MeTV's SuperSci-Fi Saturday Night
- Thread starter JD
- Start date
Very interesting. Four hours to film a whole episode. Of course, it's all done in the same room. I'm sure the animation could be done much more efficiently now.Wikipedia has some info about the productions of the showThat looks pretty cool. But I find myself thinking of the technical challenges more than paying attention to the story.
I barely remember it now, but I remember cringing a lot. The scenes of the kids playing in a band trigger an almost-memory that that was a particularly bad episode.
Before of this topic, I never knew that there were so many shows in Fugitive style!
The Master (TV series)
(I bolded the relevant parts)
The Master (TV series)
(I bolded the relevant parts)
Last edited:
Another that just barely fits the FUGITIVE-type could be THE GUNS OF WILL SONNETT. Here, the protagonists (Grandfather Will and Grandson Jeff) set out across the old west for the son (James) who's been missing for many years.
Though they aren't chased by anyone in particular, they are hounded by the bad reputation that the son has accrued in his travels. In each town they visit, they usually find someone who thinks he was wronged by the infamous James Sonnett. So it's the middle, missing character who's wrongly accused, and the pursuers who attempt to set the record straight and find him.
Half-hour, ABC, two seasons, and there was a finale where Jim was found and joins forces with his estranged family as lawmen in a town. That could have served as a pilot for another season, but it didn't happen.
Harry
Though they aren't chased by anyone in particular, they are hounded by the bad reputation that the son has accrued in his travels. In each town they visit, they usually find someone who thinks he was wronged by the infamous James Sonnett. So it's the middle, missing character who's wrongly accused, and the pursuers who attempt to set the record straight and find him.
Half-hour, ABC, two seasons, and there was a finale where Jim was found and joins forces with his estranged family as lawmen in a town. That could have served as a pilot for another season, but it didn't happen.
Harry
Better known to Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans as Master Ninja, the title of its home-video movie compilations.
Finally, a DECADES Binge that I can get behind...That Girl starts at 1 p.m. Saturday. A show that I have a soft spot for, which Me likes to put in bad time slots when they have it in their line-up.
Drink every time Ann says "Oh, Donald!"
Drink every time Ann says "Oh, Donald!"
I remember watching That Girl pretty regularly in reruns when I was younger, but now I have very little memory of it, except how the teaser always ended with someone saying the title.
I think it used to come on after Batman on weekday afternoons when I was a kid. I always caught the beginning.
I saw That Girl only sporadically when I was a kid. Donald always gave me the creeps.
I've never heard of that one, either.
I think that might be part of the current MeTV lineup. Or one of the retro channels. I'm sure I've seen it on the guide fairly recently.
You didn't miss anything important. Really. Lee Van Cleff+Crazy 80's Ninja hysteria.
DECADES showed an episode one day a couple weeks back. Don't think it's in Me's current line-up.
Running ETA: Next weekend--The Untouchables. One of those well-known shows that I've never seen much of....
Odd...according to online sources, the first episode of That Girl wasn't the unaired pilot, which had a different plot...but the second episode seems to take place before the first, as it has Ann moving out of her parents' place and into her New York apartment (where she was already living in the first episode). And according to IMDb, they were aired in the same order. Must be a production vs. airdate thing...or maybe they just thought it would be odd to show a first episode that didn't feature the billed co-star (she meets Donald in the aired first episode).
Odder still...Donald didn't seem to be in the third episode, either....
Tune it at 5:30 on Sunday morning for the episode in which Bill Bixby guest stars as a character named Banner....
Huh...so far I've already seen several TOS guest actors on That Girl, but I think this is the first time I'm ever seen Bruce (Kevin Riley) Hyde in another show.
RJ, looks like they're going to be playing Glenn Corbett's first episode of Route 66 on Tuesday, as well as another Linc episode.
Last edited:
Yowza.
Turns out it's on early Saturday morning. I saw it on the schedule yesterday morning at my Mother's house, although we didn't actually watch it.
Ah, good one, although I haven't seen it in ages.
That's weird. I seem to remember the first episode vaguely-- they get off to a bad start, there was an elevator involved, maybe she spilled something on him, I don't know. I don't remember the other two, though. Maybe they changed the premise of the show after they shot a couple.
Sweet. I'll have to remember that.
Ah...probably during the morning block that Me is preempted for paid programming here.
He saved her from an apparent kidnapping, but it was an acting job.
Yowza.
For your eyes only!!!
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH4GtN4gavE[/yt]
Bill Bixby as Harry Banner: "Well there's no point in getting angry...."
ETA: Historical point of interest--An "If they can put a man on the moon..." line...in 1967.
ETA: Historical point of interest--An "If they can put a man on the moon..." line...in 1967.
Last edited:
Batman: "Hizzoner the Penguin"/"Dizzoner the Penguin": This one's a classic, probably the show's most full-on satirical episode. It's the second time they've gone to the "Penguin tries to act respectable" well, and as usual it's amazing how fickle the mood of the Gothamites is, in that Penguin could go from notorious felon to highly popular mayoral candidate in the time it takes Batman and Robin to drive 14 miles in an atomic-powered rocket car. But that's just to get the setup out of the way so they can dive into the electoral satire. A satire that's still all too timely today, for all its sixties references.
There are some really hilarious bits here. Batman is at his squarest and Penguin at his smarmiest. I love the Penguin's feigned outrage at the deathtrap and his lackadaisical "rescue" attempt. (Although including a deathtrap at all seemed rather random, given that Penguin seemed to be winning.) And the "convention" sequence with the reporters calling the blow-by-blow was one of the show's greatest comic set pieces, as well as probably its most epic fight scene ever. It was a bonus seeing Jack Benny's announcer Don Wilson as "Walter Klondike." (Odd, though, since the debate moderator in the previous scene, played by Jack Bailey, looked much more like Cronkite.) Also the familiar face of game-show host Allen Ludden as the David Brinkley stand-in. Apparently Dennis James, who played the Chet Huntley stand-in, was also a game-show host, but he was mostly before my time.
If anything, the episode seemed weakest when it reverted to the standard tropes of deathtraps and fight scenes, as if the writer just wasn't particularly interested in those. Which is a worrisome sign -- was the show's creative staff starting to get tired of its format already?
Wonder Woman: "The Man Who Made Volcanoes": Speaking of formats, this is the debut of the show's latest retool under new producer Bruce Lansbury ("By Special Arrangement with Bruce Lansbury Productions, Ltd.," in fact!). We lose the cartoon titles in favor of an action montage, and lose most of the insipid second-season theme lyrics in favor of an equally insipid instrumental arrangement. Steve is now Diana's boss, though Joe sticks around for one last appearance as Steve's boss.
The story feels like a rewrite of a rejected script from the bionic shows, and indeed it may well be, since the story is credited to Wilton Denmark, whose filmography consists overwhelmingly of Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman scripts. It's a pretty silly premise about well-intentioned mad scientist Roddy McDowall -- wearing such thick glasses that at first I thought it was the return of the Bookworm from Batman -- using a laser beam fired from Baja California to start volcanoes in China, the USSR, and the United States. Either he has an array of orbiting satellites to bounce the beam off of, or the Earth is flat. Anyway, he's apparently threatening to destroy the world in order to enforce disarmament and peace, which goes about as well as that ever does. And Diana/Wonder Woman (they really are interchangeable here) is in a race and eventual team-up with Chinese and Soviet agents to stop him, with Irene Tsu (Harry Kim's mother on Voyager) as the lead Chinese agent.
The biggest evidence that this wasn't written for Wonder Woman is a scene where Diana meets Roddy McDowall's scientist character and they apparently know each other from two years ago -- even though Diana only came back from Paradise Island a few months before. Unless the show was suddenly pretending to be set in the near future, but I doubt they gave that much thought to continuity. Also, McDowall's character claimed he'd been working in US defense labs for 35 years, even working alongside Atkinson in the OSS -- but McDowall was only 49 at the time. I think the part was written for an older actor. And McDowall's boyish quality made it even more incongruous. Of course, it's always terrific to see Roddy McDowall, but this was not the ideal role for him.
I really wonder why Wonder Woman broke away from the captured agents and changed back to Diana just to get captured herself. That was totally random. They could've had her captured as Wonder Woman -- using the threat to the others to control her -- but I guess the producers wanted to keep her time in that costume to a minimum, in contrast to the first season.
Speaking of her costume, has her tiara changed? I'm sure it used to be metal, but now it's more of a wrinkly headband.
There are some really hilarious bits here. Batman is at his squarest and Penguin at his smarmiest. I love the Penguin's feigned outrage at the deathtrap and his lackadaisical "rescue" attempt. (Although including a deathtrap at all seemed rather random, given that Penguin seemed to be winning.) And the "convention" sequence with the reporters calling the blow-by-blow was one of the show's greatest comic set pieces, as well as probably its most epic fight scene ever. It was a bonus seeing Jack Benny's announcer Don Wilson as "Walter Klondike." (Odd, though, since the debate moderator in the previous scene, played by Jack Bailey, looked much more like Cronkite.) Also the familiar face of game-show host Allen Ludden as the David Brinkley stand-in. Apparently Dennis James, who played the Chet Huntley stand-in, was also a game-show host, but he was mostly before my time.
If anything, the episode seemed weakest when it reverted to the standard tropes of deathtraps and fight scenes, as if the writer just wasn't particularly interested in those. Which is a worrisome sign -- was the show's creative staff starting to get tired of its format already?
Wonder Woman: "The Man Who Made Volcanoes": Speaking of formats, this is the debut of the show's latest retool under new producer Bruce Lansbury ("By Special Arrangement with Bruce Lansbury Productions, Ltd.," in fact!). We lose the cartoon titles in favor of an action montage, and lose most of the insipid second-season theme lyrics in favor of an equally insipid instrumental arrangement. Steve is now Diana's boss, though Joe sticks around for one last appearance as Steve's boss.
The story feels like a rewrite of a rejected script from the bionic shows, and indeed it may well be, since the story is credited to Wilton Denmark, whose filmography consists overwhelmingly of Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman scripts. It's a pretty silly premise about well-intentioned mad scientist Roddy McDowall -- wearing such thick glasses that at first I thought it was the return of the Bookworm from Batman -- using a laser beam fired from Baja California to start volcanoes in China, the USSR, and the United States. Either he has an array of orbiting satellites to bounce the beam off of, or the Earth is flat. Anyway, he's apparently threatening to destroy the world in order to enforce disarmament and peace, which goes about as well as that ever does. And Diana/Wonder Woman (they really are interchangeable here) is in a race and eventual team-up with Chinese and Soviet agents to stop him, with Irene Tsu (Harry Kim's mother on Voyager) as the lead Chinese agent.
The biggest evidence that this wasn't written for Wonder Woman is a scene where Diana meets Roddy McDowall's scientist character and they apparently know each other from two years ago -- even though Diana only came back from Paradise Island a few months before. Unless the show was suddenly pretending to be set in the near future, but I doubt they gave that much thought to continuity. Also, McDowall's character claimed he'd been working in US defense labs for 35 years, even working alongside Atkinson in the OSS -- but McDowall was only 49 at the time. I think the part was written for an older actor. And McDowall's boyish quality made it even more incongruous. Of course, it's always terrific to see Roddy McDowall, but this was not the ideal role for him.
I really wonder why Wonder Woman broke away from the captured agents and changed back to Diana just to get captured herself. That was totally random. They could've had her captured as Wonder Woman -- using the threat to the others to control her -- but I guess the producers wanted to keep her time in that costume to a minimum, in contrast to the first season.
Speaking of her costume, has her tiara changed? I'm sure it used to be metal, but now it's more of a wrinkly headband.
I wasn't watching, but this would be the one with Paul Revere and the Raiders as Penguin's campaign band (alas, not plugging one of their classic songs).
My general impression from the last run-through of the series, which I also wasn't watching closely, is that became the shows MO from here on...it was really more the adventures of Diana Prince, with the costumed identity coming off as an afterthought...less invisible plane rides to Paradise Island, more car chases.
Not sure, but I recall thinking in a previous episode that it looked pretty cheap and flimsy already.
Apparently so, though I wasn't familiar with that group except from this episode.
And don't forget the belly dancer! "Little Egypt as Herself," according to the credits, although apparently that was a stage name used by multiple belly dancers going back to the 1890s. (The first one reputedly gave Mark Twain a heart attack with her performance.)
I guess CBS wanted their own Bionic Woman knockoff more than they wanted a comic-book show. Although this was around the same time that The Incredible Hulk debuted on their network, and not long before they debuted The Amazing Spider-Man. Both those shows were pretty far removed from their comic-book roots, though.
You know, the original pilot movie with Cathy Lee Crosby started production during the period in which the comics' Diana Prince had given up her costume and powers to become an Emma Peel-like martial-arts heroine and globetrotting adventurer. The costume came back while the movie was still in the works, which is why we got a hybrid version with a powerless Wonder Woman in a star-spangled track suit. But it sounds like the Lansbury-produced WW seasons had a lot in common with the "Mod era" comics. That might actually have worked better. If they were going to keep the use of her costumed identity to a minimum, maybe they should've just ditched it altogether and stuck with the straight-up secret-agent stuff.
Of course, they probably wouldn't have done that, for merchandising reasons if nothing else. But it would've made more sense of the premise. As I've remarked before, the season premiere established that the only reason she returned to the US was to protect Steve, so it was incongruous for her to stick around once Steve was marginalized. If she'd actually lost her powers at the end of the season premiere, and thereby couldn't have gone back home for some reason, that would've made more sense. Maybe she would've left with Steve over Hippolyta's objections, and this time Hippolyta would've punished her for breaking Amazon law by taking away her powers and banishing her from Paradise Island. That would've given Diana a more plausible reason for sticking around and joining the IADC as an agent.
Yeah, but flimsy metal is one thing -- it looks more like a thick fabric headband now.
Well, since you sort of asked....
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84L7wRSg2Vk[/yt]
Spidey was also pretty bland and underwhelming for me, even as a kid. TIH pulled that sort of limited "in-costume" exposure off better because it was inherent in the premise that Banner was trying to avoid turning into the Hulk, and turning into the Hulk at the wrong time might not be helpful. Whereas with WW, you have to wonder why she does some things as Diana Prince, when Wonder Woman could presumably do anything better.
That, plus the wrath of Gloria Steinem....
If I had to rationalize some sense into the show, I'd presume that was her initial motivation (or perhaps even just a half-hearted rationalization) for going back to Man's World, but once she established herself in her IADC role, she was invested enough in what she was doing to stick around regardless of Steve's involvement.
Maybe...I'll have to look for that.
The sad thing is, Steinem was totally wrong, because she didn't actually read the comics she was criticizing. She claimed that taking Wonder Woman's superpowers away undermined her as a feminist icon, but I think just the opposite is true. Mod-era Diana Prince was shown to be a crimefighter every bit as capable as Batman, without needing any special advantages to play on the same level as male heroes. I think that made her a far better feminist icon.
Not to mention that when they ended the Mod era in response to Steinem's criticisms, they did so in a way that was aggressively anti-feminist. They brought back the former writer, Robert Kanigher, who was the chief architect of the era when Wonder Woman was reduced to stories focusing on romance and man-chasing, and he cavalierly reset everything to the former status quo in a cursory and slapdash way, even having her new boss dismiss Diana as a "plain Jane" because she was wearing glasses and a sweater. Granted, Kanigher's return was short-lived, but Steinem's ill-informed criticisms ended up having exactly the opposite of the impact she would've wanted.
(Here's my review of the Mod era from my blog.)
Yeah, but that's hard to justify when she's going up against such petty threats as we've seen her face in the past few episodes. Granted, we got a pretty big threat this week, and I gather the sci-fi element ramps up from here on, but it still feels like the show couldn't settle on an identity.
