MeTV's SuperSci-Fi Saturday Night

[Christopher]

By the way, I only just figured out the meaning of the second episode title, "The Yegg Foes in Gotham." I knew that "yegg" was an old slang term for safecracker, but the title just seemed like a nonsense construction, because I was looking at it in context with "An Egg Grows in Gotham" and assumed it had the same noun-verb pattern. Once I noticed it began with "The" rather than "A," I realized that "The Yegg Foes" is a plural noun phrase -- the foes who are yeggs. The title is another way of saying "The Safe-cracking Adversaries in Gotham." It's a description of Egghead and his gang, who actually do become safecrackers as the climax of their plan. All this time, what I thought was a gibberish rhyme actually makes sense and is relevant to the plot!

 

[RJDiogenes]

I also caught a Honey West back when Me had it in their late-night Saturday lineup...she was in some agent's office where some bodybuilders in trunks were flexing their muscles...when she was leaving she made an offhand quip to the agent that he should give them guitars and they could be a rock band. At the end of the episode, Honey and her partner are eating at a restaurant and the act turns out to be the bodybuilders still in their trunks and (IIRC) wearing Beatle wigs, playing generic guitar music.

Hmm. I have the Honey West DVDs. I guess I never finished watching them, because I don't remember that.

 

[Zaku]

Suddenly I remembered a tv show that checks every box of the Fugitive Formula

Heat Vision and Jack

The 30 minute pilot is about an astronaut (played by Jack Black) with a medical secret who is on the run from the evil Ron Silver and the rest of NASA, with the help of a talking motorcycle called Heat Vision (voiced by Owen Wilson).

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lWgXDOAJ5s[/yt]

 

[The Old Mixer]

Hey, RJ, it looks like DECADES is going to be showing some Naked City episodes tomorrow, if you wanted to check the show out.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Ah, thanks for the heads up. I'll record them. Given their current format, there's probably only two.

 

[The Old Mixer]

And look who it is in the first of the Naked City episodes...George Maharis!

Officer Malloy must still be in the police academy at that point....

(And I swear..."The Boxer" by Simon & Garfunkel was just playing on my iPod when I remembered to turn Naked City on....)

 

[RJDiogenes]

Ah, I love that song.

I missed the one with George Maharis. That would have been interesting. But in the other two we have Suzanne Pleshette and Leslie Nielsen. Hopefully I'll be able to see at least one of them today.

 

[The Old Mixer]

(Maharis was playing a boxer, hence the reference.)

 

[JD]

Since this has spread into more than just MeTV's Saturday night stuff, do you guys think it might be a good idea to change the title to something more generic?

 

[The Old Mixer]

I've thought about it...main problem is if were a "Retro TV" thread or somesuch, technically it would belong in the TV & Media forum.

And there have been worse offenders title-wise--"Wolverine Director Search Down to 8", anyone?

 

[Christopher]

Maybe split off the Decades discussion into a separate thread? After all, we don't all get both channels. I don't seem to get Decades, so discussions about its programming are meaningless to me. And people who might be able to benefit from programming info about Decades wouldn't know to look for it here or in a generically named thread. I think it makes more sense to have a dedicated thread for that in addition to this dedicated thread for Super Sci-Fi Saturday.

 

[RJDiogenes]

(Maharis was playing a boxer, hence the reference.)

I figured there was some boxing connection.

Since this has spread into more than just MeTV's Saturday night stuff, do you guys think it might be a good idea to change the title to something more generic?

I've thought that, too. I'd rather keep it all in one place, and I wouldn't mind if it was moved to General Media. Or maybe we'd be grandfathered in. Or we could just keep it as is and think of Decades as something to keep us busy between Saturday nights.

Anyway, I lucked out yesterday and got sick. I "went home" early and was able to watch both episodes of Naked City straight through. In the first one, Suzanne Pleshette played a 17-year-old tough girl (she was 23) and in the second, Leslie Nielsen played a man torn apart by guilt who was driven mad by a carnival funhouse. The first was written by Stirling SIliphant, but, interestingly, the second was written by Charles Beaumont. Beaumont's wasn't as good-- I saw the ending coming 55 minutes away-- but who can resist a dramatic, flaming climax in a carnival funhouse?

 

[HGN2001]

One of the ultimate Fugitive-premise shows has to be the short-lived HOT PURSUIT from 1984. It featured a wife who was falsely convicted of murder, a husband who broke her out of prison, the two of them on the road and on the run, searching FOR the lookalike double of the wife who they believe did the killing.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086733/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_65

Harry

 

[Christopher]

^That one was already mentioned, back when I asked if there were any female-led ones.

 

[HGN2001]

Sorry. Missed that page.

I do recall watching HOT PURSUIT and enjoying it. Coincidentally, we are watching our TNG Blu-rays and were up to "The High Ground" which featured Kerrie Keane.

Harry

 

[Christopher]

Batman: "The Devil's Fingers"/'The Dead Ringers": Probably the ultimate example of an episode written around a celebrity guest, since the villain is Liberace basically playing his usual stage and screen persona.

Sadly, my cable box chose today to crash on me, so I missed the first nine minutes of the episode waiting for it to reboot. From what descriptions I can find online, it sounds like I missed a real format-breaker, with Batman and Robin away and Gordon and O'Hara faced with the unthinkable scenario of actually having to practice law enforcement. I know, I know, I've seen every episode fifty times by now, but my memory of this one is vague. Thank goodness for the extensive Part-2 recaps!

This is definitely one of the goofiest episodes, about as campy and full of winking at the audience as the show ever got. Lots of nice gags, like the lawyer coming in and saying he's "the noted criminal... attorney." And the "Subtle Interrogation Lamp" sign on the wall.

It's also amusing in retrospect to see the story playing on Liberace's then-famous reputation as a ladies' man and idol to countless (older) female fans, given that he's now famous mostly for being gay and poorly closeted.

It's weird to see Bruce going hunting on vacation, and wearing a jacket with a shoulder pad that's clearly meant for a rifle butt. Batman using guns??? That's kind of bizarre, given that his aversion to guns in the comics had been clearly established for over a quarter-century by this point.

I like how the belly dancers got in B&R's way during the hench-fight. It's the first time we've seen female villains take any kind of active role in one of the fights, except for the time when Catwoman was trying to get away on the rocket and occasionally hitting Batman and Robin with moneybags.

Man, Aunt Harriet was kind of awesome here, wasn't she? I didn't realize she had it in her. This was her biggest story in the whole series, I think.


Wonder Woman: "I Do, I Do": Wow... this one is terrible. I can't get over how incoherent the script is. Did they even have a script, or were they ad-libbing? The actors seem uncomfortable, like they're embarrassed even to be here.

And what the hell happened with Lyle Waggoner that they keep shoving him to the sidelines? Why not a story about Diana and Steve playing a married couple? I don't understand what happened there. The fill-in guy of the week is really bland this time.

On the other hand... Lynda Carter in that black bathing suit makes the rest worth sitting through. Wow.

Still... someone remarked above that Diana's personality in the '70s episodes was less charming and more abrasive than it had been in the '40s episodes, and I'm definitely seeing that lately. I have to conclude that of the TV superheroines of my youth -- the others including Yvonne Craig/Batgirl, Lindsay Wagner/Jaime Sommers, and Joanna Cameron/Isis -- I'd have to put Lynda Carter at the bottom of the list in the talent and charisma categories, even though she's right up there in the hotness category. She was kind of charming in the first season, but mediocre as an actress, and in the current season she's just kind of phoning the whole thing in. And I'd have to say that the writing quality on her show is pretty much at the bottom of the list too. (I guess there were also Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, but I hardly remember them.)

 

[Dick Whitman]

The rumor for years was that Lynda Carter and Lyle Waggoner did not get along at all. That they did not speech to each other by the end of the series. The last episode filmed, but not aired, had Diana moving to Los Angeles. Presumably if the show had gotten another season Waggoner would not have come back at all.

Lynda Carter denied the conflict between them in an interview in recent years. I could see why he would have been unhappy. He was given less and less to do. Really Steven was a non entity. To compare to Lois Lane, he never suspected Diana had a secret or seem to really be curious about who Wonder Woman really was or her past. I am not talking about based on todays' standards. But of the time in the comics and similar shows.

By the end there was no real dual identity. Wonder Woman could have been just Diana Prince secret agent code name and costume and it would have made no real difference to the show.

 

[Christopher]

Really Steven was a non entity. To compare to Lois Lane, he never suspected Diana had a secret or seem to really be curious about who Wonder Woman really was or her past.

Still, that's the fault of the execution, not the concept. I mean, the season premiere established, basically, that the whole reason Diana returned to the outside world after three decades was to protect Steve. He was the lookalike son of the man she'd been closest to, possibly in love with, during the war, and she felt an obligation to take care of him. So that's the only reason she isn't back on Paradise Island. It doesn't make sense, then, that she ended up having so little to do with him. I mean, that whole "today's threats are worse than the Nazis" line hardly cuts it, not when she's going up against hypnotic rock stars, jewel thieves, and secret-stealing masseurs. These last four episodes have felt like a completely different show from the first four of the season.

But it seems it's the last we'll see of this version of the show. Next week begins the retool under new producer Bruce Lansbury (Angela Lansbury's brother). He was previously a producer on The Wild, Wild West and Mission: Impossible, which is promising -- although right after this, he'd produce Buck Rogers, which is not so promising.

 

[Zaku]

I believe I found another Fugitive-type tv show...

The Powers of Matthew Star

The series was originally called The Powers of David Star. With this title and a somewhat altered premise, the original pilot was to deal with teenaged David Star, who lived with the school janitor, Max (Gerald S. O'Loughlin). Max had a secret he was not sharing with David, who had no idea that he and Max were from another planet. As his powers began to surface, David started to understand who he was. Hot on their trail was the FBI. The original pilot was aired as the last episode of the series.

It's my impression or the majority of these shows have a sci-fi premise...?

 

[The Old Mixer]

I used to watch that...it was an example like A-Team that worked in Fugitive elements, but didn't really follow the format. The first season, Matthew and Shep stayed put in one regular location and just kept their abilities secret...and I don't think the government types who were looking for them were an every-episode thing. Second season (or was the second half of one season?), they suddenly changed the premise to Matthew and Shep working as government agents.