MeTV's SuperSci-Fi Saturday Night

[Christopher]

And it kind of undermined the premise when they'd made such a big deal about how unconventional it was for burglars to be operating on such high floors, only to have Atlas tag along with the human fly for the climbing on the last job.

I think the idea was that the human fly was the only one who could scale the building without a rope, and he then lowered a rope for the others. I don't recall whether Atlas was shown free-climbing on the last job. My impression is that the scene opened with him and the human fly already on the roof, which I assumed would've been after the fly had already lowered the rope for Atlas to climb.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Yeah, I was just realizing that and came back to edit the post, but too late!

 

[The Old Mixer]

"The Brainy Burro"

Directed by George Reeves! Not sure if he's already directed some, but this is the first time that I noticed.

Ohh, man. A psychic, math-performing burro?

And she uses the tens digit, knows left from right, etc. Ay caramba!

The hoods discussing their impending crime while Clark was in the same room. Forget super-hearing, even Lois or Jimmy could potentially have overheard them.

That's just common TV stagecraft...we're supposed to imagine that it's a larger, noisier surrounding than it is, such that people can have private conversations. And TV Clark doesn't seem to passively use his super-senses.

It seems that Lois and Jimmy can't even go to Mexico without running into petty hoods from Metropolis! It must have been a seedier establishment than it looked as well, that people could walk in with their burros.

Also, I was unconvinced that the blindfolded bank manager couldn't have at least picked up that the robbers had brought in a large animal that was stomping its hooves. (Perhaps we were meant to imagine that it was a larger, noisier, seedier bank....)

The gas-pipeline deathtrap was kind of clever, but it was pretty much ruined by the way Superman put it out just by waving vaguely in its direction.

He was using super-breath...the cheek-puffing and wind noise were more obvious the second time when he put out the fire near the crooks, but they were there the first time as well.

 

[RJDiogenes]

^^ Heh. I was wondering if anyone would ask. It actually went by unnoticed as I was digging myself out from blizzard #3. However, once I knew the title I was able to find it on YouTube. Since I am currently being buried by blizzard #4, I'll probably have time to watch it today.

Except there turned out to be a charge for it. Maybe I'll just jump ahead and buy the final season on DVD.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Eh...before you go to the trouble, you might want to cut to the chase and do an image search for "Mr. McTavish Superman".

 

[The Old Mixer]

Noteworthy Batman guest Lesley Gore passed away today.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XoNF-fzYMw[/yt]

(Of course, she was better known for this:

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZNiGi5u_gM[/yt]
)

 

[The Old Mixer]

(Yeah, I know, triple post.)

"The Perils of Superman"
...
In that scene where all the masked men were walking around on the street, it looked to me like they just had the same two or three guys walking back and forth.

You have to think that with his super-senses, Clark could have stuck to the first guy like glue, regardless of how many were milling around outside the building. Also:

a) If he needed a way to distinguish them, he could have thought of looking for the key in the first place;

b) He could have just switched to Superman and rounded them all up as accomplices;

c) Failing in any of those options, he could have stuck to one of his friends like glue, rather making the obligatory visit to Inspector Henderson so that he could lose track of everyone.

And it seems like the lead mask gimmick would have been unnecessary if the leader had, I don't know, maybe made his initial threat via a phone call or tape recording...?

How generous of the crooks to space the deathtraps five minutes apart so Superman could free all of them. They should've set them to trigger simultaneously.

They hadn't intended for Superman to know about the traps, they told Clark. So it's actually remarkable that they were so closely timed at all. But one has to wonder, then, why they chose to dispose of everyone via such theatrical methods. They could have blown away Perry and Lois with Clark being none the wiser. (Note also that Superman is only on time to save Jimmy because Jimmy jumped.)

It was a nice change to see Clark as one of the intended victims. One has to wonder why they don't go after him more often, as everyone's supposed to know about Clark's connection with Superman. Sometimes they've worked around this by specifying that they wanted Clark to inform Superman as part of a trap.

The crooks seem to have put some acid on Jimmy's steering column as well, as the wheel evidently comes off while Jimmy is struggling with it...I have to wonder if this was intentional, or if it hadn't been attached to anything and Jack Larson just went a little crazy with it.

 

[Christopher]

a) If he needed a way to distinguish them, he could have thought of looking for the key in the first place;

b) He could have just switched to Superman and rounded them all up as accomplices;

c) Failing in any of those options, he could have stuck to one of his friends like glue, rather making the obligatory visit to Inspector Henderson so that he could lose track of everyone.

Or he could've examined their skeletons for differences, or used gait analysis, or distinguished their voices. Or he could've just ripped open the lead masks with superspeed, although there's some risk to the wearers in that case.


And it seems like the lead mask gimmick would have been unnecessary if the leader had, I don't know, maybe made his initial threat via a phone call or tape recording...?

How generous of the crooks to space the deathtraps five minutes apart so Superman could free all of them. They should've set them to trigger simultaneously.

They hadn't intended for Superman to know about the traps, they told Clark.

That's just my point. The only reason they were spaced out that way at all was because the writers wanted Superman to be able to save them all. There's no logical reason for the villains to set it up that way.

Besides, if I were a bad guy, I wouldn't make any assumptions about Superman's inability to find out about a crime. They should've rigged them simultaneously just in case Superman did find out.

But one has to wonder, then, why they chose to dispose of everyone via such theatrical methods. They could have blown away Perry and Lois with Clark being none the wiser.

The villain said he had a fondness for the old movie-serial deathtraps. I guess it's no weirder than designing your crimes around umbrellas or riddles or hats.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Eh...before you go to the trouble, you might want to cut to the chase and do an image search for "Mr. McTavish Superman".

Now that's a robot. Still, I need to see that actual scene play out. I'll get the whole series eventually, so I'll just jump ahead to the end, like I did with Wild Wild West.

Noteworthy Batman guest Lesley Gore passed away today.

RIP, Lesley Gore.

 

[The Old Mixer]

"All That Glitters."

Not much to say about this one, except perhaps that it's fitting that they padded the episode with a pointless dream sequence. One thing that's struck me through the whole series is how padded it feels, especially for a half-hour show. The writers really seemed to struggle with telling stories in a way that wouldn't involve Superman solving the problem in the first 10 minutes.

 

[Christopher]

The writers really seemed to struggle with telling stories in a way that wouldn't involve Superman solving the problem in the first 10 minutes.

The radio series often had the same issue. There were a lot of stories that went to ridiculous lengths to keep Clark from finding out about a danger for as long as possible.

By the way, I went back and checked, and there was indeed another skipped Superman episode, "Star of Fate" from season 2. If MeTV keeps up its current rerun schedule without alteration, the next time we could expect to see that episode would be on Friday, March 13, three weeks from tomorrow. I wonder if they'll actually show it this time.

 

[The Old Mixer]

"Superman's Wife"

Well, this was appropriately paired with "The Wedding of Superman", since they seem to be the only two episodes in the series that acknowledge Lois's feelings for Superman.

And I don't know who's more naïve...the crooks for falling for such an obvious, out-of-the-blue stunt, or Perry and the gang for all getting in the bathysphere together. They couldn't see from the outside that there wasn't anything in the bathysphere? So there'd be a story if they got in the bathysphere...they couldn't guess what that story would be? And there were three of them...somebody couldn't wait outside? And why didn't Superman just bust the door back open as soon as it closed? I'll give the showmakers their interpretation that Superman couldn't just lift it from the inside, as Byrne's Superman certainly would have done. But when he let it fall again after everyone else was out, why did he have to wait for it to hit bottom before he busted out?

And once again, the hoods automatically knock themselves out once Superman comes toward them. It's like a preconditioned response by this point. They had a double-whammy this time: Hood #1 turns to flee, runs into a boulder, and falls down, then Hood #2 trips over Hood #1.

Mr. X called it right with his preceding line: "Shoot him, you clowns!" After seeing what happened to his clowns, he's quick to give up to Superman so that he doesn't somehow manage to hurt himself.

 

[Christopher]

Batman: At last! Julie Newmar, at last! It's been a long wait for "The Purr-fect Crime"/"Better Luck Next Time," but Newmar's Catwoman was always worth waiting for. She's really the first villainess we've had on the show who was really a credible threat. Most of the female foes so far, like Zelda, Suzie, and Blaze, have turned out to be not all that bad, and the rest have just been subordinates. Catwoman -- or the Catwoman, as she's referred to here -- is the real deal.

Although I'm frustrated by the '60s gender roles, since Julie Newmar could've been a credible physical threat to Batman and Robin too, given her height and athleticism. It would've been awesome to see her taking them on in the Batfights. But instead she just huddled in the corner, which was really disappointing.

Interesting story structure. The deathtraps are usually wrapped up in the first couple of minutes of part 2, but here the peril stretched out for the whole first act, and there was that unusual use of narration not merely to set the scene, but to explain Batman's action. I also like how literate this script is, with subtle references like Damon and Pythias.

Plus there's a kitten! And tigers! As Hobbes once said, the great thing about tigers is that anything they appear in is automatically fine art.

Interesting line Catwoman had in the cave there -- "Never again to face deprivation." Is that a hint of a motivation for her criminal career? Was she once a penniless stray, driven to ruthless greed by the hardships she endured? Interesting to ponder.

And I can't help feeling that the climax to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade totally cribbed from this.


Wonder Woman concludes "The Feminum Mystique," and the continued emphasis on Drusilla is still disappointing. Debra Winger may have gone on to get a bunch of awards and nominations, but she was really terrible here -- only her second role, apparently. It seems she was cast more for her figure than anything else. And Dru was a really stupid character, blurting out the secrets of Paradise Island like that.

It was intriguing, though, to see Diana leading the Amazons on Paradise Island. Although these Amazons were rather complacent and rather easily defeated by a few Nazis. Still, it was a nice variation on Diana's role. And Carolyn Jones was effectively regal as Hippolyta. Though I'm still less than impressed with Lynda Carter's acting. In the first act, when she should've been worried about her sister, she was just as breezy and cheerful as always.

That was a pretty neat stunt at the end with Wonder Woman stopping the jet from taking off. It really did look like she was spinning the jet around with her own strength. It was a pretty simple trick, of course, but a striking visual.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Something that was rattling around in the back of my mind while revisiting The Adventures of Superman...back in '79, the station that was rerunning it where I lived at the time had a commercial that used this recent radio hit:

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIPCnjnQiKE[/yt]

(I couldn't find a George Reeves version, but Chris Reeve is certainly more era-appropriate for the song.)

 

[Morpheus 02]

Wonder Woman concludes "The Feminum Mystique," and the continued emphasis on Drusilla is still disappointing. Debra Winger may have gone on to get a bunch of awards and nominations, but she was really terrible here -- only her second role, apparently. It seems she was cast more for her figure than anything else. And Dru was a really stupid character, blurting out the secrets of Paradise Island like that.

It was intriguing, though, to see Diana leading the Amazons on Paradise Island. Although these Amazons were rather complacent and rather easily defeated by a few Nazis. Still, it was a nice variation on Diana's role. And Carolyn Jones was effectively regal as Hippolyta. Though I'm still less than impressed with Lynda Carter's acting. In the first act, when she should've been worried about her sister, she was just as breezy and cheerful as always.

That was a pretty neat stunt at the end with Wonder Woman stopping the jet from taking off. It really did look like she was spinning the jet around with her own strength. It was a pretty simple trick, of course, but a striking visual.

I blame a lot of it on cheezy/sloppy writing and bad direction. Just listen to the ending.

Dru is written as a very naïve teenager. And Hyppolyta's line about men always lying, in contrast to the Amazons justifies" Dru's telling the truth" about the Islands location. Debra Winger did what the writing called for.

The budget & direction made Paradise Island appear to be only populated by less than a dozen women (and the writing stated like 8 Nazi soldiers).

Oh-- and the direction that had Dru substitute for Diana. Not one soldier noticed that she was not Wonder Woman? Really???

This episode might have seemed more "logical" later on,when the Nazis gained more intelligence on Wonder Woman & her weaknesses.

It's a shame we never got more Wonder Girl!

 

[RJDiogenes]

If I remember correctly, there is one more episode with Wonder Girl.

 

[The Old Mixer]

"On Paradise Island, we treated all creatures with humaneness and compassion...including the men who tried to sneak onto the island wearing gorilla suits."

 

[Christopher]

Batman: "The Penguin Goes Straight"/"Not Yet, He Ain't": Interesting that in just the Penguin's second appearance, we already get him playing against his reputation. And it's amusing how many crimes Batman and Robin committed in trying to prove that Penguin was the criminal -- illegal wiretapping, counterfeiting, breaking and entering, attempted safecracking.

Really, it's a little odd that Batman and Robin wouldn't even consider the possibility of Penguin's reform, given how much they usually go on about rehabilitation.

Speaking of odd, there were a couple of imaginatively weird "sound effects" this week -- ZGRUPPP! and the unpronounceable QUNCKKK! Somebody was having fun.

It surprises me that, what with Pengy's plan to win the trust of high society, Batman didn't deploy his best weapon under the circumstances: Bruce Wayne. He could've pretended to be a client of Penguin's agency and investigated and/or trapped him that way. But I guess the producers wanted an excuse to debut the Batcycle instead. And Batman and Robin as public enemies #1 & 2 was kind of fun.


"Wonder Woman vs. Gargantua": Really? A fake gorilla? Well, in a way, it sort of makes sense to send a gorilla against Wonder Woman, since they are superhumanly strong. Although maybe an adult chimpanzee would be better, since they're actually the aggressive ones, but then, they're untrainable. I do like it that the behaviorist acknowledged that gorillas aren't generally that savage -- but that didn't make the costume any less ridiculous.

This is kind of a silly one, but it's nice to see Wonder Woman fighting for animal rights (in her satin tights) as well as other causes. And it's a nice bit of continuity that the photo of Wonder Woman they used to train Gargantua was from the beauty contest episode when she accepted the prize -- a logical circumstance for a photo of her to be taken.

I love it that in the teaser, when "Wonder Woman" took off her mask and revealed Jim Rockford's girlfriend, she also lost four inches in height and at least a cup size. That's one heck of a mask! (Must be the same technology they use in Mission: Impossible!)

 

[DWF]

If I remember correctly, there is one more episode with Wonder Girl.

Yes the season finale with Robert Hays, it also has a famous shot of a boom seen on the hood of a car.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Speaking of odd, there were a couple of imaginatively weird "sound effects" this week -- ZGRUPPP! and the unpronounceable QUNCKKK!

You can't pronounce "QUNCKKK!"? "ZGRUPPP", on the other hand, I have trouble working my mouth around.