ABC's Movie of the Week Intro - Night Stalker Trailer

Produced especially for the Movie of the Week!  I still can't believe I missed thisin 1972, but I was only seven...

Here on Gilligan's Isle, 1992, Russell Johnson

I am not the biggest Gilligan's Island fan- I am sure I saw almost every episode as a kid, as it was broadcast in every market I ever went to.  I liked it enough, since the cast is good and it was funny for an 8-12 year old.  It was always the same plot, "where that innocuous dunderhead Gilligan mruined it for everyone."  Thanks Brain (I so love that show)! With three full seasons, there were plenty of episodes to "strip" for syndication.  Looking at this book, there were 98 episodes.  This doesn't include the two Filmation cartoons or the movies.

RetroBites: Batman: Action on Set (1966) | CBC

                         

the Seaview

The Seaview was a nuclear submarine created by Admiral Harriman Nelson (USN-Ret).  He was a scientific and engineering genius. He first saves the Van Allen Radiation belt so the Earth will not fry, and then later on takes on spies, aliens and all kinds of menaces.  He had admirable help from Captain Lee Crane as his commanding officer.  They have a great crew but a rather high mortality rate from them, like all shows of that era did.  They didn't even wear red shirts!  There were all kinds of monsters to battle as well, including toy robots.

Q.E.D. Episode 1 - Target London

           

The A-Team: The Say Uncle Affair

From IMDb- "Stockwell is contacted by Ivan Trigorin, aka "Brown Fox", his former partner at the CIA for nearly ten years. The Russian is looking for a top secret stealth bomber the Americans have stolen from the Soviets and starts torturing the General for information. Carla informs the A-Team they have 36 hours to find Stockwell, or the entire operation will cease to be and they will become fugitives once more."  This is from the A-Team, Season 5, episode 6.

Night Court 2023

 

Night Court was a hit in the 80s, and I watched it sporadically over the course of its network run.  It was never a rerun priority for me.  I liked the cast and the humor was generally pretty funny.  It was something fun to watch, but I was never a big fan.  It ended, the stars moved on and several passed on from this mortal veil.  I would never have thought it would get a direct sequel.  And here we are.

Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future (1987)

This show ran for one season of 22 episodes in 1987.  There was some controversy about the toys being produced for it at the time.  It was aimed at kids, ostensibly.  Watching it now, without worrying about toys, it is a pretty good show.  It is not surprising, since J. Michael Straczynski was the head writer.  There are some slight line delivery problems, but that is the largest problem.  Some of the CG is a little jarring, but considering the time frame, it is acceptable.  They are robots, after all.  The show is full of laser battles and some fight scenes.  I am about two thirds of the way through the show.

"Burning Bright"

Astronaut Josh Lang returns from a space walk (or something) and is babbling about Andy and also showing increased brain power.  As in telepathy and telekinesis.  His supervisors are worried about him, so they ask his good friend Steve Austin to talk to him.  This goes about as well as it can, since electric space rays have altered Josh's brain.  He can also understand dolphins now, and his power is growing.  It is also burning out his prefrontal lobe at an alarming rate.  He accidentally kills a sheriff, and Steve goes out to stop him.  Unfortunately, he does not succeed and the burning of the brain kills him.  Space exploration will still take place.

Whatever Happened to Eddie? Butch Patrick

                       

Cyborg: The Six Million Dollar Man (1973)

 

Watching this pilot all the way through for the first is a pretty interesting experience.  It is based sort of loosely on the  Martin Caidin's 1972 novel Cyborg and the first half is really good.  Lee Majors shows a range that is surprising, and I really enjoy his interplay with Nurse Manners.  There is no Oscar Goldman, but instead we get the old man Darren McGavin as Oliver Spencer.  I love Darren, and later on he would stalk mysteries in the night.  Rudy Wells was played by Martin Balsam, then Alan Oppenheimer for until season 3. Martin E. Brooks finally showed up in for the rest of the series, plus the sequels and return movies.  Oddly enough, I always remembered Brooks being Rudy Wells in every episode I saw.  How the mind plays tricks on you after 50 years.

Loki 6- For All Time. Always.

In which we go to Milliways to discover the jerk, genius and/or conqueror who runs the TVA.  Loki and Sylvie have to decide if they will kill him or takeover for him.  He also tells them the story of how the TVA was created and run, though not exactly how it was populated all at once.  Like the first episode, it's a a bit dialog heavy, but it is entertaining and thought provoking.  I suppose most fans are going to be pondering Loki kissing Sylvie at the end, but come on, that's Loki.  What else would he do?  But I'm pretty sure I know who.. spoilers-

Loki 2- Variant

 

Loki figures out how the Variant is hiding and causing chaos.  Of course, Loki being Loki, he is trying to do this to alter his destiny.  So for the time being he has to play nice with the Time Lords, I mean, TVA.  Not that Mobius trusts him, and Ravonna (I KNEW I knew that name from... well, I'll talk about that in a minute) tells Mobius anything Loki does is on him.  Then there is the final reveal, which was a surprise to me.  I thought she was the Enchantress, but it turns out I was completely wrong.  Loki goes after her, after she causes a multiverse to occur.  Great.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea season one book

 

This is one extensive and monster sized book about the first season of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. I've only read the first part.  The first chapter is about the history of science fiction on television, and the second chapter is a biography of one Mr. Irwin Allen.  The history chapter was more fascinating regarding how quickly television sets infested the United States than about how little sci-fi was presented in the first decade of the medium.  The western was king back then.  He does provide exact episode runs of various shows, which is kind of cool.  Science fiction movies started taking off in the early 50s, but on television it was considered not a safe bet.  With the paltry budgets given to most of the shows, it's no wonder producers thought that.

MOTW- Big Alice

 

Across the chasm in the Land of the Lost is the Sleestak city.  It's guardian is Big Alice, an immense female Allosaurus fragilis.  I never thought she actually cared much about the Sleestak, more like she thought this was a good place to hang out.  Since she had a baby in the third season it makes sense.  She probably snacked on more than on errant Sleestak now and then.  She was never quite the same menace Grumpy was, since the Marshalls had to go to her territory, rather than co-exist with the large Tyrannosaurus rex who's land they lived in.  All of us viewers were waiting for the inevitable clash between the two titanic theropods, but couldn't quite figure out how it would happen.  It was great when it finally did.

Land of the Lost (1974)

 

I remember seeing the previews for this show in the summer of 1974.  They always featured the dinosaurs, and that was enough to get me to watch it when it debuted on September 7, 1974.  It was on NBC, opposite Valley of the Dinosaurs on CBS.  That was a tough call, but Land won, at least until the reruns started.  It was a pretty easy choice, overall.  I really enjoy Valley, but it sure doesn't have the pedigree that Land does.

a Wild Wild Book

 

I got this a couple years ago, I think.  I then had to purchase the entire series on DVD so I could watch while I read the book.  It's been worth it, as this book just adds to the excellence that is the series.  I had the first season on DVD several years ago, when it first came out, but since the whole run is available for about half the price, I jumped on that deal.  I got both book and DVD set on Amazon.

Twilight Zone openings

It's so cool. They did a few different versions, all of which were quite unique and yet kept the flavor of the show. These are from the first season and are so evocative of the series. And the narration is tops!

Adam 12 (1968)

After the success of DRAGNET, Jack Webb developed another series based on the police.  Adam 12 followed the adventures of beat offices Pete Malloy and Jim Reed.  It's a little more relaxed and less preachy than DRAGNET, but it follows the same formula more or less.  Reed is the rookie cop partnered with Malloy in this first season.  Both cops also appeared in DRAGNET 69 for the episode "Internal Affairs".  I don't remember them, but I may go back and check it out.  I watched it, I know it, but danged if I remembered them showing up.  Of course, I hadn't seen either shows in ages so I'm not surprised I didn't remember who was who.

Dragnet 1970 episode 22 D.H.Q. Night School

Finished watching the final season of Dragnet the other day.  I know it's fun to put the show down as "square" because, well, it IS really square, but it's a good show.  Certainly it has it's own view point, but it's not nearly as one dimensional as some people would point out.  I mean, it's a show about cops busting bad guys, no one should think it's really going to be that sympathetic to law breakers.

So this episode Joe is going back to school so he can get his masters degree.  He's in a "sensitivity" class where none of the other members know what each other does.