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Post by mikef6 on Dec 12, 2021 16:27:21 GMT
Doctor Who (New Series) 2014 Christmas Special. "Last Christmas"  |
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Post by Salzmank on Dec 17, 2021 4:24:23 GMT
“Christmas Party,” A Nero Wolfe Mystery, S1:E9.
Lots of people love this show. I should be one of them—I love old mysteries, old New York atmosphere, and the 1940s and like the Nero Wolfe characters—but… I dunno. I find so many episodes just so dull.
Part of the reason is that source-material author Rex Stout’s plots were generally weak; a few of the Wolfe novels and novellas have strong plots (Too Many Cooks, Some Buried Caesar, and “Black Orchids” spring to mind), but in general Stout was one of the weakest puzzle-plotters of the so-called Golden Age of Detective Fiction (roughly ’20s-late ’40s).
Stout’s real strength was his dialogue, his witty repartee, and unfortunately many of the Nero Wolfe Mystery scripts lose that dialogue. Maury Chaykin, as Wolfe, and Timothy Hutton, as Archie Goodwin, give decent performances but don’t really look (and, in Chaykin’s case, sound) like the Stout characters. The supporting casts tend to be, not to put too fine a point on it, bad.
And the episodes are just so blandly filmed, making a high-budgeted show look cheap. “Christmas Party,” the episode I watched tonight, exemplifies all of these flaws.
Still, I keep watching from time to time in the hopes that I’ll see an episode I wholeheartedly like!
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Post by taylorfirst1 on Dec 17, 2021 20:49:44 GMT
“Christmas Party,” A Nero Wolfe Mystery, S1:E9. Lots of people love this show. I should be one of them—I love old mysteries and the 1940s and like the Nero Wolfe characters—but… I dunno. I find so many episodes just so dull. Part of the reason is that Rex Stout’s plots were generally weak; a few of the Wolfe novels and novellas ( Too Many Cooks, Some Buried Caesar, and “Black Orchids” spring to mind) have strong plots, but in general Stout was one of the weakest puzzle-plotters of the so-called Golden Age of Detective Fiction (roughly ’20s-late ’40s). Stout’s real strength was his dialogue, his witty repartee, and unfortunately many of the Nero Wolfe Mystery scripts lose that dialogue. Maury Chaykin, as Wolfe, and Timothy Hutton, as Archie Goodwin, give decent performances but don’t really look like the Stout characters. The supporting casts tend to be, not to put too fine a point on it, bad. And the episodes are just so blandly filmed, making a high-budgeted show look cheap. “Christmas Party,” the episode I watched tonight, exemplifies all of these flaws. Still, I keep watching from time to time in the hopes that I’ll see an episode I wholeheartedly like! Have you seen the Nero Wolfe series from 1981 with William Conrad?
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Post by Salzmank on Dec 17, 2021 20:57:51 GMT
“Christmas Party,” A Nero Wolfe Mystery, S1:E9. Have you seen the Nero Wolfe series from 1981 with William Conrad? Nope, just the Chaykin-Hutton series, TV-wise. (I’ve also listened to the Sydney Greenstreet radio show and watched the ’30s movies.) Any good?
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Post by taylorfirst1 on Dec 17, 2021 21:12:53 GMT
Have you seen the Nero Wolfe series from 1981 with William Conrad? Nope, just the Chaykin-Hutton series, TV-wise. (I’ve also listened to the Sydney Greenstreet radio show and watched the ’30s movies.) Any good? Well there's only 14 episodes and I watched them all when they first aired but I was pretty young and don't really remember how good they were. I remember liking the character as portrayed by Conrad.
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Post by MCDemuth on Dec 17, 2021 21:14:32 GMT
Taking another Trek through The Animated Series... I keep forgetting how great the series was for a cartoon. |
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Post by MCDemuth on Dec 17, 2021 21:20:37 GMT
Doctor Who (New Series) 2014 Christmas Special. "Last Christmas" " There's a horror movie called Alien?... That's really offensive!..."
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