from Mrs. Janice F. Angevine of Shreveport, Louisiana, who says that this "wild rumor" is "running rampant over the city of Shreveport and environs." "It says The Fugitive’s last chapter has been written and actually shown in some cities and that policeman Gerard is the real killer of Kimble’s wife. Kimble, in the last episode, finally finds the one-armed man who tells a horrendous tale of a love affair between Lt. Gerard and Mrs. Kimble, and reveals that Gerard killed her."

Harding quickly dismisses the rumor; with The Fugitive currently ninth in the Nielsens, "Dr. Kimble may still be running long after the rest of us have stopped." Producer Quinn Martin hasn't given any thought to a conclusion (in fact, he was against the idea of bringing the mystery to a close, fearing that it would damage the show's prospects in syndication), but doesn't mind the attention. "People ask me, 'Isn’t it awful about all these rumors?' I say, 'what’s awful about it?' " Martin speculates that The Fugitive may have tapped into a universal theme, probably the fear of being accused of something you didn't do, and adds, "It’s marvelous that people care so much about the show."

(L-R) Morse, Janssen, Raisch

Looking back at this from the perspective of nearly sixty years, I'm struck by a couple of things, one having to do with storytelling in general, the specifically with The Fugitive. As far as speculation about popular television programs, what we've seen in the social media era is nothing new; in fact, social media itself is nothing new, if one wants to look not only at TV Guide, but all the other publications of the time. People read, write letters, exchange gossip over the backyard fence, and pretty soon the rumor mill is operating at full power. The internet simply allows it to happen more quickly and involving more people.

As far as The Fugitive itself, this shows how quickly the series gained traction with viewers. It's only been on for a year and-a-half, since September 1963. Fred Johnson, the one-armed man (played by Bill Raisch) had only appeared in three episodes to this point, and one of those was a flashback; that people are, even then, speculating on a showdown between Kimble and Johnson is, although inevitable, quite interesting. Most intriguing of all is this idea that some parts of the country have already seen the final episode, although it's always been the friend of a friend of a friend who saw it. Something like this would have been a fairly significant story—when the final episode did air, it drew a record audience—so the thought that it could have been "sneaked" onto only a few stations is absurd. And yet, it shows that being media savvy wasn't the norm back then; people weren't conditioned to think that way. You and I may know that a network would use the suspense of a final episode to whip up a tremendous amount of publicity prior to its airing (just look at "Who Shot J.R.?), but I don't think people stopped to think about that in 1965; other than a "very special" marriage episode of a series, storytelling didn't work that way.

In any event, it's fun to read a contemporary account of this. The Fugitive was less than halfway through its four-season run, and Gerard would always remain a favorite suspect in the minds of viewers (people wanted him to be the bad guy); one version was that the series would end with Gerard unscrewing a fake arm, and David Janssen and Barry Morse used to joke that it would end with the two of them going off together into the sunset. While that final episode isn't the best of The Fugitive, it gave viewers what they wanted: a conclusion. It also gave ABC what it wanted: ratings.

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During the 60s, the Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were the premiere variety shows on television. Whenever they appear in TV Guide together, we'll match them up and see who has the best lineup.

Sullivan: Ed presents a show from Florida’s Miami Beach Auditorium. Scheduled guests are comedians Alan King and Bill Dana; the singing Barry Sisters; dancer Juliet Prowse; singer Wayne Newton; the singing Hialeah Jockey Octet; the Hurricanes, the University of Miami’s Glee Club; the Sensational Leighs, aerial act; and the Cypress Gardens Water Skiers.

Palace: Co-hosts Roy Rogers and Dale Evans (accompanied by Trigger and the Sons of the Pioneers) introduce comedian Shelley Berman; rock ‘n’ rollers Jan and Dean; the Ballet Folklorico of Mexico; the Nicholas Brothers, singing dancers; the Murias, Japanese jugglers; and the Flying Armors’ trapeze act. 

I think this is one of those weeks where when it comes to picking the winner, your mileage may vary. I look at Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and see a couple of legends; I look at Shelley Berman and see one of the best satirists of the time; I look at the Nicholas Brothers and see two of the most dynamic singer-dancers ever captured on film. That doesn't mean Sullivan doesn't have a good lineup this week; in fact, I think it's a bit deeper. But you can already tell which way I'm going, can't you? The Palace rides off with the prize.

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While looking at the Hollywood Palace lineup, I was drawn to a program on KQED, the educational station in the Bay Area: Freberg Revisited . . . Again (Saturday, 9:00 p.m. PT) Professor Edwin Burr Pettet of Brandeis University visits (for the third time) Stan Freberg, who discusses "his philosophy about the commercial aspects of show business." Pettet was a noted expert on comedy and drama in the theater, and it would have been a natural for him to be talking with Freberg, who applied comedy to the art of advertising in a way that was revolutionary, or at least highly successful. Freberg's satiric radio series was very funny, as were his television appearances, and yet I think we most remember him for commercials like this one for Jeno's Pizza Rolls, perhaps one of the greatest of all time. Imagine what he could have done with the Super Bowl commercials.

Here's another interesting show: Profiles in Courage (Sunday, 6:30 p.m., NBC), which, of course, is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by then-Senator John F. Kennedy. The original profiles in Profiles were too few to fill up a television series (there were only eight, and they were all Senators), so prior to his assassination JFK authorized the inclusion of additional subjects. Tonight's subject is one of those additional biographies: Andrew Johnson, future President of the United States, but at present a senator from Tennessee, staking his prestige and his future on a fight to keep his state from seceding and joining the Confederacy. Walter Matthau stars as Johnson, in yet another reminder of what a fine dramatic actor he was, and how interesting his career might have been had he continued in that vein.

Had Kennedy lived, one of the added profiles might well have been of John Glenn, the most heroic of the astronauts whom Kennedy so admired. Glenn is with Walter Cronkite on the CBS Special Report "T-Minus 4 Years, 9 Months and 30 Days" (Monday, 10:00 p.m.), an investigation on the progress of the American manned space program, and whether or not the United States is still on track to land a man on the moon by 1970. The report, taped earlier this afternoon, includes a test of the Saturn V booster supervised by Dr. Werhner von Braun in Huntsville, Alabama. I like that, and I also like tonight's episode of I've Got a Secret (8:00 p.m., CBS), in which Buddy Hackett subs for panelist Bill Cullen, and Lorraine Bloy, a stewardess chosen from the audience last week, sits in for vacationing Bess Myerson. 

I know that space is limited in TV Guide listings, and sometimes you have to take shortcuts to describe the plot of an episode, but here's one for The McCoys (Tuesday, 10:30 a.m., CBS) that I would have redone: "Kate thinks Luke doesn't love her—he's not as affectionate as her neighbor's husband." I'm sure they're not suggesting that her neighbor's husband is more affectionate to Kate than Luke, right? Better to ignore that and check out The Bell Telephone Hour (10:00 p.m., NBC), as host Robert Goulet is joined by Eydie Gorme, Mildred Miller, Barbara Cook and Susan Watson to tell "The History of the American Girl." Sounds to me like something you'd see on one of NET's sociology programs. 

Fellow Rat-Packers Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford appear as themselves on The Patty Duke Show (Wednesday, 8:00 p.m., ABC), as Patty is tasked with finding a big-name star for the high-school prom. They didn't have that problem in the World's Worst Town™, the big name would have been whoever could come up with the keg for the after-prom party. And speaking of big-name guest stars, they're always available at Burke's Law (9:30 p.m., ABC); this week's lineup includes Joan Bennett, Edd Byrnes, Arlene Dahl, Paul Lynde, and Bert Parks.

One of ABC's standbys is The Donna Reed Show (Thursday, 8:00 p.m.), coming up to the end of its seventh season, and while the focus is on Donna and her family, one of the featured characters is 36-year-old Bob Crane, who plays Dr. David Kelsey, next-door neighbor and colleague of Donna's husband, Alex. Marian Dern profiles Crane this week, looking at the life and motivation of one of the busiest men around, described as a combination of Jack Lemmon, Bob Cummings, and Jack Benny. Not only is Crane a regular on the Reed show, he's also one of the most popular DJs in West Coast radio, host of the morning show on KNX, the CBS flagship in Hollywood—a job that nets him a cool $75,000 a year. It's said that this is the best way to understand Crane and his frantic mix of "records, interviews (frequently testy), news items, commercials, kidding, claptrap and corn," and isn't afraid to have fun during the show's commercials, such as one for an airline during which he plays the sound of a motor sputtering and dying in the background. Advertisers seldom complain, and why should they? "They get three minutes for every one they pay for." He's leaving the Reed show next fall; Dern portrays Crane's relationship with Tony Owen, Reed's current husband and producer of the show, as a somewhat contentious one, an opinion that isn't always shared by contemporary reviewers, but not to worry: he's shooting a pilot for CBS, a World War II sitcom called The Heroes. Don't bet against him.

You may remember a few weeks ago I spent almost the entire space here commenting on creativity (or the lack thereof) of television shows, which—naturally—means I'd notice the debut episode of The Creative Person, a 28-week series that "probes the personal vision of the artist—those qualities which enable the creative person to translate the world around him into a meaningful statement." (Friday, 4:30 p.m., KQED) Let this sound too stuffy, tonight's episode, "A Thurber's Eye View of Men, Women and Less Alarming Creatures" is a comic recreation of Thurber's view of the world based on his writings, starring Eddie Bracken, Elaine Stritch, Elliott Reid, and Allyn Ann McLerie. Halla Stoddard, the producer of Broadway's "Thurber Carnival," did this adaptation. 

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How about some golf? Nowadays, there's plenty to be found between the men's and women's tournaments each week, not to mention the Golf Channel. But back in the day, televised tournaments were few and far between, aside from the major championships. And yet there's no shortage of golf this weekend, thanks to the made-for-TV events offered by the networks and in syndication. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the CBS Golf Classic, which features two teams of pro golfers each week leading up to the championship. This week, a quarterfinal match pits Billy Casper and Bob Rosburg against Bo Wininger and Tommy Bolt. (Saturday, 3:30 p.m.)

NBC's long-running Shell's Wonderful World of Golf, which in its original incarnation ran from 1961 to 1970, showcases not only the finest golfers but also some of the best and most scenic courses in the world. You can find that on Sunday at 4:00 p.m., as Canadian champions George Knudson and Al Balding face off at Cape Breton Highlands in Nova Scotia. There's also Big Three Golf, a series of filmed rounds contested by the three best players in the world: Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Gary Player. Eight matches are scheduled for the season, and you can see the third on Saturday at 2:00 p.m, on KCRA, or the fourth on Saturday at 4:00 p.m. on KRON. Gotta love those syndicated schedules.

So why were these so popular? Because they're filmed, the broadcast can be edited to make sure viewers see every big shot, regardless of when it happens (the average round could take between three and four hours back then); you also don't have to deal with those long breaks between holes. Because the productions take care in their camera placement, they can also bring the best views of the action. And it compares favorably to tournament golf, which was generally limited to the last three or four holes, by which the outcome might already be determined, the best shots missed, or the leader already being in the clubhouse as the broadcast starts; you're also assured of seeing the biggest names without having to worry about them missing the cut or being out of contention. There are a number of them at YouTube; they're worth checking out.

Speaking of tape-delay (or film-delay, as the case may be), we have another example of it with ABC's Wide World of Sports, and coverage of the seventh annual Daytona 500 (Saturday, 5:00 p.m.), which was held two weeks ago. As with golf, a 500-mile race can take a long time to run, and showing an edited version of it can save a lot of dead airtime. The first live coverage of the race was in 1974, when ABC joined it in progress for the last 90 minutes, using taped highlights to update viewers on what had happened prior to the start of the live telecast. The first flag-to-flag coverage of the race came on CBS in 1979. But back to 1965—the race is stopped after 133 laps due to rain, with Fred Lorenzen coming out on top.

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I hope people remember who Mae West was; Dwight Whitney calls her "the first, the funniest, and, some say, the greatest of all the modern sex symbols," and as recently as this issue, audiences are still accepting her invitation to "Come up and see me sometime." Last season, her tongue-in-cheek appearance on Mister Ed was one of the year's comedy hits, and she's hoping to make a return appearance this season. Whitney's interview with West takes place, naturally, in the boudoir, where "Everything is gilt on white. The walls are white, the carpet is white, the tufted satin bedspread on the round bet is white, the satin canopy rising majestically to the ceiling is white." She says she's been in high demand lately, estimating that she's turned down "more movie and TV offers in the last 10 years than most girls get in a lifetime." Why? "Because they are not right for me. They are not Mae West." 

She has a lot to say about today's actresses, most of it critical. Of family sitcoms the aforementioned Donna Reed Show, she replies absently, "Donna who?" Jean Harlow was "merely acting sex," she calls Lana Turner "a schoolgirl," and when asked about Marilyn Monroe, she says, "Well, they managed to do something with her." And then there's Elizabeth Taylor. She's a face," West says. "Of course, she has some blood in her veins. But that thing with that fellow—uh, what's his name?—didn't do her any good. Women won't come to see you. Of course, I haven't seen Cleopatra."

She's about to talk about her plan for two TV specials each year when she's reminded her agents are waiting, and it's time for Whitney to go. She doesn't tell him to come back up and see her sometime, but she does say, "I'm waiting for pay-TV. I'll bet I'll rate No. 1 on it." It's a ridiculous statement based on her age (72), but in the coming years she'll appear in the movies Myra Breckinridge (1970) and Sextette (1978), be interviewed by Dick Cavett, write a second book and a play, and do an album with covers of songs by The Doors. At age 84, Time will say, "Mae West is Still Mae West." It's perhaps with that in mind that Whitney concludes that he won't bet against her.

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MST3K alert: Teenagers from Outer Space (1959) "A spaceship arrives on earth carrying some youngsters. David Love, Bryan Grant." (Friday, 1:00 a.m., KRON) What this brief description doesn't tell you is that the "youngsters" are bent on conquering the Earth through the use of a monstrous "Gargon." I could explain their motive for this, but there's no percentage in it. And yes, they are teenagers, more or less. TV  

The running man

From The Fugitive to The Immortal, Run for Your Life to Run Buddy Run, classic television has told the stories of people on the run—from the law, from criminals, from death itself. The Fugitive was praised for its decision to bring to an end the premise which had sustained the series for four seasons; in this era of closed-loop storytelling, which suggests that every series contains an overall arc with a beginning, a middle and an end, it’s difficult to imagine a series that doesn’t provide some type of closure—"The Day the Running Stopped." The notable exception to this, of course, is the final episode of The Sopranos, which ends with an abrupt cut to black, and leaves the viewer forever in the dark as to what happens next. Considering the hue and cry accompanying that ending, it's probably unlikely we’ll ever see an ending like that again, or at least one left open to so many possibilities.

In a way, though, there’s something fitting about those series for which no end is provided. I’m not suggesting they do this intentionally; usually, the decision is made for them, in the form of low ratings, stars ready to move on, or recalcitrant network executives. Still, it seems to me that perhaps leaving things open-ended isn’t really such a bad idea, at least in some instances. It forces both the show's viewers and its creators to consider the existential implications of life, and how their characters fit into that scheme. Viewers, for instance, are left to fill in the blanks after the ending of a show like The Sopranos, and in doing so, they not only display their perspective on what the show was all about, they also reveal a great deal about themselves and their own way of thinking: their values, their moral convictions, their philosophy of life. 

And what do those shows themselves tell us? In providing for an end to the four-season odyssey of Richard Kimble, Quinn Martin was following in the footsteps of Route 66, which also provided for an end to the journey—at least for Tod, when he decided it was time to settle down and marry Barbara Eden. (Smart man!) That suggests our heroes were not so much running away from something, as running toward something. Tod finds that, or at least thinks he has, but we’re not sure about Linc, let alone Buz. The question remains, though: if they were running toward life, toward something that they perhaps can’t define but will recognize when they see it, what are they running away from? A life without hope, without meaning, a boring, 9-to-5 job that provides security whereas the adrenalin that is the spice of life comes from insecurity?*

*You could include Then Came Bronson in that discussion as well. 

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Is The Immortal really running away from his pursuers, or is he running away from the burden of being immortal? The setup of having the hero pursued by the heavy was not only exceedingly conventional, it was probably necessary in order to get the show on the air. But there’s a twist to the convention: Ben Richards is useless to Jordan Braddock if he’s dead; Richards must be kept alive in order to produce the rare blood that enables him to cheat death, the blood that Braddock wants. If the implication is that Braddock wants to keep Richards alive, then it also follows that by running from Braddock’s henchman Fletcher, Richards is also running from eternity, or at least natural eternity. One could say that he is running from a false life, running toward death, or the possibility of death, which is the only way a man can truly feel alive. Think of this series in another way, one which probably never would make it to television, but is intriguing nonetheless: Ben Richards, unable to experience death in a natural way and unwilling to take his own life (because he still has scruples) dedicates his life to taking outrageous risks for the purpose of helping others. It could be anything from climbing a tree to rescue an old woman’s cat to dashing into a flaming house to rescue a small child. Perhaps he takes on the mob to save the life of a young man who’s fallen into debt, or offers himself as a human hostage to prevent an international incident. There are an endless number of ways to risk your own life, after all, and if you can’t do something good with the life you’ve been given, what good is it? 

I think you get the picture here. The most existential question of all is that of the meaning of life; while Dr. Richard Kimble hoped to get his life back after being exonerated of the murder of his wife, his real-life counterpart, Dr. Sam Sheppard, was never able to recover what had been his, and stumbled through years of wrestling professionally and drinking heavily before meeting a premature death. Sam Sheppard could not return to the life he once lived—but having died as a man, he continues to live as a legal precedent, and if that precedent (Sheppard v. Maxwell) makes a difference in the lives of others, perhaps even saving the lives of others by ensuring them a fair trial, could he be said to have died at all—or did he, in some mysterious way, experience the suffering of a life lost in order to provide life to others? Does that make him any different from our alternate version of Ben Richards? And what hope does that give Dr. Kimble? Unlike Sheppard, he was able to continue interacting with others during his journey, rather than spending years in prison—will the life of a successful pediatrician still appeal to him? 

Perhaps the most profound lesson we can learn is from the story of Paul Bryan, the protagonist of Run for Your Life. Like Kimble, he is running for his life, but whereas Kimble is trying to escape the death house, Bryan is attempting to outrun the disease that will claim his life in two or three years. We don’t see how his race ends; there was much derision over a series about a man with two years to live running for three seasons, but remember: television doesn’t measure time in the same way that calendars do. (Otherwise, M*A*S*H never would have lasted as long as it did—or the Korean War would have lasted a lot longer.) And, in fact, we never know what happens to Paul Bryan. Since Run for Your Life ends without an episode wrapping up all the loose ends, we don’t know for a fact that Bryan actually dies. His doctor did tell him to stay in contact, that advances in medical science are being made all the time. It’s unlikely, perhaps, but it could be that Paul Bryan beats the odds, that he hangs on long enough for his doctors to provide him with the treatment that cures him of his fatal illness. And then what? Having finally learned how to live a life of gusto (he’d told his doctor he hadn’t had a day off since law school), does he return to the world of a corporate lawyer, or does he continue living a life of adventure, as a latter-day Hemingway? And will he find the extra years he’s been given as satisfying as those years he’d lived when he had nothing to lose, and therefore everything to gain? Given time, would he have traded places with Ben Richards, living with an antibody that would likely have prevented his fatal illness, if it meant he wouldn’t have learned how to really live? That’s an interesting question.

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The world today can often seem like a patient in extremely critical condition, but too stubborn to ask for the Last Rites. Under such circumstances, who wouldn't look to run? (Unless you're one of the ones causing the problems in the first place, in which case you're not only running, you want to bring everyone and everything along with you.) Trying to predict the future is often a fool's errand, and anyone looking for certainties right now is certain only of being a fool. 

In a sense, these running men are trying to both escape from and head toward the same thing simultaneously, as if they were caught on an endless treadmill comprised of an existential mobius strip. By ending the series without a conclusion, or leaving the viewer uncertain as to the rest of the story, the showrunners ensuring that everything will always be just out of reach; the man freed from punishment, the man free to experience death, the man hoping for a second act he hadn't realized he wanted. It is life that they seek, it is life from which they run. And that's appropriate, because after all, can we ever really escape what we’re running from? Can we ever truly arrive at what we’re running toward? In a way, the running never stops, and never can; we're all on a treadmill to eternity, running toward a goal we'll never reach. The second we reach the future it becomes the present, and the next second it becomes part of the past. Sportscaster Sid Collins famously said that we all speed toward death at the rate of 60 minutes every hour; we speed toward the future in the same way, but like death, we'll never truly experience it for ourselves. 

And that's why some answers are better left unsaid, and why it might not be so bad for a television series to end while leaving the question unanswered. For that unanswered question is the exploration of life itself, and what it means to be fully present in that life—as a participant, not merely an observer. 

In the meantime, we keep running, always running. TV  

This week in TV Guide: September 12, 1964

There's a good reason why they're called the "Dog Days of  Summer." From the Latin diēs caniculārēs, the term originated with the Romans' belief that the star Sirius—the "Dog Star" was, because it rose at the same time as the sun—was responsible for sultry weather, and must be appeased.  It's commonly thought that the Dog Days end in late August, but in TV terms, the ending comes with the beginning of the new season.

In this week's issue, ABC kicks off its new season, and even though the official Fall Preview isn't for another week, that's close enough for me.  I've made no secret that the summer months can be slow; many shows are reruns, and the remainder of the schedule tends to be filled out with anthology collections of failed pilots, and summer replacement series that rarely catch fire.  But this issue is chock full of irony and newness and the return of old friends and all the other things that make television so much fun.

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Let's start with the new, and a look at the new TV sets for 1965. Back about five years or so ago, I had a bit about the new "smart" televisions for 1981.  That generated something of a "Meh," seeing as how virtually everything discussed in the article had come to pass, and in fact is pretty much of a given today. There was, in other words, no "a-ha" moment, when you could literally see the future coming to life before your eyes. Such is not the case this week.

The premise of Henry Harding's article is what you can expect in the television set of 1984, and he warns us ahead of time that the prophecies "may amaze" us.  For one thing, he speaks of a television set that is virtually invisible—mounted on the wall, measuring about four-by-three feet, and with a thickness of about two inches.  There are no cords; they're hidden in an outlet behind the set. You don't really notice the set, either; when it's not on, it assumes the guise of a Picasso  painting, something of a screen saver that shows when the set's not being used for anything else.

ALL: HADLEY TV GUIDE COLLECTION

This set is the centerpiece of a "Home Communications Center," perhaps smaller than the average 1964 console set, which sits by your chair or sofa. From this center you can control your television (via 25 or so push buttons representing each channel," plus you have the ability to record and playback programs on a video recorder via a small tape cartridge. You can make your own recordings, using a miniature battery-operated camera that allows immediate playback, rather than waiting for the film to be developed.

And that's not all—you can get your newspaper, or anything else, faxed to you through the center. You can watch video books brought home from school or the library. You can watch video from security cameras placed in various locations around the house. You can make video phone calls that will show on your television. You can make use of the TV shopping service that allows you to purchase everything from clothes to groceries—just push a few buttons, and your computer does the rest.

And as far as the "television" programming you'll see—it's all in living color. Some of the broadcasts are international, being beamed to your set via satellite, and an automatic translator will convert to English any broadcasts that are being presented in another language. There will be educational channels, local access broadcasts—pretty much anything you can imagine. You're not limited to seeing them on your big screen, either; a portable unit, covering "one entire flat surface of the brief-case," will operate via battery or solar power, and, weighing less than four pounds, will provide "clear, bright color pictures."

Now, to be fair, it might have been premature to expect all of this by 1984. But, frankly, just about everything else in this article has come to pass in one form or another. Flat-screen television? Check, down to size and width. Cordless? Check. Videophone? How about your cellphone. VCR? Already come and gone, replaced by DVDs and DVRs and saving things to the cloud. The brief-case sized TV is today's mobile device. The automatic translator is called SAP, and while the newspaper may not be faxed to you every day, you read it (and everything else) on your phone. And don't even get started with home shopping networks.

Harding predicted that people would even be able to do their own repairs on their units, rather than calling a technician. I'm not so sure about that—last time I checked, the Geek Squad was still doing good business, and with other pieces of technology it's often more economical to replace than repair them. But otherwise, I think this article presents a remarkably accurate portrait of today's technology—sometimes off a bit on the detail, perhaps, but spot on as to the end result. Reading this today, and gradually developing a sense of amazement as one recognizes these predictions coming to live in various gadgets, is little less than astounding, at least for one who was alive during this time, and saw all these things come to fruition. One can only imagine how outlandish they might have seemed in context, presented to one reading about it in 1964.

A last note here—Harding asks for your forbearance at the end, reminding us that "If this vision of the future home communication center seems far-out to you," remember that the whole idea of "electronic home television" was absurd to many when it was first presented in 1926—only twenty years before the first household set was produced.

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And now for something ironic.

You'll note that on the cover we have David Janssen and Barry Morse, stars of ABC's hit series The Fugitive, about to enter its second season. Even with just one year under its belt, the concept must already have taken hold, as you can see in this first-run episode of CBS' The Defenders on Saturday night at 8:00 p.m.

The premise: "When the train taking him to the Sing Sing death house is derailed, condemned murderer Bernie Jackman [the always-good Gerald O'Loughlin] kills a guard and escapes." OK, as far as it goes. This could be a parody (yes, even a show as serious and earnest as The Defenders did do comedy once a year), or it could be a Law & Order-type "ripped from today's headlines" episode, even if those headlines were generated by an opposing network's show. But then we get to the twist, the second half of the episode's description: "What Jackman doesn't know is that he had just been cleared of the previous murder."

Ironic, yes; the storyline, told in isolation, is the stuff of Greek tragedy. But brilliant also, taken in the context of coexistence with a program built on a very similar storyline. Larry Cohen's script turns The Fugitive on its ear; imagine Kimble killing Gerard after the derailment, while back in Stafford, Indiana, Gerard's superior has just picked up the one-armed man. This is no mistake, believe me. I'm quite sure Cohen knew quite well that he was lampooning the premise of The Fugitive, while at the same time giving us a vicious turn of events. I've always admired that "what-if" mentality of taking an established idea and spinning it around until it goes in a different direction. I do it a lot myself. And while I don't know how successful this episode ultimately was (I'm assuming that the Prestons must have been defending Jackman, for example), I can imagine I might have enjoyed the episode immensely.

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All of ABC's ads employed one-word tags

There's no "Sullivan vs. The Palace" this week, although The Hollywood Palace is entering its ninth month on ABC; Palace is preempted this week by the Olympic Trials from Los Angeles. ABC, however, has something bigger in mind for the stage of the Palace.

It's ABC's Wide World of Entertainment (Sunday, 8:00 p.m.), a gala one-hour special hosted by Bing Crosby, and meant to introduce to us the stars of ABC's new and returning series. There are songs, clips, and simple walk-ons by the network's biggest stars: Elizabeth Montgomery, promoting her new show Bewitched; Mickey Rooney, star of the new series Mickey; Richard Basehart and David Hedison from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea; John Astin, Carolyn Jones and Ted Cassidy from The Addams Family; and more. Bing himself is plugging his new series The Bing Crosby Show. You've also got Ernest Borgnine, Jimmy Dean, Gene Barry, Patty Duke and others plugging returning series, some of which have moved to new time slots.

It's interesting, looking at this list. Just by looking at the names of the guests, you can usually figure out what shows they're associated with (George Burns and Connie Stevens in Wendy and Me, for example, or Inger Stevens plugging The Farmer's Daughter). And while some of them were real bombs (Valentine's Day with Tony Franciosa, Walter Brennan in The Tycoon), a fair number of them have entered classic TV folklore. ABC seemed to do particularly well with sci-fi/fantasy, considering Voyage, Bewitched and Addams, as well as Combat!, McHale's Navy, and The Fugitive, among others. Not all of them were long-running series (Addams ran a scant two seasons), but all of them were recognizable. I've mentioned this before, just a few weeks ago, in fact, but that's not bad for a network with a track record supposedly as weak as ABC.

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As I mentioned at the top, there's a lot of "welcome back" about this issue. Football, for example. At the ungodly hour of 10:45 a.m. CT on Saturday morning, NBC kicks off the new college football season with an interconference clash between UCLA and Pitt, live from Pittsburgh. UCLA wins, 17-12, but it's a rare bright spot for the Bruins, who end the season with 34-13 thrashing at the hands of USC to finish with a record of 4-6. Pitt's season isn't much better; the team winds up 3-5-2, including a 28-0 thumping from its hated rivals, Penn State.

The reason for the early start, by the way, is to accommodate 45 minutes of highlights from the men's semifinals at the U.S. National Tennis Championships at Forest Hills, New York. It's not called the "U.S. Open" yet, because it's not open to professionals—amateurs only. That cuts down on some of the great players, to be sure; stars such as Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall and Pancho Gonzalez are nowhere to be found. No matter; a couple of players who went on to some degree of success, Roy Emerson and Fred Stolle, meet in the final on Sunday, with the top-seeded Emerson taking the title.

Sunday marks the kickoff of the pro football season. There's only one game on television, the Kansas City Chiefs taking on the Bills in Buffalo in ABC's AFL game (2:00 p.m.). That suggests to me that the Minnesota Vikings must have been playing at home, triggering a blackout of all NFL games in the area—let me check, yes, I'm right: the Vikings beat the Baltimore Colts 34-24, en route to a very successful 8-5-1 season. (The Colts, on the other hand, would lose to the Cleveland Browns for the NFL championship; after that loss to the Vikings they would not drop another game until the next-to-last game of the season in Detroit.) As for the Bills and Chiefs, Buffalo comes out on top 34-17, on their way to winning their first of two consecutive championships. This is, by the way, the last year for the AFL on ABC; next season they'll move over to NBC, as the bidding war between the two leagues escalates.

There's still baseball, in the waning days of the season. The Twins are on WTCN with two games over the weekend with the Yankees (preempting the Saturday national Game of the Week), and later tilts against the Orioles and Red Sox. And, if you thought two football games on the weekend wasn't enough, there's bonus coverage on Wednesday: the Edmonton Eskimos and Toronto Argonauts in CFL action taped Sunday, the first of eleven weekly telecasts on the aforementioned WTCN. I'm pretty sure that's what I would have watched; Canadian football held a strange attraction for me as a boy, one that's lasted to this day. (As a matter of fact, not that you'd care, I'm watching a CFL game as I type these very words. Any typos as a result are purely their fault.)

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Some scattered notes from the rest of the week, as I think I've been running on a little long here:

Laugh - and that's an order!

Saturday night at 9:00 p.m., there she is—Miss America! It's on a new network this year, CBS instead of NBC, but we're still live from Atlantic City, New Jersey, Bert Parks is still the host (his tenth of twenty-five years in the role), and the lovely Bess Myerson, Miss America of 1945, is the television hostess. Parks is quoted in the Close-Up as saying ,"This year I hope to win!"* but in actuality the winner is Miss Arizona, Vonda Kay Van Dyke, who goes on to a very successful career as an author and singer.

*I don't remember the commercial now, but late in Parks' career as Miss America host, he appeared in one where he delivered the line, "Miss Americas may come and Miss Americas may go, but I'll go on forever," concluding with a somewhat uncertain expression, as if he were knocking on wood. It was a few years later that he was sacked, replaced with Ron Ely. Remember him?

On Wednesday night, it's the 13th season opener for ABC's Ozzie and Harriet (6:30 p.m.), and the debut on the same network of the rock music show Shindig (7:30 p.m.), with Sam Cooke, the Everly Brothers, Donna Loren, the Wellingtons, Bobby Sherman, the Blossoms, comic Alan Sues, Jackie and Gayle, and the Righteous Brothers. All in a half-hour. Over on CBS, Harry Reasoner narrates a special entitled "Politics is a Funny Business," concentrating on the role of humor in American political life. And you thought Ozzie was outdated?

Speaking of Ozzie, it's hard to believe that The Donna Reed Show is still on the air, but it makes its season premiere the following night at 7:00 p.m. It's even more interesting when one considers that later on Thursday night, ABC airs the second of the two-night debut of Peyton Place. (Bit of a contrast there, don't you think?) But it's only the seventh season for the show, which will run for one more season after this before leaving the airwaves. Why does it seem as if it were on for so much longer?  Perhaps because shows like Donna Reed and Ozzie and Harriet (which also went off the air in 1966, after 15 seasons) are thought of as presenting a simpler, idealized America, one that's been ridiculed so much over the years. Perhaps they were already something of an anachronism in 1964, but by the time they leave for good in 1966, they're coexisting with free love and Vietnam, which make them really stick out.

And on Friday, ABC airs two new series, Jonny Quest and The Addams Family, for the first time; meanwhile, at 7:30 p.m., CBS airs Route 66 for the last time. Now, Route 66 was one of the few (for the time) shows to offer something of a final episode, as Tod (Martin Milner) finally settles down with a girl, leaving Linc (Glenn Corbett) to roam the country solo. That was earlier in 1964 though, back before the summer rerun season; tonight's last show is from one of the show's first three seasons, with Tod's sidekick being the far more popular George Maharis as Buzz.

Good issue, don't you think? It's true that there is something about the fall air that makes everything seem fresh and new. But speaking of fresh and new, just wait until you see next week's issue! TV  

This week in TV Guide: March 6, 1965

As my enforced series of encore presentations continues, we're up to an interesting issue: so interesting, in fact, that I've already encored it once. I promise you, however, that there's even more new in this week's look, along with some features you might recognize from the past.

The brooding visage of David Janssen graces this week's cover.  Janssen is in the second of four seasons playing Dr. Richard Kimble the hero of the hit ABC series The Fugitive. As Arnold Hano notes, Janssen the actor shares many similarities with Kimble the fugitive, among which is a lack of comfort with his surroundings. His friend, novelist Bernard Wolfe, comments that "David is not a fanatically dedicated person. If he were, all this grueling work would have more meaning for him. But he is not dedicated. He has great doubts as to the ultimate aim of it all, as to where it is leading him."

Janssen in fact houses a number of torments: his heavy drinking, which Janssen claims has diminished while doing The Fugitive, but would always remain a part of his life; his ulcer (caused, Janssen wryly notes, by "thinking"); his heavy smoking (two to three packs a day); and the fatigue of his grueling schedule of 14-hour days filming a show in which he is in virtually every scene. When told that executive producer Quinn Martin "speaks grandly of five more years" of The Fugutive, Janssen dully replies, "Five more years? Contractually, I suppose I would have to put in five more years, but—" The Fugitive ran just about the right length of time; David Janssen, who died of a heart attack at age 48, died way too young.

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Personally, I don't think you need a reason to show a picture of Sophia Loren, but this week we have one. On Saturday, WTCN presents the TV premiere of Two Women, the movie for which Loren won her Oscar for Best Actress. Channel 11 advertised the movie accordingly.

Now, take a good look at that ad.  Notice anything strange about it?  The placement of that "TONIGHT 10 P.M." strip looks just a little suspicious, don't you think?  Especially when compared to the same picture, unedited:

While this picture might be considered somewhat modest today, I'm sure that 1965 Midwest sensibilities might have been offended by the amount of Sophia's cleavage on display. Two Women is an art-house movie (and Loren was the first Best Actress winner in a foreign-language film), so it's likely that many people in the Twin Cities hadn't seen it; Loren's sexpot image was well-known, however, so the station might have thought a little judicious editing was in order.

Alternately, because it probably wasn't seen widely and viewers didn't know what it was about, perhaps the station just wanted to create the impression that there was more to see than meets the eye. Or is that too cynical a thought? I'm just sayin'.

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During the 60s, the Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were the premiere variety shows on television. Whenever they appear in TV Guide together, we'll match them up and see who has the best lineup..

Ed Sullivan: Scheduled guests include singer Ella Fitzgerald; Duke Ellington and his band; singer Rita Pavone; singer-dancer Roy Castle; comics Stiller and Meara; the two Carmenas, balancers; and comedian John Byner.

Hollywood Palace: Host Eddie Fisher welcomes actress-vocalist Connie Stevens, comedian Jack Carter, the Marquis Chimps, the Arirang Korean ballet troupe, comedy pantomimist Ben Wrigley and the Kuban Cossacks, dance team.

This contest was pretty much over at the start. With Ella and Duke headlining the Sullivan show, Palace was already going to have to come up with something big to top it. Eddie Fisher, Connie Stevens and Jack Carter are OK, but the royalty that the Palace needed was already spoken for. Crown Sullivan as winner for the week.

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Let's see—we've covered Saturday, so what does the rest of the week have? The big movie of the week is a really big one: ABC's Sunday night presentation of Judgment at Nuremberg, starring Spencer Tracy, Oscar winner Maximilian Schell, Burt Lancaster, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland and a cast of thousands. It's a long movie, starting at 8:00 p.m. CT and running for three and one-half hours. And it's a heavy movie—preachy at times, as one might expect from writer Abby Mann and director Stanley Kramer. But less than 20 years after the end of World War II, it's also a portrait of a world still trying to come to grips with the horror of the Holocaust, and a country (Germany) trying to sort out its moral responsibility.

On Monday, Bing Crosby reunites with his old friend Phil Harris on Bing's sitcom (8:30 p.m., ABC); Harris is Bing's former vaudeville partner, who shows up with his new act: a trained crow, who may be responsible for a rash of neighborhood jewelry thefts. Following that, Jerry Lewis doubles as director and star in a rare dramatic role on Ben Casey (9:00 p.m., ABC) He's Dr. Dennis Green, a new resident at County General and an "irrepressible clown" (no surprise there), but Casey takes a dim view of it all, endangering Dr. Green's hopes to go into neurosurgery.

Tuesday kicks off with a special Red Skelton (7:30, CBS) entitled "The Red Skelton Scrapbook," hosted by Ed Wynn and featuring Red performing some of his most famous sketches and pantomimes. At 9:00 p.m., NBC presents a news special, "The Pope and the Vatican," covering the concluding days of the Second Vatican Council and the radical changes (termed aggiornamento, or "bringing up to date") coming to the Catholic Church. Vatican II had its critics even then, but could they have imagined the havoc this would create in the decades to come.

Wednesday night it's the "first annual" Grand Award of Sports (8:30 p.m., ABC), presented live from the New York World's Fair, and hosted by Bing and Kathryn Crosby. The format: "Panels of outstanding sportsmen have selected 20 winners" from a list of 83 nominees representing "the world's top athletes". The nominees included football stars Jim Brown and Johnny Unitas, boxer Cassius Clay, baseball's Sandy Koufax, basketball greats Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson, and hockey stars Bobby Hull and Gordie Howe. At the show's end, one of these winners will be chosen to receive the "Grand Award," presented by former astronaut John Glenn. That picture on the right is from the John H. Glenn archives; it's one of the Grand Awards, presented to Glenn "for his work as chairman of the Grand Award of Sports inaugural telecast." I can't find another listing for the "Grand Award of Sport"; it's my guess that it was either replaced or folded into the Victor Awards, which began (coincidentally?) the very next year, 1966.

Gloria Swanson makes her TV comedy debut Thursday on My Three Sons (7:30 p.m., ABC), playing an old vaudeville friend of Uncle Charley, while another Gloria—Gloria Stewart—guests with her husband Jimmy and their twin daughters on Password (7:30 p.m., CBS). And tonight's Tonight Show (10:30 p.m., NBC) bears some looking into, as Johnny has a scheduled guest lineup that includes Bob Hope, Hedda Hopper, Richard Chamberlain, Carol Lawrence, Barbara Parkins, and Harve Presnell.

A rerun of Have Gun—Will Travel attracts some interest on Friday (7:30 p.m., WTCN), with Paladin's assignment being to act as Oscar Wilde's bodyguard. John O'Malley plays Wilde. And not to be outdone by Johnny, Jack Paar has a pretty good show himself (9:00 p.m., NBC), with Peggy Lee, plus Mike Nichols and Elaine May.

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Looking at the TV Teletype, there's a note that on April 11 the ABC program Directions '65 will be telecasting David Amram's Holocaust opera The Final Ingredient, commissioned by the network,*  based on the teleplay by the famed Golden Age writer Reginald Rose. "Set in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, The Final Ingredient relates the story of a group of inmates who attempt to hold a secret Passover Seder inside the camp, and their quest for the final ingredient, which lies just outside the camp walls."  It sounds intriguing; I know Amram's music primarily from his soundtrack for the movie The Manchurian Candidate. As this article points out, ABC conceived of this as a "Passover Opera" that might be presented annually—almost a Jewish counterpart to Menotti's Christmas opera Amahl and the Night Visitors. But it didn't become an annual broadcast, at least as far as I know. It's available for viewing at the Paley Center.

*I'm not positive, but I'm fairly certain this was the final opera commissioned by one of the big three American commercial television networks. After this, it would be up to PBS.

We'll also learn that the Smothers Brothers are guests on Jack Benny's season finale April 16 on NBC; Jack will probably be limiting his appearances next season to hour-long specials, which indeed he does. And if your appetite for awards shows hasn't been sated by the Grand Award of Sports, you'll be glad to know that the Grammys are coming up in a one-hour telecast on NBC May 18, in which most of the winners are expected to perform their Grammy-winning songs.

Neil Hickey reports on CBS's series The Nurses, which has just been retooled with the addition of a couple of doctors; it's now called The Doctors and the Nurses. The nurses (Zina Bethune and Shirl Conway, left) are now supporting players to the doctors (Joe Campanella and Michael Tolan). According to producer Herb Brodkin, the move was made to improve ratings and dramatic potential; since nurses can't diagnose patients, there just weren't enough stories to carry the show. Says Brodkin, "Part of the problem was that, in making things happen in a story, nurses are handholders."

The Doan Report tells us that Johnny Carson's doing a 15-minute sit-in, in protest of the fact that many NBC affiliates around the country (including those in New York and San Francisco) don't carry the first 15 minutes of Tonight (which at the time ran for an hour and 45 minutes), choosing instead to run a half-hour of local news. For Carson, this meant about half of the nation would miss his monologue, a situation which justifiably caused him some distress—so much so, Carson claims, that it's preventing him from appearing on-air for the first 15 minutes of the program. His "sick-in" lasts for two nights, after which he agrees to discuss things with the network. The short-term solution is that Ed McMahon and bandleader Skitch Henderson vamp for the opening segment, with Johnny coming on at the bottom of the hour to do his monologue. Within a couple of years, that first 15 will be dropped altogether, giving the show a tidy 90 minute running time. That becomes the industry standard for talk shows, until Johnny cuts it back further to one hour in the 1980s. I don't think talk shows have been the same since, and I don't mean that in a positive way. Oh, and in case you're wondering, the NBC affiliate in Minneapolis-St. Paul, KSTP, currently shows the entire 1:45 show, on a 15-minute delay to follow the 10:00 news.

British satirist and social critic Malcolm Muggerage has a witty, but also very provocative, article on "The British Passion for American Television," and what he has to say might surprise you. I wrote about it at length here.

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Finally, we'd be real knuckleheads if we didn't pause to note a story on The Three Stooges, who are going strong as ever since their fueled-by-TV comeback. The emotional peak is a moving story about a 12-year-old girl being treated for emotional troubles. The girl spoke and wrote only in numbers, and when she became angry she "cried out numbers ending in 4." The stunned doctors eventually discovered that the numbers she used corresponded to the numbers on Three Stooges trading cards. The cards depicted "moods of violence" that the troubled girl herself was unable to articulate without the emotional release offered by the Stooges; in recounting the story, Moe Howard tears up.

It's interesting to note that although the Stooges (which at this point consist of Moe, Larry Fine, and "Curley Joe" DeRita) don't receive any financial compensation for their old movies, but the features and personal appearances sparked by the renewed interest in the movies more than make up the difference. Ah, the Stooges - loved 'em as a kid, love' em just as much now. TV