Change Your Image
GaryPeterson67
WNEW, WOR, and WPIX provided him a rich education in film history spanning the 1930s through the 1970s, from Fred Astaire to the Five Deadly Venoms. After school it was Gilligan's Island, the Brady Bunch, and perhaps WABC's 4:30 Movie (especially when it was Godzilla or Planet of the Apes weeks). Sadly, this cathode-ray crazed manchild counted among his closest friends Crazy Eddie, Tom Carvel, the Man from APEX Tech, and Pathmark pitchman James Karen.
Late nights and into the wee small hours of the morning frequently found him bleary-eyed, stirring another mug of Taster's Choice while taking in post-11-Alive Action News reruns of The Odd Couple, Honeymooners, Star Trek, Twilight Zone, and Barney Miller. Sunday mornings would find this sabbath-scorning reprobate skipping services just to enjoy F-Troop and WPIX's dependable 11:30 airing of an Abbott & Costello cinematic classic, during which he pored over the pages of Newsday's TV supplement, plotting the coming week's viewing. Such was the life of a no-cable, pre-VCR television addict circa 1983. But oh, what halcyon days they were!!
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Dallas: Family (1984)
Suspicious Minds, or Red Herring in a Blue Bikini
Another episode in the continuing saga of the Ewings--real and possibly imagined. Suspicious minds want to know if Jamie is really whom she claims to be. Lined up against the ragamuffin are J. R., of course, but also Ray and Jenna. Add Bobby to the list, as he's party to siccing old Harv Smithfield on an investigation into her identity. Isn't this job a little out of Harv's purview? Where's Harry McSween? Harv shows up with a paperclipped wad of yellow newspaper clippings and is greeted with a brusque demand to get on with it from J. R. By all scant and sketchy accounts, Jamie's the real deal.
And what's the big deal? Jamie has no legal claim on Jock or his heirs. She makes it clear she is only looking for family connections and wants to pay her own way. It would be different if she hinted that she's owed something. Jamie appeared sincerely hurt when J. R. offered her a check to go away, a tried-and-true tactic he's effectively employed before (see, e.g., Valene, Kristin et al.). Me, I think Jamie's the real deal, a distaff Huckleberry Finn in whom there is no guile.
Wow, after Jamie strips off her Okie duds, scrapes off the dirt, and straps on a blue bikini all memories of her inauspicious arrival disappear. In her exchange with Jenna, a smiling Jenilee Harrison stirs up happy memories of Cindy Snow on THREE'S COMPANY.
There's a mile-wide plot hole here the writers awkwardly try to plug with a retroactive continuity implant (aka a retcon). Minus J. R.'s fuzzy childhood memories, nobody remembers or ever spoke of Jock's brother Jason, with Ray saying he never even heard the name until a day ago. But Jenna appears to know all about him from her hitherto-unmentioned father Lucas Wade, who claimed he and Jason Ewing loathed one another. How was this pertinent point of contention never brought up in all the previous years Bobby and Jenna were together?
Another pressing question: How come nobody drinks the coffee at Cliff's? Knowing his reputation for being a cheapskate, is Cliff brewing store-brand robusta? Cliff has Mandy make coffee for him and Dave Stratton, but just when she brings it out, Cliff announces the meeting is over and the coffee is never enjoyed. Later on, Jeremy Wendell pops into Cliff's and Mandy brings him a cup of coffee that he never touches. In Jeremy's defense, he may have needed something cold--like a shower--as Mandy answered the door in red lingerie.
Already Cliff is up to his old tricks, ones that always backfire and end badly. First, he's mistreating Mandy like he did Afton, like a maid he can summarily dispatch to make the coffee. Second, taking a page from JR's playbook, he's pimping Mandy out to seduce Jeremy like JR did Afton for Vaughn Leland. Okay, maybe not seduce, but to misuse her considerable feminine charms to tease information out of Jeremy--emphasis on the tease. Let's face it, Jeremy said more to this wide-eyed rapturous beauty sitting close to him in her lacy underwear than he ever would have disclosed to a middle-aged man in a rumpled business suit.
Forget Jamie. My guess is that Mandy is going to be this season's femme fatale. Jamie's a red herring in a blue bikini. Mandy is Lady Macbeth in red lingerie, a duplicitous dame with trouble in mind for Cliff. To his credit, Jeremy got Mandy to abashedly admit that she only met Cliff after his Big Strike. And Mandy says she finds Cliff "cute"? And she doesn't bristle at Cliff's barking orders at her or asking her to answer the door scantily clad for a stranger to ogle? C'mon, Mandy's suffering this fool gladly for a good and filthy lucrative reason.
Speaking of barking orders... ugh, here's Lucy's already stale subplot playing the poor woman's Alice Hyatt in the Hot Biscuit, the Metroplex's sorry answer to Mel's Diner. Lucy's story is like a false nose on the show. It unfolds in its own universe and serves no purpose other than running out Charlene Tilton's contract. I cannot muster even an iota of interest to invest in Lucy's rivalry with Betty over the cranky counter cowboy and his empty coffee cup.
Another burgeoning subplot at whose birth I audibly groaned was Pam seeing Mark Graison's car and gasping upon spying who was behind the wheel. My guess... Katherine the Vengeful! But we'll have to tune in next week for what I fear will be an anticlimactic reveal.
What's with the padded-out B-roll of Sly dramatically pacing the streets to meet Cliff? Looked like this segment was outsourced to an ambitious film school student judging by the worm's-eye views, skewed angles, and other attempts at injecting drama into a dull scene. Speaking of Sly and Cliff, I'm watching DALLAS alongside the fifth season of rival soap DYNASTY, which coincidentally is also featuring a subplot about a long-lost relative suddenly turning up. I will repeat my contention from past reviews that the Sly passing secrets to Cliff scenes are actually in-jokes about Lorimar and Spelling scribes slipping scripts back and forth. I mean c'mon, last season each series had a character named Mark and both fell fatal victim to Newton's Law within weeks of one other. And now this season each show has long-lost relatives showing up? I'm tellin' ya... collusion.
Highlight of the week that buoyed the episode from a 6 to a 7 was the triumphant returns of William Smithers and Christopher Stone as Westar CEO Jeremy Wendell and his flack Dave Stratton. This pair disappeared after the fourth season and were much missed. With Westar being mentioned a number of times last season, I was sure Wendell would be back, but I sure didn't expect him to make an irresistible merger and acquisition proposal to Cliff including director privileges.
But... Cliff's cockiness coupled with Pam thinking it's cute to play hard to get may scotch the deal--to their peril. Oh, I relished the scene with Wendell's thinly veiled threat that Westar can be a great ally or a worse enemy. Knowing Cliff after all these seasons, I am convinced he will quixotically tilt at the Westar Goliath while that Delilah Mandy is clipping his wings. And lest we forget: What about upstart oil baroness Donna's boutique company, warming up in the bullpen and sure to throw a curveball into Cliff's house of cards? And will the collateral damage include Ewing Oil?
It appears the season has finally gained traction, assembled and arranged its players on the chessboard, and has offered us much for which to tune in again next week.
The Time Tunnel: The Alamo (1966)
Wait, what? An Alamo Story Without Davy Crockett?
Watching 1960's epic film THE ALAMO it wasn't John Wayne's Davy Crockett or Richard Widmark's Jim Bowie that proved so compelling compared to Laurence Harvey's Col. William Travis, right? I mean, wasn't Travis the man you just yearned to see take center stage? If you answered yes, you stand with Bob and Wanda Duncan and likely enjoyed their exercise in squandered potential. The rest of us ask in bitter bemusement, how could they have messed this up?
The star-studded movie ran a whopping two hours and forty-two minutes and proved compelling all the way through, but "The Alamo" episode of TIME TUNNEL runs fifty minutes and proves a dreary and dull affair. Again, how did they manage to mess this up?
Ditching Davy Crockett. If people know anything about the Alamo it's that Davy Crockett died there fighting till his last breath. So why is he inexplicably and inexcusably MIA from this episode? Yeah, eagle-eyed viewers will spot a fellow in a coonskin cap when Doug and Tony are brought into the ill-fated fort, but that's it. And don't tell me Disney held the rights to the character. Crockett is a historical figure, not a fictional creation, so you can't hold the rights to Crockett any more than a company could hold rights to Abraham Lincoln, star of last week's episode.
Benching Jim Bowie. The second most iconic and fascinating figure at the Alamo was Jim Bowie, famous for the knife that bears his name (Frankie Lane sang a catchy song about it). But Bowie is benched for most of this story and then sent to the showers after taking his famous fall thanks to Tony. In his too few scenes, Bowie brought buckskinned bombast to the otherwise staid proceedings.
An aside, the real Jim Bowie was 39 on the day the Alamo fell. In the 1960 film he was played by 45-year-old Richard Widmark, and here by a 57-year-old Jim Davis. I loved Davis as Jock Ewing, but boy was he wildly miscast as Jim Bowie.
The Maguffin of Doug's Concussion. We're thirteen shows in and the formula is showing and wearing thin. Why do Doug and Tony have to separate in virtually every story? This episode would have been so much better had all the action been confined to the Alamo. Doug's is twice knocked on the noggin and is seeing double and can't even hold his head up. At least until after Tony takes off on his fool's errand to bring back a doctor, immediately after which Doug is suddenly hale, hearty and in fighting trim.
Wow, what an obvious a ploy to give Tony a solo side-adventure. I wouldn't care if it were good, but it was so painfully lame. Tony in a rookie move gets captured by the Frito Bandito and hauled bound and gagged to the local generale, who just happens to be in the company of the very doctor Tony is looking for. How convenient, coincidental, and contrived!
Too Much Travis and Reynerson. It's beyond rational thought why Bob and Wanda Duncan decided to swing the spotlight off the colorful characters of Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie and instead shine it on the dull martinet Travis and the fictional Reynerson, thus inflicting a mortal wound on the narrative. Travis was just a redressed Custer from a few weeks ago, and Reynerson was simply the formula's necessary plot device of an ally to assist Doug and Tony. With them as the leading guest stars, the show never achieved escape velocity.
Who else is growing weary with the now obligatory "accidental" bringing through the tunnel the wrong person? Cue another pop-eyed and jaw-dropped denizen of the past whom our crack crew/crew on crack locked onto by mistake. I was waiting for General Kirk to pull rank on Colonel Travis, but no, Kirk just shows the dazed visitor a video of his impending death and sends him back through the tunnel.
Is Doug a scientist or a historian? How many historians would know the exact date the Alamo fell? Doug does. And Doug also has no misgivings about playing his prescience of the future as a supernatural gift, really stringing along the gullible Reynerson, bragging with a mystical portentousness that he knows events a hundred years and more into the future.
In the end, what could have been--should have been--a tense nailbiter of a story as Doug and Tony race against a clock inexorably ticking down to a massacre sunk into a talky and dull affair that did a real disservice to the real-life drama of the Alamo.
Rumpole of the Bailey: Rumpole and the Alternative Society (1978)
If You Can't Do the Time...
What a subversive episode! Writer John Mortimer appeared to be sympathetic with the hippies, but then undercuts the audience's sympathies for them again and again. Like the striking contrast drawn between the dour, unsmiling hippies in their commune with the happy squares in the Crooked Billet. Hmm, what looks more appealing, listening to flute music and reciting Wordsworth or enjoying a pint while joining the pub in singing "Roll Out the Barrel"? For me, the show closed on a satisfying note. Justice prevailed--Kathy was guilty, after all--and the rule of law and order in a civilized society was upheld.
Mortimer also made Kathy Trelawny such an unlikable character. Actress Jane Asher looking like Ophelia never convinced me she was a schoolteacher who admired Wordsworth. I felt vindicated when she admitted she was a drug-dealer and had been since the ill-fated trip to Turkey where her hapless brother got pinched to play the lead in MIDNIGHT EXPRESS. In a striking parallel, that film was released the same year as this episode, and recounted events that took place in 1970, same year as this episode. But whether Mortimer was riding a hippie-nostalgia wave or trying to editorialize on the harshness of drug convictions, he was defeated on both fronts.
The one hippie who came across as an appealing character was the undercover cop! I enjoyed Smedley's jaunty walk and interactions with people and that cat on the path. The real hippies came across as lost souls, wandering aimlessly about the front yard, idling away their prime years. One is an unwed mother. None appeared happy. Conversely, the madding crowd at the Crooked Billet, gathered round to hear war veteran Sam's blarney and his wife Bobby's piano playing, were enjoying life and the simple joys of friends, grown children, and weighing the flattering what ifs of what might have been.
Casting a pall over this bastion of booze-fueled bombast comes the unsmiling Kathy who can recite poetry but is unable to muster up even pleasant banter with the boisterous Sam, pulling back her hand from this man who dropped bombs and killed people during the war. I immediately wondered what her relationship was with her father--strained at best and more likely estranged. What in her upbringing led both Kathy and her brother into this "alternative society" and its concomitant life of drugs and crime?
Add to that the promise of prostitution and adultery as in a desperate grandstand play Kathy all but assures Rumpole of afternoon delight in London if he will just conveniently forget her confession of guilt. That was the moment when the last few dew drops of sympathy I felt for her character evaporated. I think Rumpole's sympathy dried up at the exact same second.
Was Kathy a victim of her boyfriend's undue influence? Was David Hawkins an ideologue using her as a pawn in his ploy to secure a platform to address draconian drug laws? No, Kathy stood up to him at least twice; first when leaving Nirvana with the lawyer and second when shushing him as Rumpole recited Wordsworth. He was no Svengali and she no Trilby.
My favorite performance was Peter Jeffrey's as Sam. I hardly recognized him behind that massive moustache and muttonchops. He and Liz Fraser made an appealing couple, again, one standing in stark contrast to David and Kathy. A close second favorite was Betty Hardy as Miss Tigwell, England's answer to Mrs. Kravitz on BEWITCHED. I laughed when she pulled out the big guns, switching from discreet opera glasses to binoculars!
Unsettling was Rumpole's attraction to the hippie life. Was it the wine talking when he claimed he would give up the barrister's life to idle away in Nirvana? Abandon Hilda and drop out with Kathy? Rumpole too much appreciates and enjoys the finer things in life to go bohemian, as his pining for the gourmet railway lunches and claret of yesteryear testify. And poor Hilda--She Who Must Be Obeyed--whom Horace did a grave disservice to, claiming he was conscripted into marrying her and voicing regret over losing his wartime crush and then swooning momentarily under the spell of kindred-soul Kathy.
This was a strong showing that manages a slight edge over the series opener. In this particular series, however, plots are secondary to the characters, especially that of the hoary-wigged and rumpled Horace Rumpole.
Dallas: If at First You Don't Succeed (1984)
Do You Like Chinese Food?
Three shows into this 30-episode season and like Miss Ellie on her stationary bike, the wheels are spinning but the plot isn't going anywhere. Bobby languishes in the hospital and his sight shows no sign of returning. The big arrest and attempted murder charge against Cliff was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it plot point that served its sole purpose of closing out last week's show on a cliffhanger (no pun intended). Lucy appears on the cusp of taking a waitressing job at the Hot Biscuit, the greasy spoon where her mother slung hash long ago. Sue Ellen and Pam each take hardline "stand by your man" positions that crank up the heat on the always-simmering Ewing-Barnes Feud.
Oh, and we find out who shot Bobby! The femme fatale decides to take another shot at him, this time with a syringe! I confess I was caught flatfooted and stunned by the closing scene reveal. I suspected Sue Ellen after that scene of her hiding a handgun a couple shows ago. Those red herrings do indeed fool dopes like me.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and Katherine is proving Congreve right--in spades. In hindsight I should have guessed the shooter since the smoking gun was found at Cliff's and Katherine has long loathed her half-brother. How she planted it in his apartment hasn't been explained (and probably won't be). I doubt Cliff would have given her a key. So can we assume JR was never the target and Katherine knew that it was Bobby sitting in JR's chair?
While clearly a grab for the glories of the "who shot JR" plot, this one does offer its own twists and turns. Is the apparent change that facing death has wrought in JR genuine? He sure has gotten soft this season, going all Alan Alda and pouring out his vulnerable heart to Sue Ellen. Unless he discovered such squishiness works as an aphrodisiac, as evidenced by the "let's get physical" workout scene. Yeah, I'm thinking it's just another of JR's manipulations, and as always it's an effective one, judging by how fiercely loyal Sue Ellen suddenly becomes when defending JR against Clayton and Pam.
This is a hello-goodbye episode as three recurring characters disappear with the closing credits: Mitchell Ryan as Captain Fogarty, Gerald Gordon as Dr. Carter, and Joanna Miles as Martha Randolph. All three were underutilized, as if the writers didn't know what to do with them.
"Do you like Chinese food?" And with that classic Cliff line a budding new love affair blooms. I'm only guessing, but since I see Deborah Shelton will be sticking around for a whopping 63 episodes, I'm confident she'll be assuming the Afton role of longsuffering galpal to the narcissistic--even if not homicidal--Cliff. I mean, who commissions a painting of himself and hangs the gloating portrait in his own office?
Speaking of characters the writers don't know what to do with... here's Lucy nursing a cup of coffee in the Hot Biscuit looking like an actress pouting because she once again has no substantive part to play in this week's show. She mentions to the owner she's Valene's daughter and implies they're estranged. Huh? When did that happen? And suddenly she's offered a waitressing job and seriously weighs accepting it. Huh again? How did this heiress go from being a popular fashion model last season, a past Young Miss Dallas, to wanting to serve greasy cheeseburgers to surly truck drivers in the "circus" the Hot Biscuit becomes at lunchtime?
The writers were clearly desperate. Was DALLAS trying to capture the audience of waning sitcom ALICE, then in its last season? Or appeal to a more blue-collar demographic? THE DUKES OF HAZZARD was its lead-in show for years, after all, so maybe if they make the Hot Biscuit like the Boar's Nest and Lucy like Daisy... no, no, it's too ridiculous.
(I pity da fool envisioning Lucy in a pair of Daisy Dukes right now...!)
I found this episode padded out, plagued with poor direction by Leonard Katzman. For example, three scenes start with servants walking about in real time, from the maid strolling through the dining room to announce to the assembled Ewings that dinner is served to the maid at Katherine's slowly ever so slowly making her way across the spoiled rich girl's spacious poolside patio. At least when Sue Ellen visited Pam and the servant is on screen we get a voiceover of the ladies conversing. What was Katzman's obsession with the hired help?
And then there's that wholly unnecessary scene of Clayton arriving in a chauffeured Rolls Royce just to say goodbye to Ray and Donna. We watch the car drive inexorably down the road and turn into the driveway while Ray polishes his saddle. This superfluous scene did neither Clayton nor Ray any favors, underscoring their conspicuous consumption and idle rich lifestyles. And except for Clayton agreeing that it was time to tell Miss Ellie about Bobby's shooting and blindness, there was no plot-forwarding purpose for this scene. Why is Katzman frittering away so much screentime? It's like he ran out of script with ten minutes of runtime still remaining.
Miss Ellie is mentioned but never seen, of course, and Barbara Bel Geddes is no longer credited. Maybe she's recovering from that explosion on Cliff's offshore oil rig and is even now undergoing plastic surgery to reconstruct her face by overseas doctors addicted to DONNA REED SHOW reruns? Oh, wait, that was DYNASTY, right? That same character played by a different performer sleight of hand (face?) would never happen on DALLAS.
Speaking of which, this was the season DALLAS lost its dominance over that upstart rival soap DYNASTY. Watching them both together I'm seeing how DYNASTY in its fifth season got the edge (it also got DALLAS' former star writer Camille Marchetta, who brought considerable creative magic).
With a few side characters shuffled off, an appealing new one introduced, and a passed-on Ewing uncle portending problems, I'm hopeful this show's wheels will quickly gain traction and move forward soon. We're only three shows in and it appears a plan is coming together, to quote another contemporary series. A big plus for me was this being the first show of the season not to mention Peter, may his name and misbegotten plotline be blotted out!
Ben 10: Benwolf (2007)
'Dooshi Doing 'Dooshi Things
The Tennysons are still traveling in the American Southwest, this time visiting Grandpa's friend and retired Plumber Wes on a Navajo reservation. Wes' granddaughter Kai performs a tribal dance that inadvertently summons the Yenaldooshi--a Navajo werewolf! Oops. Ben to the rescue, as always.
Werewolf stories can be polarizing. Me, I like Lon Chaney as Wolfie chasing Bud and Lou in ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, and Jack Russell ripping and roaring in Marvel Comics' "Werewolf by Night." But I'm not a fan of the more vicious and visceral modern takes on werewolves that began in 1981 with the movies AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON and WOLFEN. The Yenaldooshi springs squarely from the latter camp.
A fascinating revelation to this longtime reader of Erich von Daniken and Graham Hancock is that the Yenaldooshi is not a native American nor even Terran werewolf at all...but an alien not of this earth!
Wes reports the Yenaldooshi has been stealing satellite equipment, including a component off the Rustbucket. I groaned, fearing for sure the story was going to slide headlong into "E. T. phone home" schmaltz with this misunderstood alien werewolf just trying to reach out and touch somebody back on his home planet. But no call was placed and thankfully no bike rides were taken across the moon or heartlights turned on before the credits flashed. Actually, there was no conclusive conclusion, leaving the door wide open for a return engagement.
The fact that someone bitten by a werewolf will himself turn into a werewolf is accepted as a given. But when Ben says a silver bullet will take down the werewolf, Wes dismisses that as "only in the movies." Turns out this Navajo werewolf can only be stopped by placing on its heart a silver pendant splashed with the juice of a certain cactus, the Arbol de Matrimonio. There really is such a cactus, Pereskia lychnidiflora, though what an ignominious introduction it made perforating Gwen's derriere!
That's something I enjoy about this show. Every character is presented as fallibly human and subject to the foibles that befall us all. Ben and Gwen are routinely humbled and humiliated, and even Grandpa sheepishly admits he has some 'splainin' to do after Wes saw Ben go Wildvine. After her dance, Kai breezed regally past a smiling Ben, but she learned pride goeth before the fall--or the flash flood--which quickly washed away her veneer of vain conceit.
Uh, isn't Ben a little young to be attracted to girls? I mean, he's only ten, right? Stick to your Sumo Slammer cards, kid.
More insight is given into Grandpa's past as he and Wes recall their Yeti encounter in the Himalayas. I wondered just how many Plumbers there were and did they exclusively combat alien menaces (was the Yeti also an alien?). Is there a new generation of Plumbers carrying on the good work? They're desperately needed. Just follow the Tennysons around on their Mad Mystery Tour and they will never lack work.
Is it me or is Cannonbolt being overused this season? Gimme Four-Arms any day over that bloated bowling ball. The influence of anime was evident in the Yenaldooshi vs. Benwolf battle. And I'll leave to Beavis and Butthead the commentary on the alien werewolf's unfortunate name ("heh-heh, he said dooshi"). After the tribe hung that one on him, can you blame him for wreckin' the rez?
Just tabbed over and learned that the Yenaldooshi is a real thing: In Navajo mythology, Yenaldooshi (aka "skin-walkers") are evil sorcerers who possess the ability to turn into, possess, or disguise themselves as an animal. They wear coyote skins and travel at night, tend to live in caves, storing recognizable human heads on shelves. Yenaldooshi gain power by killing a close relative, sometimes even a sibling. They also practice cannibalism and necrophilia. (paraphrased from Wikipedia and DeliriumsRealm).
Wow, who knew, huh? And apparently the Navajo would be happier if we didn't know as they don't share their skin-walker legends with outsiders. Back in 2016, JK Rowling sparked figurative war dances after writing about the Yenaldooshi in her History of Magic in North America. But chill out, chief, what little we learned of the legend on BEN 10 was bowdlerized and sanitized for Saturday mornings (no necrophilia and shelves of heads here, folks).
You can't tell the players without a program, so Yenaldooshi has yellow eyes and Benwolf has blue. And at some point Benwolf is wearing an Omnitrix belt (how does he activate it? Giving himself a gutpunch?). In his quieter moments talking with Grandpa and Wes, didn't Benwolf resembled Dynomutt or Ace the Bathound? (Yeah, those are Okay, Boomer references, but surely I'm not the only fifty-plus guy enjoying this awesome series. And don't call me Shirley.)
That said, I found this particular episode to be pretty "meh," but I am in the minority as it is currently the second top-rated show of the season, boasting a whopping 8.5 rating with 606 votes ("Be Afraid of the Dark" is also at an 8.5 but with only 545 votes). The werewolf fanbase is legion (darn Team Jacob Twilighters!)
Manimal: Manimal (1983)
Make Mine Manimal
Wow, nobody has reviewed this pilot movie in a decade? Okay, so MANIMAL is the Rodney Dangerfield of Glen Larson series. Does it deserve to be? I mean, is it TV Kryptonite? Does anybody care what David Letterman thought of the show forty years ago? If you're a fan of Eighties TV, I implore you to give it a fresh look. So many stars of the era appear herein. And despite its brief eight-episode run (due to playing against the JR juggernaut DALLAS), it deserves a place alongside other sci-fi fantasy series of the era like KNIGHT RIDER, A-TEAM, AIRWOLF, and yes, dammit, THE POWERS OF MATTHEW STAR.
Simon MacCorkindale was a star on the rise. I first saw him as an architect on DYNASTY, then in JAWS 3-D, and now getting his own series with MANIMAL. Jonathan Chase is very dashing and debonair, a sharp dresser, and a different kind of hero from the brash and bombastic Michael Knight, Remington Steele, and Templeton "Face" Peck on contemporary series. He's a college professor and a consultant, not a detective or a freebooting adventurer. Later and longer runs on FALCON CREST and COUNTERSTRIKE probably reduced this short-run series to a blip in the rearview mirror of MacCorkindale's memory, but he appointed himself well and I hope he remembered MANIMAL fondly before passing away much too young at 58 in 2010.
"Brash and bombastic" does describe Melody Anderson's character Brooke Mackenzie, however. She's a lady cop who leads with her gun and possesses great zeal but lacks knowledge, wisdom and experience. For example, cops should tail their suspects, not tailgate them, as Brooke does twice in this one show with unsurprisingly bad results. Yanking the camera from Grandpa's hands after commandeering it for police business wasn't especially endearing either. And then reading a man's diary? I'm guilty of forever seeing Anderson as FLASH GORDON's Dale Arden, but I'm already confident this series will give me a greater appreciation for her talents.
I guess it was "hello, I must be going" for Glyn Turman as Ty. That was disappointing as I have been a fan of his since catching him as funky musician Jamal in an episode of CANNON. He really shined in the flashback scene and the interrogation by cobra of Drew.
Speaking of whom, Terry Kiser played villain of the piece Charles Drew. Okay, does anybody post-1989 not think of him first as Bernie of WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S? But he was a fine dramatic actor with a flair for comedy, and that's evident here as he toggles between scary serious and likeable rogue (especially in the aforementioned cobra scene).
I recently saw Lloyd Bochner playing a Space Nazi on Glen Larson's earlier series BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, but Cecil Colby on DYNASTY is his standout role for me. He's such a pro at playing the unruffled villain with that cool and commanding voice. He ably fills that role here, although is arguably ruffled when attacked by a hawk and later a panther. He brings class and distinction to any show he appears on, including the much-maligned MANIMAL.
The original Bond girl Ursula Andress was alas this show's casting fail. On paper it was no doubt a casting coup, but let's keep it real and admit the two decades since DR. NO had not been kind. This wouldn't have been a liability had she played a matronly villainess, but the producers still pictured sexy Honey Ryder in their arrested minds and even gave her a peekaboo near-nude scene! It was more wince-worthy than wow. Her face was almost skeletal in appearance after one nip n' tuck too many. When Jonathan, transformed into Blofeld's cat, sneaks a peek inside her robe I thought he was slumming after having earlier relieved the unconscious Brooke of her tight and binding garments (it's okay, he's a doctor not Bill Cosby).
I usually see Reni Santoni playing heavies, so it was refreshing to see him cast as a police lieutenant, even if one short on patience (but aren't they all?).
Utterly Underutilized: Two performers received up-front billing but then appeared in only one scene. Talk about building us up only to let us down. First up was Wynn Irwin as Brooke's ill-fated partner Simmons. He gets only a handful of lines before biting it. For those who remember Irwin as Dom Deluise's lazy brother-in-law Arthur on LOTSA LUCK, it was like the bum finally got a job only to die on his first night. And what a heartbreaking waste of beauty and talent was DARK SHADOWS' Lara Parker, who played the prostitute Flossie and had insult added to injury when her entire appearance played out in a dingy bathroom! Angelique would never have fainted at the sight of dripping fangs....
I should add Ed Lauter to that list of squandered talent since he literally phoned in his entire appearance minus the short restaurant scene. He also provided this pilot episode a very memorable ending. Lauter is another of Glen Larson's troupe dating back at least to his playing the recurring role of Commander Cain on B. J. AND THE BEAR.
Beloved Character Actors in Cameos: Bert Rosario as the cabbie who got stiffed of his fare and John Quade as the drunk who goes on the wagon. Rosario actually enjoyed a bigger role than both Irwin and Parker and should have got front billing.
The plot itself was secondary to introducing the characters. Something about illegal arms trading to standard-issue terrorist types made more urgent by their adding nerve gas to the mix. This deal had to be a side hustle for Andress' character, a woman of regal Cruella Deville bearing who boasts of being wanted in every civilized country. I mean, she's personally supervising this small-scale convoy of trucks to a rust-bucket ship? It lacked the scale and glamour befitting her and Bochner's inflated reputations. But again, the plot was secondary to the characters.
I enjoyed the show and thought the 74-minute running time flew by... except when it slowed to a slog when we saw for the second, third, fourth time Jonathan's transformation. After the first couple times I groaned when the camera zoomed in on a hyperventilating Jonathan's eyes popping, clothes ripping, hand inflating and deflating. And the fuzzy panther paw with retractable claws? Yeesh. Yeah, they were shamelessly stealing a page from the INCREDIBLE HULK playbook, but it just didn't work here. Better they had swiped from SPACE: 1999 and Maya's quick zoom-in/zoom-out transformations that never slowed the pacing.
After the bait n' switch of small roles for front-listed stars, those protracted transformation scenes were my only real complaint. A nagging question was how Jonathan's clothes reappear after he transforms back to human form, especially after we see them rip down the back. Maybe that will be addressed as the series unfolds (but they better hurry because there are only seven more shows to go!).
Ben 10: Merry Christmas (2006)
Santa is Coming! The Claws Are Here!
The greatest gift of all: A Christmas episode that can be enjoyed any time of the year. Okay, okay, it ain't a Sumo Slammer Extreme Slamdown but it beats a bunny suit, right?
We encounter our intrepid trio traversing a torrid wasteland. The Rust Bucket is equipped with all kinds of high-tech... but not a working air conditioner? What possessed Grandpa to drive through Death Valley in summer, anyway?
After Grey Matter proves himself a gremlin in the a/c, the smoke-filled RV pulls over and the Tennysons are bewildered to behold a castle nestled in the desert sands, its entry guarded by two nutcracker soldiers. Gwen literally tugs on Grandpa's arm, begging to see it, which reminded me that in spite of all her pretenses to sophistication she is still a ten-year-old kid. Hey, nothing wrong with that!
The castle is the entryway into Holiday Village, a winter wonderland that looks like a Swiss Alps resort. Making snow angels and tossing snowballs stir up happy memories of winters past, especially on a sweltering 108-degree day in the desert just a few steps behind them. Or is that desert just a few steps behind them? This being the thirtieth episode of the series, we should all know by now that something just ain't right. And it's not.
Holiday Village appears to be literally frozen in time, as a friendly elf reveals the year is 1932 and adds he was only transformed from a little boy into an elf a few days ago. And it must be contagious because Ben and Gwen have sprouted pointy ears.
Yes, Gwen, there is a Santa Claus, and yes again, pointy ears will indeed be fashionable... if you ever visit a STAR TREK convention!
Speaking of that right jolly old elf, Grandpa has been conscripted into playing Santa Claus by the sinister Mr. Jingles. Max is confined to a chair and controlled by an old-school Atari joystick, dutifully waving to the elves from his lofty perch like a decrepit old pope. The "elves" are actually slave labor working in Jingles' underground cavern creating the perfect toys. Perfect? Uh, like Spit-Up Sally who goes all Linda Blair and barfs a load of pea soup into Ben's face? If that's Jingles' idea of perfect, give me a choo-choo with square wheels or a cowboy riding an ostrich any day!
Ben's busting the elves out of slavery becomes a fun spoof of INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM with cars careening along those endless train tracks in the air., A close second favorite scene is the Rube Goldberg contraption Ben has to navigate to reach the master controls to stop the insanity. And if pressed for a third favorite scene, it would be the machete-slashing nutcrackers making the Ice Capades cool again.
Query: Is Mr. Jingles a villain? Did his misdeeds earn him a scarlet letter of ignominy and a permanent place of shame in Ben's Rogues' Gallery? Me, I don't think so. He was trying to do the right thing, even if there were those unfortunate bad consequences of good intentions (you know, like abducting kids and turning them into docile elves to endlessly labor in his underground sweat shop). His goal wasn't world domination, just creating the perfect toys for the world's girls and boys. Grandpa was willing to forgive Jingles for dressing him up funny, tickling his nose, and playing him like a puppet on a string, and so, in the spirit of Christmas, we should too, right? C'mon, do it for the kids, for Ralphie, Tiny Tim, and Cindy Lou Who.
Random Observations and Thoughts
I'm still not sure why Ben often gets aliens other than what he wants, like wanting "four big arms" and getting Grey Matter instead. But in the show's opening, Ben wanted Grey Matter and got him, and later got Stinkfly on request. My theory is the Omnitrix somehow knows best what Ben will actually need, but I'm open to opposing theories to explain the fickle nature of the watch.
Ben makes another reference to Sumo Slammer and I just can't help believin' these hints are teeing up the ball for something big.
It's a Christmas episode but we get one line of Jingle Bells and that's it for sounds of the season. I wish the producers snuck in more public domain Christmas music. The haunting Carol of the Bells would have perfectly complemented the elves slaving away on the assembly line.
A poignant moment comes when the Tennysons realize they have never spent a Christmas together. Ben and Gwen's families are so "busy" at that time of year with parties and "shopping till you drop." It made me wonder how far apart Max and his children live that they can't gather together. I also had to wonder if Max was an absentee father off playing Plumber and is now reaping the "Cats in the Cradle" karmic load he sowed. Max's epiphany and the kids' positive reaction to it later left me hopeful the misplaced priority on busyness will be corrected come next Christmas...
...Assuming the kids ever get home again! I mean, Salem, Massachusetts last episode and Death Valley, California a week later (in TV time, anyway). Their travels look a lot like the zig-zag map made by our globetrotting Legion of Substitute Santas. Yeah, I know the show isn't necessarily linear, but this endless summerlong Magical Mystery Tour is making me suspect Max "knows not where he's going to," as the old song says.
PS: I'm grateful to the fans who have come before me and noted the winks, nods, and swipes from PINOCCHIO, NARUTO, and THE EXORCIST (talk about strange bedfellows). I would have missed 'em all. Knowing the wealth of pop culture history this series draws upon and weaves throughout episodes only gives me a greater appreciation for it.
Airwolf: Shadow of the Hawke (1984)
Knight Rider in the Sky? Nope
Talk about a bait n' switch. I heard AIRWOLF described as "Knight Rider in the sky." Nope. More like David Janssen's insufferably surly HARRY O in an Ingmar Bergman production of BLUE THUNDER. I mean, is there a less likeable protagonist than Stringfellow Hawke?
Thankfully the self-congratulating Donald Bellisario--who plugs himself at one point--knew he had to balance the humorless Hawke with the bombastic Borgnine. For me, Ernest Borgnine stole ever scene he was in and brought the only animated performance to this bloated pilot movie.
Man, was this show ever full of itself. From the arty inclusion of the Gila monster as mute observer of the opening massacre to those repeated worm's-eye views of Hawke's playing cello while an eagle soars. Ugh. Enough with the arthouse fripperies, like the classical music, fine art, and fine wines (of which too-eager-to-impress Gabrielle fancied herself a sophisticated connoisseur). Isn't this supposed to be an action-adventure show? Maybe my tastes have been corrupted from enjoying too many Glen Larson series? Larson was never one for pretension or pandering to the New York Times critics, unlike THE INCREDIBLE HULK and V's producer Kenneth Johnson and the would-be auteur under discussion, Donald Bellisario.
Some say Airwolf itself is the star of the show. Well, maybe that will happen in the series proper, but in this pilot, that souped-up chopper is mostly MIA minus its memorable introduction through Moffet's infamous treachery, the two brief attacks on the mirage and destroyer, and then for the rousing climax. Airwolf is an impressive piece of high-tech, but KITT it ain't!
And Jan Michael Vincent isn't the Hoff. Who could be, after all? But seriously, Vincent's character is utterly lacking in civility let alone the affability that wins over an audience to cheer him on. Santini suffers this gloomy Gus gladly because he knew his father and brother. I'm grateful Hawke has a friend. As for a lover, Gabrielle was, well, simply a "wh--" as Hawke bluntly called it (too blunt for this site's censors, it turns out). Recruited by the Firm at fifteen and dispatched to do whatever dirty job needed doing, whether sweetening the deal to secure Hawke's services or flashdancing for lusty Libyans in the Red Castle. No, she didn't deserve what she got, and yes, Archangel deserved that sock in the jaw for pimping her out.
Why did Gabrielle have to die, anyway? There was already sufficient motive for blowing Moffett straight into hell. A stronger and more satisfying scene may have been allowing Gabrielle to fulfill her vow to kill Moffett by letting her live and even fire the kill shot. Yeah, Hawke sheds a tear for her, and who knows if this tragic death won't be the crack in his stoic shell that allows the man hiding behind it to emerge. His compassion in shielding Archangel from the truth of her suffering was an admirable step in that direction.
Moffett was a perfect villain; a man lacking any redeeming qualities and worthy only of abject loathing. I couldn't believe David Hemmings was only 42 at the time of filming. He could certainly give a long menacing leer. I enjoyed every scene he was in, loving to hate on him. And yeah, when he told the Libyan guard the only way to destroy Airwolf was a bullet in the fuel intake pipe, I knew that would come into play later. But could Moffett have made that one-in-a-million shot?
My simmering impatience with the melodrama and long faux-profound silences was relieved by recognizing some welcome faces among the supporting players, like Herbert "Boomer" Jefferson Jr. Of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA fame. He had too small a role, however, and melted like a snowball in July when the Chinese lady went all "girl power" on him. Even under Reagan the military was getting soft. The movie set boasted Phil Bruns, father to MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN as the director, and John Calvin, the missionary-spy from TALES OF THE GOLD MONKEY. And finally, there was W. K. Stratton of BAA, BAA BLACKSHEEP as Moffett's blond-haired accomplice who tried to redeem himself by arguing against firing on an American ship. He learned the hard way that treachery takes you farther than you want to go.
Having the enemy take refuge in real-life Libya with real-life dictator Moammar Khadafy lent the show a realism that elevated its credibility. Bellisario was wise not to have an actor play him, alowing him to exist off-screen expressing his approval. Not sure even Khadafy would have applauded Airwolf's sinking the American destroyer, however, as that put him in the crosshairs of the United States and, as Archangel warned, on the slippery slope to World War III.
I can't say this first step on my 55-episode AIRWOLF odyssey was especially promising, but experience has taught me pilots are often at odds with their subsequent series, so I'm holding out hope and adjusting expectations (not looking for a "KNIGHT RIDER in the sky" adventure). And as long as Ernest Borgnine's along for the ride, I'll buckle in and hang on tight.
Ben 10: A Change of Face (2006)
Gwen in the Big Birdcage
Another fun episode that admirably breathes new life into the well-trodden trope of characters switching bodies. And while Charmcaster is a B-list adversary at best, she proved an amusing if not especially formidable opponent.
This is Charmcaster's second appearance and the first on her own. Back in the first season's "Tough Luck" she played sidekick to her uncle, the sorcerer Hex. Fittingly, she turns up in Salem, Massachusetts. Uh-oh, I feared, here comes the Cliff's Notes rehash of "The Crucible" we were all forced to read in school coupled with the chronological snobbery condemnation of Cotton Mather and company for the infamous witch trials, but nary a word was said. I credit the creators for trusting their audience to bring all the background necessary to enjoy the show and to appreciate why Charmcaster would turn up in this particular town.
"I love being a witch!" declared our antagonist after blowing out the second floor of a building, scattering the madding crowd of muggles. This teenage witch sure ain't Sabrina!
Now here's Gwen trying to calm a spooked horse and when it bolts , she grabs onto the carriage. Why? The streets were deserted (all the rational people having fled to safety). So why was she calming the horse and why was Grandpa inexplicably behind the wheel--er, the reins--of a runaway carriage? It's like they have compulsive do-gooderism even when not required by circumstances. Maybe they're trying to keep up with Ben?
Okay, Gwen getting flung from the carriage is what led to the body switcheroo with Charmcaster, so allowances must be made for the plot to get from point A to B. And don't think too hard about Charmcaster wanting to switch bodies with Ben just to get the Omnitrix. Would it be worth it for this beautiful young woman to give all that up to live her life in a ten-year-old boy's body? And as an insightful fan pointed out in the goofs section, Ben lacked the "magical aura," so even had Charmcaster successfully body-swapped with Ben, it's unlikely Charmcaster's plan would have even worked.
What is a "magical aura" anyway? I suspected those who dabble in the dark arts are cursed to have a familiar spirit or even a demonic presence without and within them. Yikes, what's Gwen getting herself into?
When Gwen-as-Charmcaster gets tossed into juvie the story veers left through the box office and into a 1970's grindhouse. Gwen gets WIP'd, as in the "women-in-prison" genre that was so popular back in the day (the apex arguably being the iconic "Angels in Chains" episode of CHARLIE'S ANGELS). All the components are here, toned down for Saturday morning, of course. There's the bully Pinky and her toady giving Gwen a snarky nickname, the bd guard with a mullet, the Miss Beazleyesque lunchlady serving up slop with organic earwax she grew herself (ugh! Hey, c'mon, some of us out here are still eating our Fruity Pebbles!). Uh, isn't Gwen a little young to have seen ANIMAL HOUSE? She sure does a boffo Blutarsky shouting "Food Fight!" to get the party started.
Hmm, I wondered if Pinky was named as an homage to Fonzie's tough biker galpal, Pinky Tuscadero? Considering the preceding shoutouts to the Seventies, I'm thinking yeah.
A ton of fun, but for me, the wind went out of the sail once Charmcaster's switcheroo was revealed and then Ben and Gwen get switched. Yeah, there's some funny lines like Ben repulsed at Gwen's fruit salad lotions and Gwen revolted by Ben's fetid footwear, but it was all anticlimactic. Cannonbolt making matchsticks out of a 17th-century tall ship was wince-worthy for us history buffs (I'm still shuddering over what they did to Mt. Rushmore back in "Secrets"!). And how did Cannonbolt as a fast-rolling blurred ball manage to pick up a chain and wrap it around Charmcaster? Don't ask, I tell myself, just suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride.
And I did enjoy the ride! Charmcaster trying hard to be sweet Gwendoline with mixed success was a highlight. I enjoyed the octopi and lobster attacks and especially that chase on Segways (the show capturing that short-lived fad). Ben as Diamondhead had an Iceman as Spiderman thing going on to get across town that was pretty darn cool. All topped off with a smile-evoking ending with Charmcaster about to reap another girl's karma right in the kisser.
Ben 10: Midnight Madness (2006)
Sgt. Pepper's Mall Heist Band
A standard issue and by-the-numbers adventure finds our heroes at a thinly disguised Mall of America and falling prey to a hypnotist and heister-by-proxy played by Paul Williams as Sgt. Pepper. Okay, not Paul Williams, but it shoulda been!
"Midnight Madness" is the opening episode on the BEN 10 third season DVD, though I see "Ben 10,000" actually aired first. I'm guessing "Midnight Madness" was the first in production order, and the producers knew it wasn't the strongest show to lead off with, so shuffled it back one.
It's a pretty fun episode that never lags and offers plenty of laughs, especially for Gwen, who really gets one up on Ben throughout. Max is back to being grumpy grandpa, but being stuck at a mall for days would exhaust my patience too, especially with a couple high-maintenance ten-year-olds in tow.
Being set in a mall, there were abundant opportunities for satire that unfortunately were missed: Mallrat culture, conspicuous consumerism, mall cops, heist films. The closest we got was the mall manager spinning the situation with his canned assurance that the mall is open and safety a priority. Yeah, this episode predated PAUL BLART by a few years, but c'mon, mall cops have always been a rich source of cheap laughs. Here they're presented as a clean-cut and in fighting trim crack commando unit, but yet they still can't correctly assess the situation or bring down the sawed-off runt in a crash helmet?
Fair play for mall cops: I stand with them against Max in the opening accident. My otherwise robust respect for Max took a dip as apparently offscreen he threatened to sue the mall over its pursuit and great smokey roadblock that led to his veering into a streetlight pole. Uh, why didn't Max just obey the law and pull over? Wildmutt reverted to Ben, so no worries, right? I won't suggest it's time to take the keys away from Grandpa, but his recklessness was at fault here.
And isn't Grandpa concerned about the body shop discovering the secret features of his Plumber-equpped "rust bucket" (Gwen's apt phrasing). You know, like all those wing extensions, rockets, and retractable weaponry that do not come standard?
Okay, so that fender bender was just a plot device to get Ben, Gwen, and Grandpa lingering around the mall and thus falling under the spell of Sublimino, another of this series' swelling squad of jayvee villains. I joked in the opening about Paul Williams as Sgt. Pepper, but seriously, if they got Paul Williams to voice Sublimino in an homage to his rock impresario Swan in PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE, this could have been a casting coup akin to their drafting Dwight "Howlin' Mad" Schultz to voice Dr. Animo. But Richard Horvitz, who voices Grey Matter, was already in the studio, so....
Gwen tooling through the mall in a Mini Cooper sprang to mind the HENRY DANGER episode "Grave Danger" where Henry's ten-year-old sister Piper got a driver's license in a DMV mishap. HENRY DANGER is a series I would think, hope, and contend most BEN 10 fans would likewise enjoy (at least until it degenerated into the dismal Danger Force, but I'm veering off topic like Max did the road...).
My takeaway from this episode is that one knock with a hammer and ATMs will spilt open and spill cash and coins. Wait, coins in an ATM? And all piled in there loosely like one of Scrooge McDuck's overflowing treasure chests?
A closing comment about the opening segment: Hey, whatever happened to funky Billy Chin and little Sammy Chung, still kung fu fightin' after all these years? Dangling plot thread or... preview of things to come?
Have Gun - Will Travel: Three Sons (1958)
Larry, Darryl and My Other Brother Darryl
The second show in a row where Paladin plays Perry Mason, this time defending eccentric old coot Parker Fennelly. Raymond Burr's iconic legal drama launched at the same time as this series, and I suspect its popularity prodded the producers to add courtroom acumen to Paladin's already crowded curriculum vitae of skills, talents, and honed experience.
Paladin offers his suite to a newlywed couple who failed to make a reservation and discovered there's no room at the inn. When asked where he'll stay the night, Paladin claims he'll be playing in an all-night poker game. Yeah, right. By this thirty-fourth episode of the series, we all know of Paladin's penchant for feminine pulchritude and of his enviable ability to woo wanton women. When Paladin breezed jauntily into the suite for breakfast, he didn't strike me as a man who spent the night hunched over a table in a smoke-filled room. (Okay, okay, he did do just that with Leadhead a show ago in "The Silver Queen.")
Parker Fennelly plays Rupe Bosworth, a twice widower with a pet owl and a peculiar pastime of shooting cuckoo clocks with a rifle loaded with homemade shells. He also tosses in the trash his dirty dishes because he hates washing them. Why wash when you can buy a new set in town for a buck? He also fills his acres of land with sweet peas because he loves seeing and smelling them in bloom. Rupe has plenty of money but is arguably shortchanged in common sense. But is he crazy? Certifiably nuts in need of locking up in an asylum? That is the question before the court.
"Three Sons" proves the adage that the villains make the more interesting characters. Paul Jasmin as good brother Hank Bosworth is at best bargain-brand vanilla. It's the two Goofuses to his Gallant that steal the show. Up n' coming stars Warren Oates and Kevin Hagen play the bad brothers John and Ed. They conspire with a corrupt attorney to have their doddering dad dumped in a padded cell so they can lay premature claim to their inheritance.
Another adage proven herein is the one about apples not falling far from the tree. John and Ed take after their father and are less evil and more just dimwitted bumblers. They reminded me of the backwoods brothers Larry, Darryl and the other brother Darryl on NEWHART. A quick judge of character and threats, Paladin appeared unruffled and unafraid when visiting their shotgun shack, even though John had a rifle pointed at him. He knew Gomer and Goober posed no real threat but were merely being played as pawns by their mercenary "shyster" (Paladin's apt phrasing).
Paladin takes an immediate liking to Rupe, played as a simple and naive rustic rube, as if Parker Fennelly were still in character as Pa Kettle (he pinch hit for the late Percy Kilbride the preceding year). I didn't warm up to Rupe and was puzzled by Paladin's being taken in by his maddeningly self-indulgent even spoiled childlikeness. Paladin doesn't usually suffer fools gladly, and Rupe was a fool, the kind from whom money is soon parted.
The courtroom scene was brisk, satisfying, and as unsurprising as the one last episode. And yeah, like last time, Paladin pulls all the right heartstrings of the aging judge, surfing that argumentum ad misericordiam fallacy wave all the way to victory. S. John Launer as Roy Daggett, Esq does his level best Hamilton Burger impression, vainly objecting and going all apoplectic as the ball in his slam-dunk case deflates.
Now what did Paladin expect when he went charging out the side door into an empty alley? A not unexpected ending ensues, closed out with Paladin's mic-drop line to the sheriff: "His lawyer will tell you what happened. I'll come around later and tell you the truth."
In many ways "Three Sons" is a mirror to "The Silver Queen," featuring wealthy old men doing whatever the hell they want to do, social conventions be damned. An old and oft-cited commonplace claims that the Eisenhower era was an age of gray-flannel-suit conformity, but these two episodes effectively argue for individuality and champion those who swim against the tide.
Newhart: Jug of Wine, Loaf of Bread & Pow (1984)
La Belle Dame Sans Belle
Joanna gets hit on by tweedy lit prof David Cameron and Dick wants to beat him up. Meanwhile, Stephanie wants to burn her hair and move to a convent because the handsome prof ignored her flirtations.
I just can't help believing this was actress Mary Frann's vanity episode. Like she went to Barry Kemp and demanded he write her a spotlight episode where she's simply irresistible to a virile hunk of man. After all, didn't Bob Newhart get his very own vanity episode, being the elusive object of desire for sultry Stella Stevens back in this season's opener "It Happened One Afternoon" (a two-parter, no less)? This was fair play for Frann, and they even brought back actor John Reilly as a guest star (maybe Kemp's way of winking at the audience that this was a Title IX recycling of and a bookend to the earlier show?).
As Joan Rivers used to say, can we talk? Can we keep it real? Bob was a funny guy but c'mon, nobody lusted after the homunculus. And the same for the matronly Mary Frann, with her lantern-jaw and frizzy hair hanging in her eyes. Didn't it elicit groans of incredulity coupled with forehead-smacking disbelief when Cameron blurts out to Joanna, "I have the hots for you!"?
Oh, and her shock--shock!--that Cameron had more in mind than waxing intellectual about Keats. And her feigned outrage and indignation. Joanna staked out the moral high ground and steadfastly held it, but c'mon, surely we can't be expected to disbelieve that Joanna was even for a moment flattered that a dashing and sophisticated man of the mind found her attractive? More attractive than Stephanie and the countless coeds who crossed his path in those halls of ivy?
Maybe even less believable was an outraged Dick's running off to defend Joanna's besmirched honor. Haven't we been led to believe he's a mild-mannered schnook who types out the occasional book? And the childish tantrum that ensued was frankly just embarrassing. What happened to consistency of character? Cameron, the villain of the piece, turned out to be the adult in the room. And who didn't guess from a thousand previous sitcoms that the glass in the door would shatter and that a smug Dick would poke in his head for a fleeting final gloat? Ugh. I would expect such juvenile slapstick in WELCOME BACK, KOTTER or HAPPY DAYS, but not NEWHART.
What elevated the show was, surprisingly, Stephanie, the most vapid character in the cast and yes, that's counting Kirk (who admittedly is number two and trying harder). And she's vengeful, too. Notice how quick she is to tell Dick where Cameron can be found on campus, even offering to drive, using Dick as her catspaw to exact revenge for Cameron's snub.
But in one giant leap for the character, Stephanie delivered a soul-searching soliloquy that lent depth to her character. She knows she's shallow and vain and has nothing to offer but her physical beauty. She has no personality to fall back on and is in fact "flying without a net" through life. In an epiphany provoked by Cameron's rebuff, Stephanie feels an impetus to change, to care about others, to become a better all-around person. The moment passes, of course, thanks in great part to Kirk's galvanizing her misbelief that great hair, great skin, and an "ace chassis" are all she needs.
Kirk figures into one of the subplots, conning George into going to Dartmouth College to buy basketball tickets. Instant karma knocks him off his feet, however, with a bad cold, and adding insult to injury, Kirk's clown galpal Cindy goes to the game with George! The other subplot concerns Dick ordering himself a deluxe and decked-out snowmobile, a one-sided phone call that is not only wholly devoid of laughs but exposes Dick as a self-centered, superficial, and vainglorious status-seeker. His character continues to war against my warming up to and liking.
Who I do like is Cindy! This is only her second appearance and already she is bright shining like the sun, lighting up with her exuberance and charm this bleak cast. Yes, I know where it is leading, and I am already sad that she and Kirk will soon be exiting the soundstage. Kirk proved himself effective in small doses and with Cindy as a tempering influence they could have added a lot to the series in a recurring capacity.
Hmm, I wonder if Steven Kampmann was told Rebecca York was being brought aboard to allow him a graceful exit from the series. Interestingly, at this same time a similar plot was unfolding over at THREE'S COMPANY with Mary Cadorette as Vicky introduced as Jack's love interest to pave the way to the spinoff/sequel series THREE'S A CROWD. Producers failed to inform the cast that everyone but John Ritter would be pink slipped at season's end. Hollywood can be heartless. NEWHART itself already unceremoniously banished Leslie to outer darkness.
Dick Martin of LAUGH-IN fame directed this one and there were plenty of laughs and those thoughtful insights into Stephanie that made it all seem worthwhile. John Reilly is always a welcome face and he added immeasurably to the fun. Now let's please just hope that both Bob Newhart and Mary Frann have had their egos sufficiently stroked so we can be spared further vexing ventures into vanity!
Mannix: The Danford File (1973)
Mannix in a Suitcase
"The Danford File" slams the lid on the sixth season with a corkscrew plot that keeps us guessing, Robert Reed back as Adam coupled with the Brady house set, and a pair of erstwhile Eurospy stars in guest roles. All that and Jessica Walter, to boot!
John Gavin played the dashing Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath in "OSS 117: MURDER FOR SALE" (1968), a strong entry in a series of spy flicks akin to the James Bond franchise. And about the same time Richard Bradford was starring as McGill in the cult British spy series MAN IN A SUITCASE. (But trivia fans take note: Before Chad Everett, Bradford originated the role of Dr. Joe Gannon in the MEDICAL CENTER pilot movie OPERATION HEARTBEAT.)
Yeah, Bradford's hair was something else, coupled with those pointy mutton chops. Maybe Bradford was auditioning to be Jon Pertwee's stunt double on DR. WHO? Was that moptop for real? Only Hollywood's hairdressers know for sure.
Seeing the BRADY BUNCH house doubling as Chez Danford teed up the ball for Robert Reed's return after eight episodes. I was just bummed that Reed didn't appear on the Brady set, which could have sparked a multitude of multiverse metanarrative discussions, essays, and even doctoral theses for pop culture majors (they're the ones asking if you want fries with that).
When Barney shows up at the cocktail lounge playing the outraged chaperone, didn't you just know he was guilty? I mean, obviously he had tailed Joe or Laura. Surprisingly unsuspicious, Joe invites Barney to join him instead of asking how he found them. And Mannix could have silenced any whisper of scandal simply by saying he was meeting Laura in a professional capacity. That goes double for his lame fib about losing a cufflink. And Danford fell for that?
Arlene Martel plays the suburban mom with a sordid past prepping for her daughter's eighth birthday. I always think of her as that Vulcan vixen T'Pring but another reviewer brought to mind her TWILIGHT ZONE appearance. It would have been funny for her to give Joe her iconic "Room for one more, honey!" line as the party was about to begin. I was going to take Joe to task for relentlessly retraumatizing Brooke just before her child's party, but then he did turn around and save her life by accidentally on purpose tossing the baddie over a cliff. Oopsie-whoopsie. Offscreen, Adam was grateful for the reams of paperwork, litigation, and lock-up expenses Joe saved the California taxpayers.
On the subject of saving a buck, did Joe take back his twenty after Belle took a bullet? Yes, I know it's in poor taste to ask, but that whole scene was in poor taste. Just a tired caricature of the boozy, floozy fortune teller. Okay, maybe it was an attempt to lighten the mood? But Sampson turning off her lights before the power company could wasn't exactly a laugh riot.
Belle, Brooke--and candle?--and Laura all kept insisting the call-girl chapter of their lives was so long ago, like in some dim and remote prehistoric past. But Laura and Brooke looked about 30 to 35, so it could have only been at most ten or fifteen years ago.
A missed opportunity came and went when Mannix spoke with Laura about those past events. I would have loved to hear Joe say, "I was working for Intertect at the time," or something that indicated Joe has also come a long way since he put that troubled teenager on a bus home.
Guilty as charged of clicking the remote to see how much longer to go once Barney tricked Laura into the warehouse. C'mon, Barn, less palaver and more plugging! Why do bad guys have a compulsion to unburden themselves at length instead of just doing the job? Laura employs the same tactic Simmons did in the preceding episode, pulling down a pallet on top of her captor and thus launching the protracted pursuit through the warehouse. Yawn. Even the superfluous scene of Mannix in a forklift boxing in Barney couldn't goose this by-the-numbers denouement. I did admire Barney's pluck, however, quipping about Joe running through every hole he gave him back in their gridiron glory days. Bradford must have learned back in Britain to keep a stiff upper lip, so even facing a triple-murder rap couldn't rain on his I-gave-it-the-old-college-try repartee.
I can't recall the closing credits ever being in alphabetical order before. Was there a dispute over who should get top billing? Gavin or Walter? Somebody's ego must have provoked that tweak to established protocol.
On a serious note, adding insult to injury, Mannix tells Barney that
his plan was all for nought as Danford would likely win even should his wife's past as prostitute come out. I thought that line was more reflective of a liberal and liberated Hollywood that embraced the Sexual Revolution and less the reality across the fruited plains of America. I mean, even twenty years later, Bill Clinton's analogues to Barney were in the War Room playing whack-a-mole against Bill's "bimbo eruptions." They knew a whiff of sex scandal could torpedo Slick Willie's slide into the White House (see, e.g., Gary "Monkey Business" Hart). The allegations from Gennifer, Paula et al ultimately didn't, but they did cast a pall cleared only by Hillary's "stand by my man" moment of infamy. Only now, a half century after this episode's broadcast, do the majority of voters--conservatives, no less--appear willing to ignore a candidate's past peccadilloes.
In the end, I agreed with Barney that Danford was "solid gold" and I sincerely hoped he'd win the Aloha State's gubernatorial race, but... as Richard Denning occupied the office on HAWAII FIVE-O from 1968 to '80, it doesn't appear our power couple prevailed. Unless you want to argue that McGarrett and Mannix don't exist in the same universe....!
Mannix: Search for a Whisper (1973)
A Piece of the Action
William Shatner's gotten himself mixed up with the Mob before. Remember STAR TREK's "A Piece of the Action"? But just five years later Shatner finds himself in a sobering story of the Syndicate where there are no pinstripe suits, heaters, or buffoonish mob bosses like Bela Oxmyx or Jojo Krako for Kirk to make clowns of. Shatner's sole appearance on MANNIX provided a compelling story, a showcase for Shatner's abundant talents, and an all-around winning episode.
I especially enjoyed the scene on Connors and Shatner sitting by the window in the airport cocktail lounge. I wondered if between takes they reminisced about their Desilu days when STAR TREK, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, and MANNIX were next-door neighbors. Those would have been heady times and halcyon days, all ridden herd upon by fiery Lucille Ball.
February 1973 was a banner month for Bill Shatner fans (and aren't we all?). February 4 saw Shatner's sole but unforgettable appearance on fledgling detective drama BARNABY JONES "To Catch a Dead Man." Who'da thought they'd see Captain Kirk matching wits with Jed Clampett (and losing!). Nine days later on February 13 Shatner and Buddy Ebsen were reunited as part of the eminently awesome ensemble cast of the TV movie HORROR AT 37,000 FEET. This is the one where Shatner played a disillusioned priest aboard a haunted jetliner. A scary and suspenseful movie in which Shatner shines brightly (shine on, you crazy Shat!). Finally, a mere five days later on February 18 Shatner slam dunks his winning trifecta with the show under discussion, "Search for a Whisper."
Adding to the fun of seeing Shatner is seeing him in the good company of a couple third season STAR TREK veterans: Yvonne Craig, Lord Garth's green-tinged galpal Marta in "Whom Gods Destroy," and Philip Pine, the sinister Colonel Green from "The Savage Curtain." Sadly, Shatner and Craig shared no scenes, even if their characters shared a past.
Speaking of Yvonne Craig, what a plummet for her character to go from romancing Captain Kirk to marrying neurotic Mr. Gianelli from THE BOB NEWHART SHOW. Noam Pitlik was playing that comedic character at this very time, but turned in a decidedly different performance here, proving what a great actor he was.
I noticed when Pitlik was pleading in vain with heartless hitman Owney the painting behind him bore the signature "Tavel." Hmm, nice touch weaving in some continuity--or maybe just saving a buck on set decorations?--to the earlier episode "Out of the Night," where TREK vet Paul Carr played the painter Tavel.
Who played the part of the pool hall bully that took a cue stick to the bread basket? A fun scene of Mannix hustling the hustler and not suffering fools gladly. Ten-ball in the corner pocket and what, a fetid fin plucked from a smelly sock? No wonder Joe let Stumbles keep the bundle.
From the nice-work-if-you-can-get-it desk: Did Ward Wood pull a full week's pay for his one cutaway scene on the phone with Joe? I also wondered if this was where Ward Wood and Philip Pine met and hatched their nutty notion to do a burlesque western movie together. After the curtain came down on MANNIX, Art Malcolm traded in his badge and service revolver for a trumpet and wings to play the angel Gabriel in POSSE FROM HEAVEN. You can't make that up (and once you see it, you can't unsee it).
On the subject of bad decisions and bad casting... Milton Selzer makes his final series appearance playing Joe Mantell's character Albie Loos. When Peggy said Albie was in Joe's office, I expected to see Mantell, not some pretender to the role. Albie has been mentioned a few times this season, always on the phone, and I always pictured Mantell on the line. Hey, I love Milton Selzer, but not as Albie. Worse, Albie was wholly unnecessary here, adding zero to the story except arguably light comic relief and then speeding the plot to a finish by deciding Joe should quit the case and delivering the ticking time bomb of a file to Adam's wife.
Okay, someone had to bring this simmering kettle of fish to a boil, but Albie overstepping his bounds by unilaterally deciding Joe should quit the case, and then taking it upon himself to deliver the confidential case file to someone who is not even the client? Yeesh, no wonder he's a pathetic charity case playing with his Lite Brite like his fellow dipstick detective Mel Faber from "Faces of Murder" was goofing around with a grown-up version of Operation, the blinking lights, buzzers, and ringing bells of his burglar alarms. C'mon, boys, put away your toys and man up like Joe and stick to the tried-and-true techniques of detective work like knocking on doors, hustling hobos for information, and... making passes at lovely lasses?
Frankly, I was like WTF when Mannix moved in for a smooch with sexy secretary Jennifer. I mean, that just ain't Joe's M. O., ya know? But it was part of his plan to (a) get a fingerprint and (b) learn whether she was hopelessly devoted to another man, i.e., Adam Langer. And the plan paid off; well, minus the wrinkle of Jennifer going all VALLEY OF THE DOLLS when Joe lifted the rug and exposed her carefully curated charade.
One final observation: When Shatner is sideways on the floor, steadying his shooting hand with his other one, his face grimacing as he fires off the kill shot, who didn't think back to Shatner hanging out of an airplane window giving it to that gremlin on the wing? Whether or not an intentional homage to that iconic scene, it was very nicely done.
And to the longsuffering Martha Langer went the mic-drop closing line: "I didn't have a husband. They killed him when he was seventeen. It was just a matter of time before they buried him."
The Powers of Matthew Star: The Great Waldo Shepherd (1983)
There's a Man on the Wing of this Plane!
This time the mission finds the boys instead of their getting assigned one from Uncle Sam, so James Karen as Major Wymore gets the week off to pitch Pathmark's weekly specials in tri-state area commercials. I like his parody of a hardnosed military man, but yeah, his character is expendable. Karen will appear in the next episode then disappear (with the series following soon thereafter).
Terry Wilson, a think tank genius, enjoyed a ski trip with Walt and Matthew and his young son Ryan. But our brain trust left his briefcase containing top-secret plans for NATO unguarded in the twin-engine plane while he and the boys stepped into the cafe for burgers and brews. And of course, off it goes into the wild blue yonder! Heisted by small plane thieves, as it turns out, not sinister spies from behind the Iron Curtain. To retrieve those plans vital to the survival of the Free World, Walt and Matthew spring into action, going undercover as a stunt plane pilot and a wing walker.
Matthew: So who do you think is gonna be our wing walker?
Walt: Well, by a simple process of elimination... not me.
Matthew: Walt, I hate flying....
Walt: This is walking.
A nice touch is having the absent-minded egghead's young son play a pivotal role. Ryan was outside playing Peter Parker snappin' pix with his Kodachrome when the bad guys 'jacked Dad's plane. The Lucky Lindy Air Show patch on their caps pointed our heroes towards adventure and romance. Well, more puppy love between Matthew and cute air show official Nancy Holmes, played by attractive newcomer Gracie Harrison.
Grr, why do good girls always go for bad boys, like that louse Lou Daggit? I mean, you know he's no good when he has the same name as that annoying-as-hell robot dog on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA! Daggit disses Matthew on their first meeting and so who can blame Matthew for misusing his powers a couple times to bring this bully down a peg? I cheered him on each time.
Daggit works for an even bigger bully named Jordan Latimer, an illegal arms designer and trader who is stealing small-engine planes as part of a gunrunning deal. Latimer is played by Scott Marlowe, who has played a legion of malicious characters, most memorably Army, leader of "The Young Assassins," HAWAII FIVE-O's seventh-season opener back in '74. What a chilling episode that was. I brought that association to this story and it elevated his evil quotient, especially after seeing Latimer's lethal "Hailstorm" deathtrap sprung.
Helming this episode was Barry Crane, whose long associations with iconic action series MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE and MANNIX were abundantly evident onscreen, from the sliding shelf secret entrance to Latimer's lair to the extended airplane chase and dogfight. Walt and Matthew fly in a vintage biplane like Robert Redford's in THE GREAT WALDO PEPPER, which sparked this episode's clever title homage. Protracted plane pursuits can prove a bore, but Crane never allows a malaise to settle, quick-cutting between shots of the planes jockeying in the sky to short scenes of Walt and Matthew strategizing coupled with the bellicose bravado of the bad guys. Some of these impressive stunt scenes were what I would expect in a big-budget movie. Very well done.
Actually, the entire episode was very well done. There wasn't a bad performer or scene. Christopher Goutman brought menace to his role as Daggit. I had never seen him before and was sorry to learn he was already bringing in for a landing his brief acting career. Floyd Levine as airshow owner and emcee Sheldon Pinsky brightened his scenes with Borscht Belt bombast, trying in vain to pitch the boys on bringing their wing-walking act to his air circus. But it was Gracie Harrison who stole the show for me, first flirting then rebuffing with suspicion our hero. She had her reasons, as it turned out. Like Goutman, Harrison's acting career never really took flight. She looked like an actress who should have appeared on KNIGHT RIDER and THE A-TEAM, but she never graced either with her appealing presence.
The votes are few and mighty low this late in the series' short span. It's disappointing that the format tweak (jettisoning that albatross Amy and the confines of the Crestwood High setting) came too late to be appreciated by the audience and most importantly too late to move the Nielsen needle. The show was getting better but alas, the bell was tolling and the pink slips passing. Heck, by this time I bet Lou Gossett had already signed on to star in JAWS 3-D (please, no "from the frying pan into the fire" jokes!).
Mannix: A Matter of Principle (1973)
Mannix Meets the Bride of Frankenstein
This was an especially fun episode, striking that perfect balance between suspenseful drama and lighthearted farce. When I saw Elsa Lanchester and Ruth McDevitt driving into Safeway in their antique Rolls Royce, I knew this was going to be a fun one, probably along the lines of the Hume Cronyn HAWAII FIVE-O classic "Over Fifty? Steal." The spunky oldsters were on stage, but this story unfolded differently than expected, though I was confident that ultimately no senior citizens would be harmed.
One handicap of being born late and enjoying this episode for the first time a half-century after its original broadcast is seeing Abe Vigoda and immediately thinking of the 12th Precinct's hangdog-faced and bathroom-bound detective Fish. Conversely, the original audience would have seen Vigoda and recognized him as Sal Tessio from the previous year's blockbuster film THE GODFATHER, bringing all that associated heft and malice to his role as Vallin. I tried valiantly to keep a straight face, but just had to chuckle seeing him play a literal cigar-chomping villain. And who was his mouthpiece but Jack Knight, who later in 1973 would be cast as goofball bus driver Bummy Pfitzer on Dom Deluise's funny but short-lived sitcom LOTSA LUCK. For a story that relied on levity, my associating the bad guys with good guy roles didn't unduly detract.
I mean, who could see the Penhaven sisters and not think of the Bride of Frankenstein and Miss Emily from KOLCHAK THE NIGHTSTALKER? Those fond associations only added to the charm.
But I have to give the show stealer award to Dana Elcar as used car hustler Skip Seldon. He and Mike Connors enjoyed such an affable and appealing rapport it's a shame this turned out to be Elcar's swan song on the series, but he sure went out with style. "Sip of beer?" Huh, what kind of offer was that? Just fun little throwaway moment that added immeasurably to the fun. I thought Elcar's red-face was gonna pop when Mannix broke through his apartment door and leaned on him, upping his price to $75 grand. Dana looked sincerely shook up. Such a good actor.
Hey, if the Penhavens were so above the fray as to have their put-upon maid Gertrude handle all the phone calls, why were they out rubbing elbows with the hoi polloi pushing a squeaky-wheeled shopping cart through the crowded aisles of Safeway? "Be a dear, Penny, and fetch us toilet tissue, pillowy two-ply, of course!" Not that we saw that, but I imagined it and thought, no, they would definitely dispatch Gertrude or some other lowborn peasant to secure their tea and delectable victuals.
That reminds me of a favorite character moment when Peggy brings in the tea and these Gilded Age girls take the Nestea plunge into the 1970s. Instead of cream poured from a polished silver vessel, Peggy proffers Coffeemate powdered nondairy creamer and paper sugar packets. How gauche! Lanchester's look of contempt coupled with befuddlement as she warily holds the sugar packet was priceless. But hey, what kind of tea drinkers let their tea steep a mere thirty seconds?
Those masks the bad guys wore predated THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE by a year and sure were creepy. That was an instance where a later association retroactively upped the scare-factor for us viewers late to the Mannix party.
I suspected the Penhavens were intended as a parody of the Baldwin sisters featured on that upstart new series THE WALTONS. The reference to "our father always said" brought those moonshining old maids to mind. No matter what, Lanchester and McDevitt were delightful and made this slightly offbeat episode a refreshing change of pace. And now... back to Mannix getting konked on the head and going unpaid!
Dynasty: The Nightmare (1984)
Things Are Never So Bad They Can't Get Worse
Wow, what a shocking season finale guaranteed to bring us fans back in the fall. The spirit of the old 1930's cliffhangers was effectively coopted by the primetime soaps.
And speaking of the 1930s, what a treat to hear Diahann Carroll open the show singing the 1931 jazz standard "I'm Through with Love." I'm glad the producers gave Carroll's singing talents a stage in addition to her acting abilities. This was only her second appearance, and already she's proving a formidable presence. Dominique keeps her cards close to the vest, and we'll have to wait until fall for her to slap down the trump card. Her verbal volleys with Alexis are great fun and I'm already enthralled by her character and inhaling deeply the fresh air she's brought to the show.
The shakiest gun in Denver? I don't think even Don Knotts' gun shook, rattled, and rolled as much as Kirby's in her big (anti)climactic assassination scene with Alexis. Why Alexis would ever agree to meet alone with the unhinged Kirby again was mind boggling. Never one to let a crisis go to waste, Alexis offers not to press charges if Kirby will abandon Adam and return to Paris. But after Alexis picked up the gun and compromised the fingerprints, could she have made stick any charges?
Can't say I am sorry to see Kirby leave the show. I just feel bad that Kathleen Beller's career floundered afterwards. Her 1986-87 series THE BRONX ZOO with Ed Asner looked promising and it's a shame there wasn't a sustaining audience for what appeared to be an updated take on ROOM 222 (with Beller playing the Karen Valentine role).
So was there a crossover audience between DYNASTY and T. J. HOOKER? Anyone who followed both shows must have suffered acute cognitive dissonance. Me, I only watched the latter so Heather Locklear was imprinted on my mind and heart as squeaky-clean Stacy Sheridan until DYNASTY disabused me of my youthful naivete. Wow, what a talented actress to play two wildly contrasting roles simultaneously and so well. Of course, now I think of Locklear as that venomous cobra Sammy Jo and dutifully boo and hiss her appearances (though like lucky duck Morgan Hess, must admit she's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen).
I loved how Sammy Jo was always in the right place at the right time to witness the inexorable implosion of Adam and Kirby's ill-fated rape-spawned romance. Sammy Jo is uncouth but calculating. She's a lot like Alexis minus the veneer of class and sophistication. The eighties sure came rushing back last episode with Sammy Jo toting a ghetto blaster through the halls of the mansion and dancing to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" (a fitting anthem indeed!).
Who's That Girl? Like Locklear and Stacy Sheridan, I long thought of Pamela Sue Martin as Nancy Drew. That impression of Martin has of course been superseded after four sordid seasons of DYNASTY. I am sorry to see Martin leave the role, but probably not a fraction as sorry as Martin was. Like Beller, her career sputtered and died within a few years of departing the show.
How did Fallon go from telling Jeff she loves him from the bottom of her heart to going all runaway bride? I seriously think Snoopy atop his doghouse wrote the closing "dark and stormy night" scene with Blake yelling impotently into the deluge followed by Jeff auditioning for a Mile High City revival of "A Streetcar Named Desire." Fallon! Yeah, like she's going to hear that and turn around, right? I groaned when out literally rolled the tiredest of TV tropes: the big machine construction crew that always lets slip past the pursued and then blocks the pursuer. I mean, how many shows have you seen that used that gimmick? But to have a crew out at night during a torrential thunderstorm and presumably on a weekend? That stretched credulity to the breaking point.
Hangin' with Sgt. Cooper. I thought only Columbo waited until the most awkward and embarrassing moment to move in on his suspect? Nope. Here's Sgt. Cooper elbowing his way through the wedding guests to slap the cuffs on Alexis. For once I felt sorry for Alexis because we know she's not guilty of murdering Mark. Didn't it ever come up in all those questionings Alexis complained of that embittered ex-Congressman Neal McVane was suspiciously on the scene? And that he has proven homicidal tendencies?
What, no scene of Alexis being perp walked through the wedding party? Can't have it all, I guess. It was funny seeing Alexis locked up with the fallen women of Denver. It stirred up good memories of that time Archie Bunker got himself tossed in the clink with that kooky collection of hippie protesters. Aw geez.
Just thinking how 1983-84 was a bad season to be a mustachioed man named Mark, as rival soap DALLAS also dispatched offscreen its own character of that name. I will much miss our Mark, Geoffrey Scott, who brought an affable presence and a Magnum vibe to the show.
I won't miss Deborah Adair as crazy-eyed Kendall, however, whose jarringly abrupt departure was apparently due to producer Aaron Spelling reassigning her to his new series FINDER OF LOST LOVES, which itself went missing after a single season. And who remembers Helmut Berger as Peter DeVilbis? Another ill-conceived character and storyline that abruptly ended. I almost forgot about Peter until Andrew Laird mentioned selling Allegre, which brought back the whole horsenapping plot coupled with Fallon's star-crossed infatuation with that cokehead grifter.
Michael Nader as Dex has proven to be the real solid find of the fourth season, with a close second being Diahann Carroll as Dominique, squeaking in and making a big splash just two episodes before the curtain came down. We're not even halfway through the series yet, and in many ways DYNASTY is still building up its head of steam. Can't wait to see what happens next. See ya in Season Five!
Ben 10: Grudge Match (2006)
The Gamesters of Benkeveleven
Slam-bang action all the way and another ton-of-fun episode. Sure, it was swiped wholesale from the classic STAR TREK episode "The Gamesters of Triskelion," but it proved itself more an admiring homage than a creatively bankrupt ripoff.
The episode opens in media res with Kevin exacting revenge for his defeat in the 'Frisco fracas of "Framed." Suddenly Ben and Kevin are flash transported to a fighting forum just as Kirk, Chekov and Uhura were. Champions of many alien races have been abducted from their home worlds and forced to fight in gladiator matches for the entertainment of an intergalactic audience of ruffians and rogues.
The showrunner for these sadistic slugfests is Slix Thigma, an android in a flowing robe just like Triskelion's enigmatic emcee Galt, who was himself filched from FLASH GORDON's nemesis Ming the Merciless. Hey, at least everyone is stealing from the best, right?
The galactic gladiators even wear shock collars akin to the "collars of obedience" on Triskelion. But what, no character equivalent to the sexy ingenue Shahna? Where's the glamor? MIA this time around. Outside of Gwen's cameos bookending the show, this episode is an estrogen-free testosterone zone--and the better for it!
A recurring theme was "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," as Ben and Kevin must forge an uneasy alliance because if one should die so will the other. Yeah, that's a common trope in comics and cartoons alike, but one that always works. Reluctant ally Ben tries valiantly to steer the raging and rudderless Kevin to their common goals, even having to arm Kevin with knowledge of how to maximize his superpowers by employing them in effective combinations. That intel comes back to bite Ben, of course, but Ben kept an ace up his sleeve--Cannonblast!
But it's new character Technorg who steals the show, a massive champion boasting the body of the Hulk and the face of a Skrull. I hope this won't be his sole series appearance because there's a ton of upside potential for this guy going forward. In an Androcles and the Lion scenario, after Ben shows Technorg mercy--an unknown virtue among these warriors--Technorg considers Ben his master and serves him with unflagging devotion.
That leads into the theme of thralls and masters, which was also imported from the Trek episode (minus Kirk's grandstanding speech on the subject). Cargo-panted pipsqueak Ben releases the titanic Technorg from servitude; however, the hulking monolith will only consider himself free after evening the score, which he does by saving Ben's life from the unhinged and homicidal Kevin 11, who really regretted that "lapdog" crack.
The ending was perhaps a little pat with Ben's escape pod providentially landing a few feet from Grandpa and Gwen, but it was a satisfying finish and a chance to catch our collective breaths after 22 minutes of sustained adrenaline rush.
With Slix warping his battle barge out of our galaxy, have we seen the last of Kevin 11? I hope so--at least for a while--as overuse of the character is beginning to breed contempt.
An enjoyable changeup from the ROUTE 66 format and an impressive Trek tribute to boot. What's not to love about this one?
Star Trek: Wolf in the Fold (1967)
The Devil Made Me Do It
Wow, what a story! A demon-possessed Scotty murders three women. But wait... it was only nominally Scotty--his will and body had been wholly taken over by the demon Redjac. This evil spirit was also behind the Jack the Ripper murders in 1890's London, unsolved murders which may have been carried out by a number of hosts who never remembered or realized their roles in the infamous crimes. "Wolf in the Fold" is a story that leaves one thinking and considering the ramifications beyond the story.
Reading the reviews reveals many Trekkers bristle when stories step away from the strictly scientific. Robert Bloch's story instead offered a satisfying blend of the spiritual and the scientific. Evil exists, noncorporeal spirits exist, unbound by time or space. Sybo's seance effectively revealed the killer, but the actual ouster of the demon was accomplished by Spock and the ship's computer, not a couple crucifix-carrying Catholic priests.
I wince when Kirk commands Hengist's corpse to be transported into deep space with the widest possible dispersion. An empty gesture. I mean, Hengist was only an innocent host body. The demonic spirit of Redjac proved it is not confined to possessing any one person, leaping from Scotty to Hengist to the Prefect and--in the show's eeriest moment--to the reanimated corpse of Hengist!
Yes, the episode closed on a jarringly lighthearted note. Scotty is cleared of consciously committing mass murder, but it was still his hand that plunged the knife into three women! One would think that would give rise to reflection and grieving. Nope, he's ready to party! And once was the day Kirk took a crewmember's death seriously and took it hard. Lt. Karen Tracy is murdered, and all Kirk can think about is a little place where the women are...! It was unseemly at best and heartless at worst. Since Lt. Tracy was a medical specialist, Bones would have known her well and yet he evinces no reaction. Some writers saw crewmembers as people, others as pawns and red-shirted cannon fodder.
At least Kara the nightclub dancer was humanized with a father and a fiance, each of whom sincerely grieved her passing. Compare Tark's heartbroken reaction to his daughter's death with Prefect Jaris' unflappably stoic reaction to his own wife's murder. Okay, one could argue the ethics of Tark playing music for his daughter's dancing since she was a little girl and being complicit in pimping her out to lusty space travelers. Oh, you thought Scotty was just taking the bonny lass for an innocent stroll in the fog? Yeah, and Miss Kitty only serves Shirley Temples and holds choir practice in all those upstairs rooms at the Long Branch.
Man, what has Spock got against Kyle? There must be some ugly history there or maybe Spock's just an Anglophobe. Here he gives Kyle an aggressive shove. Yeesh, wouldn't an "excuse me" have been the rational and certainly more civilized approach? Kyle says he'll take a shove over the Agonizer any day.
Something I noticed post-Covid was the blithe attitude towards forced vaccinations. Sulu didn't even see the jab coming! Hey, why didn't Dr. Feelgood haul out this arm candy in "Day of the Dove" when everyone had to put on a happy face to drive away another nasty noncorporeal intruder?
Kirk foolishly orders Bones to inject himself with the tranquilizer before he could give the shot to Prefect Jaris. Kirk then plays doctor and asks Jaris to roll up his sleeve. That must have been Shatner flashbacking a year to his pre-TREK five-show stint as Dr. Carl Noyes on DR. KILDARE because no sleeves ever needed rolling in the 23rd century.
I also detected a disturbing characteristic in Kirk's repeatedly stonewalling Sulu's reasonable requests to know what was going on. Yes, Kirk didn't want to spark panic, but didn't he trust his bridge crew enough to level with them? That top-down leadership style may have been standard operating procedure in the quasi-military Federation of Planets--or in the 1960s--but sure wouldn't fly in workplaces today where open doors and transparency are valued.
This show is a winner because it couples the compelling supernatural murder mystery with a stellar guest cast: John Fiedler, whose Mr. Peterson on THE BOB NEWHART SHOW and Gordy the Ghoul on KOLCHAK, THE NIGHTSTALKER were career highlights. Charles Macauley earlier played Landru in "Return of the Archons" but I always think of him as Dracula in the classic 1972 blaxploitation horror flick BLACULA (starring William Marshall from "The Ultimate Computer"). Pilar Seurat as Sybo had less than a week earlier appeared in "The Terrorist," an outstanding episode of THE HIGH CHAPARRAL. Charles Dierkop as the grieving fiance Morla went on to play with aplomb Pete Royster on POLICE WOMAN. And finally, Joseph Bernard as Tarka, who stirred up memories of his similarly heartstring-pulling performance in TWILIGHT ZONE's "The Shelter." The story was already excellent, but this cast elevated it a level and lent it extra oomph.
A strong episode from the show's strong second season, and an episode boasting eminent rewatchability.
PS: After the curtain came down on STAR TREK, James Doohan appeared in a similarly themed 1971 black comedy film about women being systematically murdered, and it's a film written and produced by that Great Bird of the Galaxy himself, Gene Roddenberry: PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW stars Rock Hudson, Angie Dickinson, Roddy McDowell, Keenan Wynn, and Telly Savalas in a dry run for his KOJAK role. Trekkers will enjoy seeing James Doohan teamed with two-time TREK guest star William Campbell ("Squire of Gothos" and "Trouble with Tribbles") as a pair of bumbling cops. Check it out!
Ben 10: The Big Tick (2006)
You Will Believe a Max Can Fly
The sophomore season's sophomore episode was... sophomoric! I mean, all that goop and slop? Ben and Max hanging ten on those hoverboards as if they were bastich sons of the Beach Boys? Max and Gwen leaping from one crumbling foothold to the next and then--huh?--actually taking flight?
But the unkindest cut was that cheater "all's well that ends well" ending! Yellowstone National Park is utterly destroyed over the course of the episode, reduced to a desert. And then even the planet's surface is fragmented leaving bottomless canyons. Old Faithful had a cameo and it's doubtful the iconic geyser and tourist attraction survived the Tick's terrible onslaught.
But once Cannonblast goes all pinball wizard inside the Big Tick and the alien sucker explodes, everything suddenly reverts to normal. Huh? How does that happen? And why is there still a mountain of slimy goop on the RV for Ben to clean off if all signs of the Tick's presence conveniently vanished?
In "Secrets" a face was blown off Mount Rushmore! The producers obviously weren't afraid to literally deface national monuments, so why couldn't they allow a mile-wide section of Yellowstone to remain devastated? It could have served as incontrovertible proof and a sobering warning to naysayers that aliens exist, they are coming to earth, and they're not all friendly E. T.'s who just want to phone home.
All that said, I enjoyed the show for its non-stop action and for the novelty of a new alien, even if Cannonblast didn't exactly bowl me over. The shots of Cannonblast rolling along at high speed were very cool. I always wonder when Ben wants a specific alien but gets a different one, if the Omnitrix knows what Ben is actually going to need, as if the watch has an innate intelligence and even prescience.
I also wonder about Grandpa, munching on grubworms. He was eating strange stuff in early episodes as well and I suspect there's more to him than just a retired alien-exterminating Plumber in an aloha shirt. I mean, how does one know how to effectively fight aliens unless one is himself... not of this earth?
Speaking of aliens, did the Tick remind anyone else of Galactus, the original planet-eating extraterrestrial? And those heralds on hoverboards of the Silver Surfer? I enjoy these nods and allusions, real or imagined, to classic comic books, a steady diet of which I am sure was devoured in stackfuls by series creator Man of Action as well as by this old fan new to the show.
Ben 10: Side Effects (2006)
Certifiably Bugspunk
So do Grandpa, Ben, and Gwen have an uncanny knack for turning up where trouble is brewing or do they bring it with them? Do Ben and Gwen's parents have any idea what their little darlings are doing? And what's this about Grandpa learning folk remedies from a Chinese monk coupled with his intricate knowledge of nuclear reactors?
Those were just a few questions that came to mind whilst enjoying "Side Effects" this morning. A few more: Can a city councilwoman unilaterally condemn a building and order its demolition? Shouldn't they have ensured the building was evacuated before crashing in the wrecking ball? And if a barenaked Miley Cyrus were sitting astride said wrecking ball, would this be a top-rated episode with ten stars? Why is fanservice literally a foreign concept to American cartoons?
Anyway... Yes, Clancy coulda/shoulda pursued proper channels to protest his home's demolition. But as an eccentric recluse, he certainly lacked the wits and the wherewithal for navigating the bureaucracy of city hall. I mean, didn't you feel for the guy when he said his father built this building? And now some soul-patched psycho is giddy about getting paid to reduce to rubble the only home Clancy has ever known. Sad.
And even though Bugbrain was going to nuke the city and murder multitudes, I admit I found the poor sap sympathetic. He didn't choose this path. Clancy was at best a mutant and at worst demon-possessed. If left alone to his own devices in his ramshackle roost ruling his insect legions, I don't think he would have hurt a fly let alone a person. He wasn't evil... until provoked.
Speaking of mutants, like an earlier reviewer noted, my favorite part of the show was seeing Heat Blast go Freeze Blast, basically playing Iceman from the X-Men. Very cool effects and exactly the superpower the situation required.
Conversely, I shuddered and winced watching Gwen frantically sweeping away the cockroaches that were closing in on her from all sides. That scene triggered my suppressed memory of CREEPSHOW and that not-for-the-squeamish segment with E. G. Marshall overrun by cascading cucarachas. Yecch!
And wasn't that yecch-factor cranked up with all the gratuitous mucus? I mean, did Four Arms really have to splatter the lady with his Hurricane Hippo Howler-sneeze? Didn't Ben learn to sneeze into his elbow? Well, now we know alien boogers are a black widow repellent (put that in your utility belt and snap it, Batman!).
Hey, is this BEN 10 or ARTHUR? Gwen's data dump on how much ants can carry was so PBS. I thought only the network cartoons with their child psychologists and Department of Education watchdogs required the shoehorning in of public service announcements and such "redeeming value" as a YouTube Shorts'-worth of insect lore. C'mon, Gwen, get off Wikipedia and surf TikTok like every other ten-year-old.
Oh, I think we can all agree Ben blowing his nose in Gwen's "new blouse" was just an excuse for her to keep wearing that cat shirt. Grandpa, Ben, and Gwen were sure ahead of the curve on this current capsule wardrobe craze. (And yes, for my fellow old-timers, Gilligan and the castaways and the Scooby-Doo crew were light years ahead of that curve!)
And now, back to our show. Clancy's Goldfingeresque grandstand play in the epilogue was eminently effective. But how did Bugbrain uncover Ben's secret identity and find the RV? Don't ask questions, right? Just enjoy the ride. And I did, although at the end of it I again felt sorry for Clancy, sitting alone on the curb utterly defeated and abandoned by his fairweather friends while Grandpa ruthlessly declared, "I'm calling the police." I think what Clancy really needed just then was... a hug.
Dallas: True Confessions (1984)
Who's Your Daddy?
Deja vu all over again. There's Bobby sitting on Clayton's barstool at the Oil Baron's Club drowning his sorrows after a spat with his beloved. It was Bobby who saw Clayton sitting in that same spot just a few shows ago. Bobby was a lot more encouraging of Clayton than Cliff was of Bobby, that's for sure. And to think I was feeling halfway sorry for Cliff after JR persuaded Marilee to ghost on the guy after bidding on those off-shore drilling tracts.
"True Confessions" left me feeling like literally everyone's a scoundrel. Katherine was center stage this time, if not always on camera, then pulling the strings behind the scenes to force Jenna's hand on Charlie's paternity. Not to condone Katherine's self-serving manipulations, but Jenna's hand needed forcing. Jenna's weaponized ambiguity on Charlie's paternity has been unfair to both Charlie and Bobby.
So is this the episode where Katherine fully embraces the dark side and becomes the distaff JR? She's dreamed and schemed and played dirty tricks before, but here she sunk to a new low. I mean, when a man as morally bankrupt as Naldo calls you a "viper," it's time to pump the brakes and self-reflect. Instead, Katherine seemed to relish Naldo's calling out her cancerous character. The one difference between them was Naldo being a stoic realist and recognizing and accepting that Jenna is lost to him forever. Katherine is still on her quixotic quest to conquer Bobby's heart, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far. JR and now Naldo have told Katherine to give up on winning Bobby, but she persists against all odds.
Sound like Peter? Now there's a guy whose infatuation is obsessive and scary. I keep thinking of Roger, the psycho shutterbug who abducted Lucy back in the fifth season. A shoutout to Sue Ellen for finally and decisively slamming shut the door on this illicit and ill-conceived affair. I think it would have stayed shut too if not for Lucy inadvertently opening the door with this proposal for Peter to play male model with her in a Southfork photoshoot. As Ronald Reagan used to say, there you go again...
What was with the protracted scene of Peter furiously working out? What audience was Lorimar targeting with all that sweaty beefcake? Maybe it was a Title IX clause demanding fair play after all those past scenes of Pam in a French-cut one-piece splashing in the Southfork pool. Lucy's cracking wise about Peter's running on a postage stamp was funny, though judging by the oversized t-shirt she was sporting at the pool party in "Offshore Crude," Lucy should consider jogging a few laps on that postage stamp, especially if she's trying to resuscitate her moribund modeling career.
Go away, Dora Mae. Yes, I know there was pressure to increase the presence of minorities on the series, but elevating the roles of the restaurant hostess and Teresa the maid was a bad way to go about it. All their scenes feel tacked on and shoehorned in. The pressure will only intensify in a few weeks when rival series DYNASTY adds a black character to the main cast, Dominique Deveraux, played by Diahann Carroll.
I'm watching through these two prime-time soaps concurrently and chronologically and the parallels are proving very interesting. Miscarriages and major characters wandering into the paths of oncoming cars occurred on both shows within weeks of each other. May-December romances are featured this season on both series, with both flipping the script and having younger men enthralled by older women. JR has Harry McSween and Alexis has Morgan Hess doing their dirty detective work. DYNASTY cast Helmut Berger as international playboy Peter DeVilbis and now DALLAS introduces Daniel Pilon as Italian Count Renaldo Marchetta. Coincidence or collusion? I suspect the two shows had their own Slys passing scripts in seedy bars like Sly does geological reports.
Hey, is this DALLAS or HART TO HART? What's with Ray and Donna going all Jonathan and Jennifer in their investigation of Edgar Randolph's past? They know JR is blackmailing him, but how is this behind-his-back investigation supposed to help? In their own way, Ray and Donna are in the muck retracing Harry McSween's soiled steps--and ouch!--stepping on toes. And all to what end? How do they go back to Edgar under the pretense of helping and say we snooped around and now know all about what you did in that room with little Barbara?
Barbara isn't so little now, and oh, don't forget she's a doctor (but if you do, she'll be quick to remind you). Worse, Dr. Mudhoney grabbed the wheel and crashed the show through the guardrail into the "very special episode" TV wasteland. Release the Kraken of psychobabble! Wait, didn't DIFF'RENT STROKES already address the issue of pedophilia with the bicycle man? I wondered what lurked behind this bizarre plot twist. Was the Edgar's-got-a-dirty-secret subplot designed solely to get us to this public service announcement data dump?
Meanwhile, back at the Oil Baron's Club, Edgar is spilling secrets and clinging by his fingernails to his last shred of self-respect by refusing even to drink with JR. My question is, if JR wants to know the amounts bid by Westar, Four States, and Barnes-Wentworth, and only then he will submit his presumably higher bid, how will that hurt Cliff Barnes? He plots with Marilee to leave Cliff holding the bag without his secret partner, but if Cliff is outbid by Ewing Oil he shouldn't lose anything but whatever filing fees were required (and the $10,000 he paid Sly for the geologicals).
Marilee is quite the "viper" too, so quick to stab Cliff in the back and even to twist the knife on JR's malicious urging. Okay, JR led her to believe Cliff was kissin' n' tellin', which of course aroused her ire. JR may have overplayed his hand here. If Cliff learns from Marilee that JR knows everything, and Cliff knows he hasn't uttered a word (not even to Pam), he may figure out his phone is tapped.
Blink and you'll miss veteran character actor Bill Quinn as Percival. It's Quinn's sole series appearance and only galvanized his reputation of having been in an episode of everything. His list of credits is staggering. Too bad he was squandered here, engaged in a few minutes of pointless conversation with Donna and Ray. Oh, his mistaking Sam Culver as Donna's father provided a nice complement to Sue Ellen being mistaken for Peter's mother.
So... do you believe Charlie is Naldo's daughter? I just can't, even after Jenna's poolside confession, which struck me as scripted, rehearsed, and wholly lacking the ring of truth. Jenna is still weaponizing ambiguity and leading on trusting, gullible, and starry-eyed Bobby. Couple that with the actress Shalane McCall looking so much like the best of Bobby and Jenna, wholly lacking the swarthy and sculpted features of her presumptive father. Maybe only a paternity test--like the one on Kristin's son Christopher--will decisively settle the issue. Until then, I'm still Team Bobby!
Robotech: Ghost Town (1985)
Shorty, Don't Be a Hero
Ugh, what an awful episode! It started off promising as an homage to classic Westerns with Scott, Rand, and Annie riding into a hostile frontier town, then degenerated into a Western spoof with the sheriff tossing our ragtag rebels into the hoosegow like Thurston Howell did to the Brady Bunch. A couple geezers then rustle their Cyclones. The addled sheriff then inexplicably releases Scott, Rand, and Annie who ride away in hot pursuit on horseback. And all this before the commercial break!
The premise begged a lot of questions. Why would a once-modern society revert back to the Old West, including adopting its dress, horses, and cowpoke lingo? Scott said these cities were built in the craters created during the war with the Robotech Masters, which wasn't all that long ago in the series timeline. Rick Hunter is still alive, for example, as are an odd assortment of Macross-era soldiers. The city is decrepit, however, like a dilapidated old ghost town of the title. But if it was built in the wake of the Robotech Masters War, it should be bright, shiny, and gleaming with modernity.
Another nagging question--pun intended--when did Scott learn to ride a horse? Just two episodes ago in "Metamorphosis" he told Rand he couldn't swim because he spent his life in space. Am I nitpicking? Yes, and I know that Rick Hunter and the Robotech Masters played no roles in the original GENESIS CLIMBER MOSPEADA series. Carl Macek, in stitching together this patchwork quilt of three disparate series with a staff of ten writers, conflicts and continuity errors were bound to abound.
Some writers call Annie "Mint," and others don't. Some writers make Scott a halfway likeable human being who can kick back in a lounge chair and good naturedly splash in the surf, and others cast him as a jayvee George S. Patton, as he was presented in this episode. Full disclosure: I'm no fan of Scott. He's my second most-loathed character after Lynn Minmei. Yeah, he's the star of the New Generation, but let's be honest, Rand is the breakout character who brings life to this party.
What a revoltin' development. What began as a tribute to Westerns degenerated into a flag-waving, martial-drum-beating propaganda piece. UN Spacey's recruitment detail should play this episode in retirement homes and swell their ranks with grizzled warhorses and old soldiers eager to die with their boots on.
Can even the most ardent fan of Scott Bernard like him in this episode? First, he barks at Rand and Annie when they suggest he stop playing soldier and loosen up. "I'm not here for pleasure. There's no time for a vacation as long as the Invid are still on earth." He's a man singularly obsessed. Okay, fine, but don't drag others down into your maelstrom of madness. Then Scott tried to pull rank on the cowtown sheriff, haughtily declaring, "I just happen to be an officer from Mars Base!" This expectation of awe and respect--if not a snap salute--for the uniform revealed Scott's myopic militaristic mindset.
But Scott lost my last lick of loyalty and respect when he punched the veteran soldier square in the face and sneered, "You cowardly scum! I hate to even dirty my fists on you!" Wow, what about respect for one's elders? You just don't punch an old man in the face! Worse, the old duffer didn't even see it coming. The droopy-mustached vet informs Scott that they aren't soldiers anymore and aren't under anyone's command. Lancer adds that they fought bravely against the Robotech Masters and that the fight has gone out of them. The vets appear to be in their 70s and know Rick Hunter so presumably also waged war against the Zentraedi. Does Scott respect those decades of dedicated service? No, "you're all traitors!" he shouts, yanking a skinny codger by his shirt front. Scott may be an officer, but he's no gentleman.
An outlier among the veteran ranks is a younger, shell-shocked soldier dubbed "Gabby" since he's mute. He often goes to the receiver and watches messages we learn come from his son. Watch for Scott aggressively elbowing this poor, broken man to the side so he can frantically yell into a radio he was already told is no longer operational. Scott is so rude with a reckless disregard for people and their feelings. Only the mission matters. Scott displays megalomania here, believing he's on a mission from God--or Admiral Rick Hunter, whom he's elevated to deity-- and only he can accomplish it. People are just disposable tools to be used, abused, and discarded, means necessary to achieving his ends and winning his glory.
Good leaders can become obsessed. Two examples from STAR TREK: Captain Kirk in "Obsession" and Matt Decker in "The Doomsday Machine." In the latter, Decker blithely risked the lives of an entire starship in his mad quest to settle his personal grudge.
That tragically is similar to what happens in "Ghost Town" as this over-the-hill gang is bullied into undertaking a suicide mission to do what? Take out an Invid antenna? Is that a hill to die on? No, and neither was the "Anthill" in PATHS OF GLORY, a powerful movie that sprang to mind watching these futile events unfold.
In the end, Decker put skin in the game. Scott doesn't, hanging back and letting the vets to do the heavy lifting. Yeah, Scott made pleas for the vets to use the escape pods, but it was too late. He had already sufficiently shamed them into paying the ultimate price. We never learned Shorty's real name nor why Rick Hunter was never to be discussed among them.
I groaned after Marlene somberly informs Annie, "they were... heroes." That line brought to mind the underappreciated antiwar song "Billy, Don't Be a Hero." After the lives of Shorty and friends were snuffed out by the push of a button and a blinding flash, Scott pompously pronounces, "They'll be awarded medals of honor." First, what good will medals do them? They're dead--vaporized! And secondly, medals to be awarded by whom? There is no military structure in place to conduct such ceremonial niceties. If there were, Scott would have military backup instead of his ragtag band of misfit toys.
I'll end this review with the apt closing stanza of the song, which stands in stark contrast to the jingoistic theme of "Ghost Town": "I heard his fiancée got a letter / That told how Billy died that day / The letter said that he was a hero / She should be proud, he died that way / I heard she threw the letter away."
Dynasty: The Accident (1984)
Falling in Love with Love...
A packed show tonight with all the plots flying high and a couple descending for landings.
One just taking off is the Tracy Kendall subplot of planting a scandalous story with her bed buddy Jeremy, an editor at a fictional knockoff of the National Enquirer. This unclad, clandestine meeting raised among other things a question about the timeline. How many days and weeks transpired between Tracy's bedroom meeting with Jeremy and the actual story being written, published, and distributed to newsstands? Two interesting takeaways. Kendall came close to overplaying her hand here when Krystle zigged instead of zagged as planned. But I agreed with Tracy that Krystle too blithely dismissed the hit piece and its possible ramifications. The second takeaway was surprise that DYNASTY would take a swipe at the grocery store tabloids, which I vividly recall being big promoters of the prime-time soaps. My mother always bought "The Star" and while I wasn't interested as a teenager, I recall Joan Collins and Linda Evans being among the celebs regularly featured (albeit not always flatteringly, which perhaps provoked this show's slap down).
The scene with Tracy and Jeremy was filmed so carefully to reveal as much without revealing anything. I laughed at the shameless attempt at titillation when Tracy got up to mix a drink and the spoilsport director placed so many obstructions in our view. Come to think of it, Jerome Courtland's direction was just really weird all throughout this episode. What was with the shot of a woman exiting a store and walking to her car while we hear a voiceover of Jeff? Huh, what's going on? It was disorienting until the camera finally zoomed in on Jeff's passing car, cutting to him inside playing Mannix yakking on his car phone. Then came that shot in La Mirage that started on a gaggle of guests then panned to the fireplace and then zoomed through the fireplace to Claudia and Alexis talking. Talk about taking the scenic route through the set. If that was an ambitious attempt at avant garde, its reach exceeded its grasp!
Then twice Courtland filmed meetings in Blake's office from what appeared to be the uppermost reaches of the ceiling corner. First Dex and later Adam appeared, each man standing what looked like fifty yards away from Blake. With Adam I was suddenly reminded of "The Obsolete Man" episode of the TWILIGHT ZONE with Adam standing in for Burgess Meredith awaiting judgement to fall from an imperious Blake. What was Courtland going for with those yawning chasms between Blake and Dex and Adam? Visually demonstrating the unbridgeable distance between Blake and these men? C'mon, guys, as we learned in the commercial break, "now don't be shy / you can get a little closer / with Arrid Extra Dry!"
On the subject of Blake, I noticed in the last show and again in this one that John Forsythe's head just isn't in the game. Last week in "A Little Girl" when Gordon Thomson was giving a heartrending performance in the hospital chapel, Forsythe appeared tuned out and disengaged. And that sleepwalking performance carried over into tonight's show. When he was having heartfelt talks with Krystle and later Alexis, I kept thinking how obvious it was that Forsythe was merely acting. That oomph that lends emotional impact to a scene was missing... and was sorely missed. Even the closing "Oh, my God" was spoken so flat, as if he were reading the line off a cue card. Midseason doldrums? I hope he snaps out of it.
I see the writers successfully drawing parallels between the show's starry-eyed star-crossed lovers. Sam Dexter via Blake tries in vain to warn Dex about Alexis, and a virtual Greek chorus is warning Fallon about Peter. I was going to write that all such warnings fell on deaf ears, but in that stirring scene right after Fallon learned the truth all those warnings raced back and rang in her ears. I thought of an old favorite Frank Sinatra song that warns against falling in love with love that I'm asking Casey to send to Fallon as a long-distance dedication: "I fell in love with love one night when the moon was full / I was unwise with eyes unable to see / I fell in love with love, with love everlasting / But love fell out with me!"
While one romance sputters, another sparks. Or is it more akin to lighting a wet firecracker? What provoked Dex to propose to Alexis? The fact his father and Blake are opposed to this unholy union? Dex's revealing that his father Sam once slept with Alexis brought to mind the biblical account of King David's ambitious son Absalom who slept with his father's concubines to both shame and usurp power from his father. That didn't end well, and I see this revenge romance "riding high in April, shot down in May," as in May-December romances are often just "falling for make believe," as the aforementioned song well stated.
Speaking of King David... I am confident when recent episodes were being written there was a Bible opened to 2 Samuel as the story of Adam and Kirby boasts so many striking parallels to the sordid story of David and Bathsheba. Adam as David was attracted to and took by force another man's wife: Kirby as Bathsheba. Jeff played the hapless husband Uriah whom David consigned to death just as Adam attempted to do to Jeff. Even though David and Adam expressed remorse afterwards, a price had to be paid: the life of the child conceived in sin. Drawing a plot from such an iconic story certainly lent it tremendous heft.
A few random notes: Did you notice the new music cue for La Mirage? Kinda somber. I already miss the old bouncy one, but perhaps it was changed to reflect the fact there's no joy in Mudville or at La Mirage these days between Claudia's simmering crackup and Fallon's abrupt breakup. If one is watching HOTEL back-to-back with DYNASTY (as they aired in '84), Claudia is fast becoming this series' answer to Connie Sellecca's Christine Francis. Embittered ex-congressman Neil McVane is mentioned but not seen (perhaps busily plotting off camera?).
And finally, with the episode titled "The Accident," it was just a matter of waiting to see upon whom it befell. Once that drunk guy stumbled out insisting on getting his own car, I knew it was a'coming. Yeesh, just as Kirby was recovering, we start all over again with endless scenes of a character languishing in bed, hovering between life and death. Not to be flip, but c'mon, we've been there done that so many times on this series. I'm guessing Aaron Spelling took a long lease on that hospital set and is determined to get his uttermost farthing's worth.
Dark Shadows: Episode #1.242 (1967)
Compelling Conversations
A compelling and plot-forwarding episode. It's a a credit to the writer and the performers because everything unfolded in conversation. I could no more peel my eyes off the screen than Mitch Ryan could his cue cards, and even then he flubbed a line, misspeaking "microphone" for "microscope."
Jason is sure growing recklessly smug, now brazenly embezzling money from the cannery. When Liz confronts him about it, he blithely dismisses her, aggravating her (and the audience) by ignoring Liz while trying to recall a fictional toast he made that turns out to be a thinly veiled threat that he fully intends to pluck more ripe fruit from the Collins' tree.
Liz, usually an irresistible force, appears to have met an immoveable object in Jason. I really thought Liz was going to confide in Roger, especially after he confided in her about how horrible it was to harbor a dark secret. That was stealth exposition for those coming to the series late, letting folks know that Roger wronged Burke in the past. Roger also mentions that Liz's husband Paul disappeared eighteen years ago, and that Liz keeps on a necklace the key to a locked room in the basement. Roger isn't a dummy. I am certain he suspects there's more in that room than just Paul Stoddard's personal belongings. I doubt he's forgotten her overreaction when he tried to get in there when searching for Sam's paintings.
Alas, Liz did not confide in Roger, but she did secure his assurance to stand by her come what may. This was a leap forward in their brother-sister relationship. I hope Liz's seeking allies indicates she is mustering the courage to call Jason's bluff. He has as much to lose as Liz does, so it's a question of who will blink first.
Hey, how did Jason get away from those howling dogs that were closing in on him a few shows ago? A dropped cliffhanger.
The primary story of Maggie offered exciting developments with the typically tight-lipped Dr. Woodard admitting to Burke that what he suspects from examining Maggie's blood samples is beyond mysterious and is actually downright frightening, terrifying and... impossible. This conversation also marked the first mention of "Dr. Hoffman," who won't appear for a couple weeks. I wondered if the name "Hoffman" was inspired by the can of soda the writer was drinking while knocking out the script. Hoffman was a popular local brand of soft drinks at the time.
Underplayed were the metal bars over Woodard's window being twisted and pulled apart, a feat possible only for one possessing superhuman strength. Why wasn't Sheriff Patterson on the scene? He has sure made the rounds lately. And this is one rap he can't pin on poor Willie Loomis.
Speaking of Willie, Barnabas shouldn't be dispatching him to Bangor on so many errands when he's really needed at home to rein in the meandering Maggie--oops, Josette. David's encounter with her last episode was a headscratcher. I mean, couldn't he tell this was an actual physical person and not a shimmering apparition? During Vicky's interrogation of David on the staircase, I hoped she would spur David on to confiding in her by reminding him that she has also seen Josette. Remember when Josette saved her from the deranged Matthew Morgan? I wonder if that exciting plotline has been quietly written out of continuity since Vicky never mentioned to Barnabas her being held prisoner in the secret room. And she shows no signs of PTSD after that harrowing ordeal, appearing comfortable and at ease in the house that held such horrors for her.
Hasn't the Old House become Grand Central Station in recent shows? I marvel at how many people just routinely let themselves in and wander about. Barnabas was rolling with it, but seems to have finally had enough, especially with David's repeated intrusions. I liked the stern look he shot that brat on the second goodbye of the evening. Besides deadbolting the door and pulling the drapes, he should turn down the volume on that blaring music box that almost blew the lid off Barnabas' ambitious abduction and gaslighting caper.
PS for fans of a certain vintage who watched the late show in the '80s...
Barnabas: Josette, turn down that music!
Josette: But Dad, it's Smokey!