Debating TV shows

General
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That’s fascinating. I never took to her, even though (or maybe because) it was obvious she was supposed to be glamorous and alluring. I couldn’t see it. For me she had the vaguely creepy “cougar” quality of a former beauty getting on in years, but with enough residual clout to get a production to treat her like she was still a big deal. I felt the same way about Angie Dickinson in “Police Woman.” Whenever Bain was on screen, you could count a lot of vaseline on the lenses, but my chief gripe was her “sultry” (?) whispery voice, which was inappropriate for 90% of the “major crisis” storylines Alpha landed in. It’s hard to say things like “the virus will kill us all within hours” and sound seductive at the same time.

I never could quite understand the “romance” between Helena and Koenig. Or rather, I understood it plot-wise, I just never understood why we were supposed to care about a couple of middle-aged lovebirds.

I was too young to have caught the early seasons of Mission: Impossible, so it would be years before I saw her as “Cinnamon Carter” and finally understood what the fuss was about. She was pretty enchanting back then. Not enough to justify stealing the Emmy from Diana Rigg’s Emma Peel, mind you, but enchanting.

Actually before that I saw her in a guest role on “Get Smart” and thought, “Wow, who’s that beauty?” only to be shocked at the end credits. “Barbara Bain!?!?! Are you kidding?!?!”

I confess it also irked me that Landau would claim to have turned down the role of Spock because he “had no emotions” and that was anathema to a serious actor. For the record, (1) when Landau was supposedly offered the part, they hadn’t yet decided Spock would be played as a stoic, (2) of course Spock DID have emotions, but Nimoy’s genius was in his ability to make us understand that, even though Spock tried to hide them and (3) there’s no way “Rollin Hand” was a more well-rounded or emotionally nuanced character than Spock. If anything, Rollin was an ever-changing parade of cringey “ethnic” accents and makeup with no inner life whatsoever. But I guess Nimoy got the last laugh by taking over the “Master of Disguise” role on M:I and begging out of his contract after two years because of how shallow the part was. And Marty ended up on (snicker) Space: 1999.

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That’s what I didn’t understand about the Mission Impossible hype: that show was so horribly formulaic you could practically boil it down to a handful of plots. There was hardly any variation, even if the team members changed. A single Star Trek episode had probably more character substance than a season of Mission Impossible. None of the potential of team dynamics was used, nor much of the ‘civil’ lives/careers of their members. It just didn’t matter if it’s Briggs or Phelps, Rollin Hand or The Great Paris - the studio backlot remained the same and whether it was an Eastern Bloc general or a domestic mobster who had to face the music due to the op was likewise inconsequential.

It Takes a Thief and The Man from UNCLE are significantly more fun to watch - yet Mission Impossible incredibly went on for as many seasons as both these shows.

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Yes, I always thought M:I was as formulaic as Batman. The same things happened over and over, just with different guest stars and different character names. And yet the public tired of Batman quickly, while the ratings (and awards) kept on coming for M:I year after year.

However…how many M:I conventions do you see 50 years later? How many people even remember it was a TV show before Tom Cruise got hold of the property? I once read an article that postulated that the shows that tend to endure in popularity for generations are those that build a sense of family and belonging. So for instance The Andy Griffith Show, with the literal family of Andy, Opie and Bea but also the “extended family” of Barney, Gomer, etc, or Gunsmoke with Matt, Kitty, Doc, Chester, Festus, etc, remain as beloved as it they ever were, while a ratings blockbuster like The Fugitive, with only two recurring characters (who for the show to work, couldn’t even share a scene together!) is largely forgotten by all but the first generation to view it, and even they probably don’t go back to it. Some shows make the audience feel like they’re part of the family; others succeed – in their moment – because they’re clever or good-looking or novel in some way, but none of that’s a recipe for cultural longevity.

I feel it’s the same with M:I and Star Trek. The former can be clever and suspenseful…up to a point…but it’s about a group of cyphers with no great depth individually and no strong bonds between them, whereas the latter is about a group that interacts with warmth and affection and endearing quirks that, despite or maybe because of their predictability, keep the show rewarding even after multiple viewings. Arguably it may even get better the more you return to it. Even when a Trek plot is lame (which for certain does happen), the character moments make it worth watching, anyway. In contrast, if you’ve seen how an M:I episode turns out, you don’t really need to see it again. Unless of course it’s because you’ve forgotten how it ends because it looks like so many other ones.

I think your examples of It Takes A Thief and UNCLE fit the “family” theory: Al and Noah have a fun relationship to watch, as do Napoleon and Illya. There’s not going to be any fun banter or teasing or one-upmanship on M:I, if for no other reason that each week the cast are all undercover and pretending not to know each other at all. It was, in retrospect, one of the most limiting premises ever conceived for a TV show, and the fact that it succeeded as well and as long as it did is mainly down to the impressive level of competence in front of and behind the camera. But it’s NOT because it engendered in the audience any affection for or attachment to the characters. Otherwise they couldn’t have had such a huge turnover in the principal cast and kept barreling on undaunted. How many other shows can remain popular pretty much from start to finish, when by the end of the series there were only two cast members left who’d been around since the beginning, and neither of them was the lead?

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Yesterday in the late afternoon I watched the Columbo episode Ahses to Ashes with again Patrick McGoohan as the murderer. This time he is a corrupt funeral director who steals from the dead & rich & famous and murders a witness. Then it becomes very useful to have a cremation burner at hand to get rid of the body.

I very lke McGoonhan in all his four appearances as a murderer in Columbo. He has the right arrogance and haughtiness to take on what he initially sees as a somewhat shabby and silly police lieutenant. He also directed this one.Together with Culp and Cassidy and the one time Rip Torn they are the best Columbo murderers, or at least my favorites.

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I have now watched all the episodes of Columbo, including at the end the episodes that I had initially skipped because I didn’t remember them as good. Well that turned out to be the case. Actually, the newer episodes range from decent to quite good, but you should simply skip the next three, because they significantly lower the general level:

Smoke and Shadows
No Time to Die (and no, it’s not only the title)
Columbo Likes the Night Life

The first is the one with Fisher Stevens, it’s just very boring.

NTTD is not a realy Columbo case, His niece is kidnapped on her wedding night and Columbo and his colleagues do everything they can to find her. Since we do not see the perpetrator preparing his crime at the beginning and he is never introduced, this episode is reduced to an ordinary, everyday episode of an average detective series. I also found it somewhat questionable that the bridegroom, also a police officer himself, mercilessly shot him dead when the perpetrator was arrested, without giving him the chance to surrender. Just seemed like an execution to me.

The last one is actually the very last episode of the series, in which we see Columbo investigating a murder and ending up in the world of underground raves. Doesn’t fit in with the rest of the series at all although the conclusion is not bad at all.

Conclusion: the new series may not be as good as the original series, but apart from these three, the rest of the episodes are definitely worth watching.

There was also talk of a seventieth episode, approved by Falk himself, but no TV station wanted to make it, because they felt that a now 80-year-old leading actor could not be sold to a younger audience. Eternally a shame!

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Watching the last two episodes of ELEMENTARY season 1 and I must say…

… I love this show so much. Better than SHERLOCK by far.

And I know now, by the way, that the magnificent Jonny Lee Miller is Bernard Lee‘s grandson!

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Wow. Well, now I know it, too. So that’s two of Roger’s co-stars with Sherlocks as descendants (Wanda Ventham and Bernard Lee), plus how many Bond actors who played the master detective themselves?:

Roger Moore
Christopher Lee
Douglas Wilmer
John Cleese
Jonathan Pryce

…and a special award to Patrick MacNee, who not only played Holmes but also served as a Watson to both Lee and Moore.

And Charles Gray as Mycroft, Andrew Scott as Moriarty and on and on…

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Wasn’t the 21 ending so engaging, then 23 twist hit you hard!

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…but also to Christopher Lee, for having the longest time gap of 30 years in between appearances as Holmes (30 years, 1962 – 1992), but also not only for playing Mycroft (Private Life) and making his Holmes debut as Sir Henry Baskerville. :nerd_face:

I did have the idea somewhere in the back of my mind that he was Watson somewhere, too, but it seems that I was wrong about that. Come to think of it, it would have been a terrible miscast. Not even a moustache could have saved that. And: who would have been capable of playing a proper Holmes against Lee’s Watson? :goat:

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Peter Cushing?
After all they were the “Laurel and Hardy” of Hammer Horror.

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I am totally floored by the writing of this show.

I imagine it incredibly difficult to construct the cases (and for Miller to deliver those intricate monologues and his constant body tension). But the way they subtly moved the characters through all the previous episodes in order to prepare for this… absolute masterpiece. Egregiously underrated.

And the look on Miller‘s face when he discovers that

Summary

Irene is not dead

was so heartbreakingly effective. Just perfect.

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Summary

Watson actually tells you how she will beat Moriarty in episode 2.

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I’m very late to this party. But since I refuse to subscribe to Disney+, the only way I can continue watching Doctor Who is by buying the DVDs or borrowing them through my library. We have too many DVDs, as it is, so borrowing is my only other option. It was a long wait, but the 60th Anniversary Specials finally landed at my library, and I binged them this week.

I’m not going hide details, since these episodes aired back in 2023. So, assuming I’m among the last of the stragglers, hopefully most people who intended to watch the 60th Anniversary Specials have watched them by now. If you haven’t watched them, then read no further!

“The Star Beast”

It was so wonderful to see Tennant Doc and Donna reunited, with all their old chemistry intact. It was as if they’d never been apart. I felt engaged by this episode in a way that, for whatever reason, I didn’t feel during most of the 13th Doctor’s run. It was a bit like Old Home Day.

I loved when the Doctor whipped out his psychic paper outside Shaun’s taxi, bragged about being Grand Master of the Knowledge, only to face Shaun’s correction that it said “Grand Mistress of the Knowledge.” His “Oh, catch up!” rebuttal felt so right. (It was also a nice nod to Whittaker’s Doc.) And, they’re back!

The Meep was, in the beginning, quite reminiscent of ET, right down to hiding in amongst the toys in Rose’s shed. The Meep was cute … until he wasn’t. I wasn’t expecting that!

But most of all, I was happy that Russell T. Davies finally righted what I always felt was a terrible wrong done to Donna. She got her memory back of all the wonderful things she’d done with the Doctor. And it didn’t kill her! I really wasn’t expecting that. The solution coming through her daughter, Rose, was a bit of timey-wimey whimsy, but I rolled with it.

“Wild Blue Yonder”

The Newton intro was fun … and I guess it got us to the point where, thanks to time travel, mavity replaced gravity (except that there was that odd slip-up the Doctor did on the ship, saying gravity first, then correcting himself with mavity).

Anyway, this was the first seriously thrilling Doctor Who episode for me in a while. I enjoyed the fact that it was the Doctor and Donna … and the Doctor and Donna redux. Very scaled down. The tension was in each trying to figure out who the real ones were in time for the Tardis to come back and collect them. I thought Tennant and Tate were utterly convincing in their roles.

I always liked Donna for her humanity and her humanness. I thought that was why the Doctor was drawn to her. Donna was very much something that he is not, and he needed that.

It’s interesting to me that RTD decided to incorporate the Flux. He could’ve disregarded Chibnall’s change to the Doctor’s timeline, but instead decided to keep it. As long as it doesn’t become too overarching a device, I’m OK with it.

“The Giggle”

“The Giggle” was a satisfying, if, for me, an overly drawn-out, conclusion to this three-parter. It was wonderful to see Wilf again at the beginning, as well as Kate Lethbridge-Stewart later on.

Did anyone else see a startling resemblance between Neil Patrick Harris’ Celestial Toymaker and Matt Smith’s Doctor? Occasionally I had to do a double-take to remind myself of which character I was watching.

The beginning of the episode, with the puppets and Doctor and Donna lost in the corridors, was genuinely creepy. It’s the first time in quite some time that I’ve felt that in a Doctor Who episode.

For me, the highlight of this concluding episode was that the Doctor got both of his wishes. The meta-crisis Doctor ended up with Rose and her family, and this Doctor ended up with Donna and her family. Best of both worlds … literally.

The bi-generation was a rather interesting way of setting up the new Doctor. But somehow that part felt very drawn-out to me. It was a different way of introducing the new Doctor, I will give them that. And I certainly liked Ncuti Gatwa. I will look forward to seeing more of him! But I guess I’m used to regenerations being fleeting events, so it was hard to wrap my head around those extended scenes of the two Doctors together.

Ah, such reverberations with what’s happening now. If only there were a solution like eradicating a giggle to make the world sane again.

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Watched ‘Rebus’(2024)…

In two minds about this. The Rebus books have proven to be notoriously difficult to adapt, even though they are not particularly outlandish, offer no violence pørn and little action that goes beyond what we’d ordinarily expect from a police procedural. Early books have been adapted first with John Hannah and then Ken Stott, both probably not really settling comfortably in the role and after four series over seven years the thing petered out and wasn’t picked up for 15 years.

Now finally a new go, kicked off by viaplay and taken over by BBC Scotland, starring Richard Rankin (no relation) as DS John Rebus. And while this has Ian Rankin as one of the executive producers and features Rebus as sergeant the way he appeared in Rankin’s first Rebus novel, this isn’t a book adaptation, nor is it a ‘prequel’.

This is its own thing, a ‘reimagining’ of characters and motifs. Fans of the books will very likely not find a lot of what they connect with a Rebus mystery. In all fairness, this is a tv series that tries to sell almost 40 years after Rankin wrote his first few books. And in an environment next to ‘Line of Duty’ and ‘Peaky Blinders’, where dramatic composition demands a different mindset to the sedate rhythm of the mystery novel.

In this iteration we follow John Rebus as he untangles a treacherous web of relationships, guilt and desperation, six episodes of ever increasing doom that lead to inevitable tragedy and more or less demand a second season (that’s likely going to dunk Rebus even deeper and more viciously into despair).

I’d say you probably will enjoy this the most if you haven’t read a Rebus book at all and know next to nothing about the character and what to expect. Then this is a splendid Scottish interpretation of a small scale crime series that need not fear comparisons to great tragedy. The suspense ist there, the action, a bit of gunplay as in any tale about the bigg-ish deal. It moves at pace and doesn’t overstay its welcome by padding out the season with filler. It’s quite enjoyable in that particular niche that isn’t quite kitchen sink crime. Something between a bumptious Guy Ritchie splatter flick and a Midsomer Murders feel good show.

So why is my enjoyment of this series less than complete?

For me this is because I barely recognise any of the characters. They travel under familiar names, but the only one I feel is somewhere in the vicinity of their literary counterparts is Ger Cafferty. None of the others, although depicted by fine actors, come even close. Rebus wears three different designer jackets from the usual suspects of British labels and none of which you would likely see the literary Rebus even dead in. Rebus and his brother have both been soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, with the by now usual set of cynical coping mechanisms,

Gill Templar is already Rebus’ boss and Rebus himself is a million miles away from a DI promotion - mainly because he’s not just a young hothead but also because inside that hothead there’s little actual detection taking place. This Rebus isn’t very brainy, doesn’t read or listen to music. He’s drinking a lot when he doesn’t restrain himself, true. But that also comes across as more of a cliché than an actual trait.

Fact is, I never felt this was supposed to be the John Rebus I’ve known for decades now. And in fact the tale the series tells pretty much excludes this could be going anywhere in the direction the books did in the future. I would probably have enjoyed this a lot more if the names had been changed to some original set of characters.

But it’s a good show on its own, six episodes that make us want to see how the disaster further unfolds.

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Pierce Brosnan

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Algorithms decide…

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It is unclear why Netflix chose to schedule The Night Agent and The Recruit – two sophomore spy series with twentysomething male protagonists who are both idealistic CIA novices learning the craft as they go – back to back. (The Recruit ‘s timing may have been influenced, at least in part, by cast’s option’s end date.) Having them run side by side may have created confusion, with viewers possibly getting their fix with one spy show (more likely The Night Agent ) and not eager to watch another right away.

This is idiocy. These shows - probably - do nothing wrong; their sole mistake is the house that ordered them is too huge to even care that their content diminishes each other.

Also bad from a storytelling POV. What Netflix, Amazon and others don’t understand is, people want to know if it’s worth investing in several seasons of a longer storyline. So they often wait for numerous seasons to be available. I’m only now watching Elementary and The Americans. And I might have invested more into The Recruit had the show had a longer run. Now it’s unlikely.

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I‘m curious. It had a perfect ending.