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Post by theravenking on Dec 23, 2022 12:42:42 GMT
 I started watching Season 5 of The Outer Limits. I'd already seen some of the episodes, but with a new box-set out containing the un-edited series, I decided to catch up on the show. Alien Radio (S5: Ep. 1) - Joe Pantoliano is a mean radio show host who invites all kinds of conspiracy nuts on air just to ridicule them. But then his latest victim, who was trying to convince him of an imminent Alien invasion, with the extra-terrestrials taking over the bodies of humans, confronts him in person and sets himself on fire, burning to death, resulting in some weird alien shape leaving his body. Oliver Stone is name-checked in the first minutes of this episode which is basically The Outer Limits version of his movie Talk Radio. Joey Pants tries his best holding the thing together, but the story can't quite decide whether it wants to be a conspiracy thriller or a human drama about one man's redemption. There's an appearance by series regular Alex Diakun and also a part for Cynthia Nixon as a radio producer, but neither of them makes much of an impression. Overall there is nothing particularly original here as the story follows the show's usual template. |
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Post by Prime etc. on Dec 24, 2022 8:02:08 GMT
KOJAK - Season3 A Question of Answers Part 1-- Damn-I watched the second part first-not realizing it had a first part (but it makes sense now why they sped through the first 5 minutes --I thought it was rather truncated). This show has very good writing. There's a scene where a mobster explains to Kojak that lending people money is no different than what a bank does.
And Kojak says : but if you can't pay, the bank doesn't break your legs.
And the mobster says: no they just take your house.
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Post by Prime etc. on Dec 25, 2022 6:06:00 GMT
MCCLOUD - THE PARK AVENUE RUSTLERS - aired december 24, 1972. McCloud goes undercover to bust a car theft ring run by Roddy McDowall, Eddie Albert, and Lloyd Bochner. He gets assigned a woman partner (Brenda Vaccaro) who asks "do I threaten your masculinity, McCloud?" To which he replies, "no, do I threaten yours?"
The highlight of this show is a very scary helicopter stunt in which someone is dangling from the skid of a helicopter more than 20 floors off the ground. Maybe he had a rope under his arm holding him on but it sure was hidden well.
IMDB says Dennis Weaver actually missed his cue and ended up hanging from the chopper in one shot but I can't believe it is him in the major shots. I would retire from acting if it was me.
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Post by mikef6 on Dec 25, 2022 17:32:09 GMT
Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3 along with
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Season 1
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Post by Salzmank on Dec 28, 2022 17:34:03 GMT
Took another look at Agatha Christie’s Poirot’s “Hercule Poirot’s Christmas.”
I really want to like this—I like Christie’s book and love the idea of a Christmas mystery movie (I’m working on an original script for one, in fact)—but unfortunately it was just as disappointing as I remembered.
The adapter, Clive Exton, makes the right choice to cut down Christie’s subplots, but I find the episode pretty dull, and I think the murderer’s identity is far more obvious than in the book. Much of it just seems subdued, too, for some reason: Much of the acting didn’t convince me, and I felt zero tension, which is vital for Christie’s story.
This book, like several Christies, deserves another, better adaptation.
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Post by Prime etc. on Jan 1, 2023 8:18:02 GMT
BANACEK: Project Phoenix An experimental car goes missing from a moving train. I never could figure out how these robberies were done except the one about a sculpture that goes missing and the very last episode which seemed too obvious due to a certain actor trying to play two people and not disguising his voice enough.
CANNON - s2 Nobody Beats the House -- Tom Skerritt (who was a rodeo clown/thief in the first Cannon episode) is a gambling addict and owes $200 000 to John Marley. Cannon has to help him stay alive and survives a car crash by his padded gut.
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Post by Prime etc. on Jan 7, 2023 7:04:53 GMT
The INVADERS: Doomsday-Minus One - William Windom has a role almost an opposite to Commodore Dekker as a stable army man with a superior officer (Andrew Duggan--I see the pair of them in so many shows) who is reluctantly working with the aliens. In this case right from the start he believes David Vincent--or rather is willing to believe, and by the end he actually is one of his more reliable allies.
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: The Spy - Joseph Campanella as a corrupt Eastern bloc commandant actually utters this line to prisoner Phelps: "We have vays of making you talk."
CANNON: To Kill a Guinea Pig - Cannon gets in a lot of punches and gut action to take out some union mobster people. Vera MIles (who was in the Cannon pilot movie) is a medical researcher being blackmailed while she performs experiments at a prison on volunteers. Her pet monkey gets hanged (?) in order to threaten her. Cannon goes to a construction site and a worker on a high platform drops a metal pipe--almost hitting him. He tells the worker's buddy on the bottom floor to "give a message" to his friend above---and when the guy asks what the message is, Cannon punches him in the stomach.
At one point he gets compared to Mickey Spillane and Cannon says he is closer to Bulldog Drummond. Is that a radio in-joke maybe?
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Post by Prime etc. on Jan 8, 2023 6:36:17 GMT
MANNIX -season 2 The Silent Cry- Mannix has left Intertect (he says he thought he heard one of the machines cuss him) and so now he is working out of his home. A deaf actress observes a hitman talking on a phone and reads his lips. Soon she is in his target sights (he uses a rifle with a red infrared scope borrowed from THRUSH agents on The Man From Uncle so read in the trivia notes).
MCCLOUD: Showdown at the End of the World -- With Chris Coughlin conveniently out of the picture this week, McCloud has to get close to a model being used to transport heroin. Jaclyn Smith! ! Our Charlie's Angel is a dope smuggler? Well she reforms by the end of it. Weaver's son Rick appears as a drug smuggler who begs to be arrested. This show premiered exactly 50 years today.
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Post by theravenking on Jan 8, 2023 14:18:59 GMT
 Jonathan Creek - Satan's Chimney (2001) This is an overlong episode which also feels a bit convoluted. You have to wait about 30 minutes for the first murder, but after a slow start it does get more exicting. There are some obvious historical inaccuracies and the solution to the second locked-room murder is actually so simple, that I should've figured it out myself. The first locked-room trick is an absolute stunner though, a rare original take on a well-worn trope. 7.5/10 |
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Post by Salzmank on Jan 8, 2023 15:10:12 GMT
Jonathan Creek - Satan's Chimney (2001) This is an overlong episode which also feels a bit convoluted. You have to wait about 30 minutes for the first murder, but after a slow start it does get more exicting. There are some obvious historical inaccuracies and the solution to the second locked-room murder is actually so simple, that I should've figured it out myself. The first locked-room trick is an absolute stunner though, a rare original take on a well-worn trope. 7.5/10 Agreed. The locked-room trick is smart, simple, and (as far as I know) original. But the episode is strangely plotted, with all that focus on the second murder. It all does connect, but the first murder feels tangential for most of the episode. That goes back to Renwick’s problems as a writer, I think. He can (well, he used to) come up with these brilliant impossible-crime solutions, but I’m not sure he’s good at the nuts and bolts of writing, particularly of laying out clear storylines. (He’s better at it than Paul Halter, though!) The more I think about Jonathan Creek, the more I think a smaller-scale ep like “Jack in the Box” may be Renwick’s best work, even if it’s not my favorite episode. I do like “Satan’s Chimney,” but like you I find it overlong and convoluted. |
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Post by theravenking on Jan 8, 2023 16:26:37 GMT
Jonathan Creek - Satan's Chimney (2001) This is an overlong episode which also feels a bit convoluted. You have to wait about 30 minutes for the first murder, but after a slow start it does get more exicting. There are some obvious historical inaccuracies and the solution to the second locked-room murder is actually so simple, that I should've figured it out myself. The first locked-room trick is an absolute stunner though, a rare original take on a well-worn trope. 7.5/10 Agreed. The locked-room trick is smart, simple, and (as far as I know) original. But the episode is strangely plotted, with all that focus on the second murder. It all does connect, but the first murder feels tangential for most of the episode. That goes back to Renwick’s problems as a writer, I think. He can (well, he used to) come up with these brilliant impossible-crime solutions, but I’m not sure he’s good at the nuts and bolts of writing, particularly of laying out clear storylines. ( He’s better at it than Paul Halter, though!) The more I think about Jonathan Creek, the more I think a smaller-scale ep like “Jack in the Box” may be Renwick’s best work, even if it’s not my favorite episode. I do like “Satan’s Chimney,” but like you I find it overlong and convoluted. I've been meaning to read some more Paul Halter, but I wasn't particularly impressed with the few I tried so far. I read the short story collection of his which was published by Locked-Room International, and can barely remember any of the stories. I also read two of his earlier novels in French (to my knowledge neither of these have been translated so far), and again failed to understand, why this guy is so highly regarded among mystery aficionados. I don't think mystery authors need to be "good writers", but they should be fine story-tellers, and Halter just falls completely flat for me in that aspect. |
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Post by Salzmank on Jan 8, 2023 16:54:42 GMT
Agreed. The locked-room trick is smart, simple, and (as far as I know) original. But the episode is strangely plotted, with all that focus on the second murder. It all does connect, but the first murder feels tangential for most of the episode. That goes back to Renwick’s problems as a writer, I think. He can (well, he used to) come up with these brilliant impossible-crime solutions, but I’m not sure he’s good at the nuts and bolts of writing, particularly of laying out clear storylines. ( He’s better at it than Paul Halter, though!) The more I think about Jonathan Creek, the more I think a smaller-scale ep like “Jack in the Box” may be Renwick’s best work, even if it’s not my favorite episode. I do like “Satan’s Chimney,” but like you I find it overlong and convoluted. I've been meaning to read some more Paul Halter, but I wasn't particularly impressed with the few I tried so far. I read the short story collection of his which was published by Locked-Room International, and can barely remember any of the stories. I also read two of his earlier novels in French (to my knowledge neither of these have been translated so far), and again failed to understand, why this guy is so highly regarded among mystery aficionados. I don't think mystery authors need to be "good writers", but they should be fine story-tellers, and Halter just falls completely flat to me in that aspect. Oh, agreed. I’m equally baffled by mystery fans’ praise of him. I haven’t read anything of his in French (though I know enough French that I probably could), but the English translations are usually horrid—dry as dust, with stick-figure “characters.” I think he got better over time (I remember thinking The Phantom Passage was better written than his other books), but I don’t think he’s a natural writer, or storyteller, at all. What makes his inability to write even worse is that he can come up with good mystery solutions— The Phantom Passage’s and the second murder in The Lord of Misrule spring to mind. I should read him in the original French before being this harsh, but I’ve read plenty of writers in translation and not seen writing this bad. And I’ve heard from people like you who have read Halter in French and found the writing just as clunky. Sometimes I wonder if his books would be good for TV adaptations, which could keep his puzzles and solutions and would do away with his prose. |
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Post by Prime etc. on Jan 14, 2023 7:03:24 GMT
THE TIME TUNNEL-- The Day the Sky Fell In Doug and Tony end up in Pearl Harbor on Dec 6, 1941---which so happens to be where Tony was as a kid. Actually--it created a problem that he appears as 10 years old--because the series is set in 1970? So Tony would have been around 40--and he's not that old in the show.
BANACEK - Ten Thousand Dollars A Page--someone steals a rare book from a secure room, and a rich mean old guy with a very unflattering hairstyle that looked so fake I assumed he was wearing a disguise-- is desperate to get it back. This is the one where Banacek isn't so suave after he gets into a fight with Ted Cassidy. David Doyle is a good sparring partner for Banacek, he should have stuck around in future episodes. Premiered this week 50 years ago.
PETROCELLI-- A Night of Terror--A gangster's girlfriend (Lois Nettleton) is accused of killing him and while she claims her innocence, she keeps telling Petrocelli that he can't win this case. But he does of course. This is the first time we see Pete (Albert Salmi) on his own doing investigations. I couldn't believe it.
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Post by Prime etc. on Jan 15, 2023 8:05:13 GMT
MANNIX- S 2 Comes Up Rose - An ex-cop buddy of Mannix asks for his help to find his wife (Sheree North) who was once "in the game." That's code for a prostitute.
McMILLAN & WIFE - No Hearts, No Flowers -- Sally has a secret admirer who kills the purse snatcher that mugged her. With the aid of a psychiatrist (Sheree North), they make profiles of all the likely suspects. This has a really sad monologue at the end by someone. A literal tearjerker. By coincidence, it premiered on January 14, 1973. Scott Brady appears in this--and coincidentally, he will appear in our next anniversary tv viewing announcement-another big 50 coming in a couple of days.
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Post by mikef6 on Jan 15, 2023 22:56:36 GMT
Three-quarters of the way through Season 1 of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and about the same into Season 3 of "Star Trek: The Next Generation."
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Post by Prime etc. on Jan 21, 2023 7:10:13 GMT
THE WILD WILD WEST-S 3 The Night of the Assassin - This had a pretty funny disguise for Artemus Gordon as an elderly father for a prisoner who they want to interrogate. That's the highlight of the episode about an assassination plot against the Mexican president.
THE INVADERS - Quantity Unknown A plane crashes and a weird cylinder is recovered. David Vincent goes to investigate and meets James Whitmore as a crazed security guard who knows about the aliens too. Good twist near the end.
SARGE - Psst..wanna buy a dirty picture? - A distraught man leaves $13000 in the church collection plate and Sarge seeks to learn why-which takes him into the world of porno magazines and movies. This series has quality writing.
CANNON- S 1 The Island Caper Keenan Wynn is an ex-con blackmailed into helping would-be thieves steal a money shipment from a sea plane. Has good laughs as he interacts with the thieves led by James Olson.
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Post by Prime etc. on Jan 22, 2023 6:35:44 GMT
IRONSIDE "Poole's Paradise" Ironside's van has to make a stop in a small hick town run by a (shocker) corrupt sheriff (Steve Forrest) and his deputies (including William Smith). But then a fugitive from the prison work camp (Clu Gallagher) takes Ironside's associate hostage to make his escape. Funny that the phone in the van rings and it is called a "mobile phone."
1969. The van is destroyed and Ironside gets a new one.
COLUMBO - Requiem for a Falling Star -- Columbo is starstruck by Anne Baxter and she introduces him to Edith Head. Funny exchange when Columbo quizzes a young man at the studio and learns he is the boss. When Columbo says he would never guess the man was in charge, the studio guy responds: "that's ok, I would never cast you as a detective." Premiered Jan 21, 1973.
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Post by stefancrosscoe on Jan 24, 2023 17:18:20 GMT
Just found out that the once highly popular Norwegian sitcom Mot i brøstet (1993-1997) or I guess in English: Courage in the chest, which celebrates 30 years since it was first aired on TV2 back in January of 1993. Decided to pick up from where I left off, as the entire show got re-released in summer 2018 on DVD (doubt it will ever get a Blu-ray release) and well, the former DVDs were all out of production, and ridiculous overpriced. Yet, I almost caved in a couple of times, but glad I stood firmly still, and waited for a cheaper and newer to arrive. Anyway, was so sure I had seen the first episode before, but turned out I might have just started up, somewhere else within season 1, from my last visit. As no lines or scenes felt familiar to me. Episode 01 - Season 01: Forfremmelsen aka The Promotion (1993) The main plot is pretty much around three grown up men, of course within different age group, where Karl Reverud (Nils Vogt) ends up getting fired, divorced and losing his car and house, all in one day. However, fate intervenes, with a little "help" from some new tenants, that will help him solve the money trouble and also saving the house as well. The comedy is quite dull, even compared to the early 90s sitcom standard, but nostalgia and three very popular and likeable Norwegian actors, make up for it, and also Henki Kolstad appears shortly. There is even some brief female nudity, appearing as a poster girl, mounted on the wall. Well, not sure if I will manage to stick around and re-watch almost 60 hours of (according to the DVD set) of "hilarous" sitcom, but maybe try to give a few episodes a go, each week. The picture quality is not exactly great, but at least it is better than nothing. I give this first episode a rating of: 5/10 |
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Post by Prime etc. on Jan 28, 2023 6:29:12 GMT
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE A Game of Chess -- Interesting to see a computer chess game as well as a micro camera. A big deal then and so common place now.
BANACEK The Greatest Collection of Them All - A truck load of paintings is stolen. This was broadcast 50 years ago this week.
"Mr Banacek, I find your whole attitude to be chauvinistic, patronizing, and probably lecherous."
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Post by Prime etc. on Jan 29, 2023 8:03:03 GMT
HEC RAMSEY - The Mystery of the Yellow Rose - In the last Banacek I watched, ubiquitous character actor George Murdock showed up and he appears in this one too. Diane Muldaur is an old flame of Ramsey (seems hard to believe but whatever) who runs a saloon with Don Stroud, a messed-up son of a local tycoon. He likes to beat up prostitutes and after he does it to Muldaur he is murdered. Hec has to be her lawyer because she can't get a fair trial. Rigged as it is, she is to be hanged but Hec springs her and they run into the desert where he gets bitten by a rattlesnake and has to use a belt buckle and cactus to beat the venom. It was quite riveting but then yaqui indians show up and they help him out because--we learn, he is part Sioux--on a grandparent's side. I hate this trope--you do find it popping up in some late westerns-- because it isn't realistic that a tribe would be less hostile to him just because he claims he has a distant relative from another tribe. Other than that, and the implausibility of the town tycoon being a psychotic jerk (which is another trope of these 70s westerns) it held my attention and had some dialogue. Hec Ramsey is kind of a Columbo of the West but with less star power. Just so happens to have premiered Jan 28 1973.
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