Neglected to post my tally of TOS guests on Tarzan for the first season: Ned Romero (Krell, "A Private Little War") Morgan Jones (Col. Nesvig, "Assignment: Earth") Charles Maxwell (Virgil Earp, "Spectre of the Gun") Ena Hartman (Crew Woman #2, "The Corbomite Maneuver") Nichelle Nichols Anthony Caruso (Bela Oxmyx, "A Piece of the Action") Michael Witney (Tyree, "A Private Little War") (x2) Booker Bradshaw (Dr. M'Benga, "A Private Little War" and "That Which Survives"), playing Dr. B'Dula Mittie Lawrence (Crew Woman, "The Corbomite Maneuver" [uncredited]) Susan Oliver (Vina, "The Cage" / "The Menagerie") Gregg Palmer (Rancher, "Spectre of the Gun" [uncredited]) Leslie Parish (Carolyn Palamas, "Who Mourns for Adonais?") William Marshall (Dr. Richard Daystrom, "The Ultimate Computer") Abraham Sofaer (Thasian, "Charlie X"; Melkotian, "Spectre of the Gun") Sally Kellerman (Dr. Elizabeth Dehner, "Where No Man Has Gone Before") James Gregory (Dr. Tristan Adams, "Dagger of the Mind") Lloyd Haynes (Alden, "Where No Man Has Gone Before") So only seventeen...fifteen if you lop out the uncredited ones listed on IMDb. So not quite the overwhelming showing I'd been expecting going in, but not bad either. Not sure if I'll bother keeping this list for the second season. ETA: Increase the numbers by one because I forgot that Michael Witney appeared twice. _______
The Monkees "Royal Flush" Originally aired September 12, 1966 On the subject of what episodes shows chose to air first...considering the intended audience, it's probably not a coincidence that the first two scenes of the first episode feature Davy in a bathing suit. The princess's evil uncle was on The Man from UNCLE...thrice. A couple of gags I particularly enjoyed: Flashing an "Everybody does it" caption onscreen while Peter steals a towel from the hotel closet on the way out. Henchman Sigmund getting wrong responses to his code phrases from dialing a wrong number. Now I expected that they would have been plugging "Last Train to Clarksville" in the first episode, so I was surprised that both of the episode's musical sequences featured non-singles (and therefore I wasn't familiar with them): "This Just Doesn't Seem to Be My Day" and "Take a Giant Step" Not bad...each has a good period sound...though listening to them back-to-back, they sound pretty similar. Alas, Antenna does that thing where they split the screen and minimize the one showing the end credits while the beginning of the next episode or a promo for something else plays next to it. _______
I do remember seeing the show in reruns and noting how much the first episode did not feel like a first episode, but more like one that assumed the characters and format were already well-established. I don't remember specifics, but I remember that impression.
Interesting. I have no recollection of that term being used when I was a kid. Strange. Must be some kind of homage or in-joke, but I'm not getting it. Yeah, "Sunshine Superman" and "Jennifer Juniper" are my favorites. Oh, man! He was just looking for his locker.
ETA: Hmmm...Decades has a Rat Patrol Daily Binge scheduled in a few weeks, starting at the beginning of the '67-'68 season....I may have to stop watching new shows....
^^ I remember Rat Patrol as one of those war shows, like 12 O'Clock High, that my uncles watched but I never paid attention to. I might give it a look just to see what it's actually about, but I still don't have any real interest.
They've played it before, early on...and H&I used to play it Saturday mornings before they started their Comic Book Heroes block, so it's one of those shows that I got a bit attached to as background viewing. And another relatively expensive-looking one like Tarzan's early episodes, with all of the outdoor shooting and vehicle work. My cable guide and Decades' schedule still won't agree about what they're playing on the 18th....They do agree that Decades is playing several episodes of M:I today, but they're from seasons 5 and 6, which is a bit too far into the show's run for my interests at the moment.
Eli Wallach deserved better, but the writing staff was in full-on crap mode by the end of season two. That, and he was never going to surpass the truly threatening, smooth, intelligent Mr. Freeze created by George Sanders. He disrespected her, so he was not going to "honor" her false image, but reduce her to her true self--Emma Strunk. Yeah, with two references to Barbara late this season, they definitely seem to have been conceiving Batgirl at the time.[/quote] DC already created the character several months earlier in 1966--at the suggestion of Dozier (who realized the ratings for Batman were sliding fast that fall, along with wating to attract more female viewers), hence the seemingly timely first printed appearance of the character (Detective Comics #359) in January of 1967. The promotional film (with Killer Moth--the same villain--at least in name--Batgirl faced in her comic debut) would be filmed shortly after the end of season two's production early in 1967. Here comes the pain...
Yeah, but the thing is, he doesn't pull that on any of his male foes. He seemed to be exercising a very chauvinistic double standard. Ah...I hadn't realized that she was already in the comics at that point...and probably should have known enough to at least have looked it up...! Yeah, I'm gonna be a pain, because I like Batgirl! _______ Last Week's 50th Anniversary Viewing _______ Dark Shadows Episode 291 Originally aired August 7, 1967 Grayson Hall is on opening narration and we get the usual recap of last week's climax. "I know what you are...but I'm not gonna use the word." I was laughing out loud as the confrontation scene nearly fell apart because one or both actors were improvising their forgotten lines while dramatically within inches of each other's faces. Anyway, Dr. Hoffman manages to reveal that she's been studying conditions such as his and may be able to find a way to treat it. Barnabas plays along, but upon threat of potential death, she reveals that Woodard knows of her true purpose. Barnabas reintroduces Willie to Hoffman and orders his servant to prepare a basement room to serve as her laboratory. Sam! Joe! You're alive! Naturally enough, they're visiting Doc Woodard to badger him about Hoffman's activities, now that they've learned of her cover at Collinwood offscreen. The two clearly aren't on board with the whole charade of pretending that Maggie's dead. Back at the Old House, Barnabas tells Willie that he still plans to kill Hoffman, she's just relieved him of having to lug her body over to his place. Willie tries to convince his master to give her a chance. When Hoffman comes back upstairs, Barnabas refuses to allow her to leave, revealing that he's "reevalued" their relationship. She buys herself time with the information that Maggie is still alive, and that only she can control what Miss Evans is able to remember and reveal about her former captor. About now Barnabas may be wishing that had a servant a little more like Renfield, who might have been able to do something about that pesky fly that kept landing on his face.... Episode 292 Originally aired August 8, 1967 Having learned of her whereabouts via the Collinwood grapevine, Doc Woodard visits Hoffman at the Old House and demands an explanation or he'll take Maggie out of her care (or so he threatens...again). [See first part of episode description.] In further telling him that she's working on breaking the barrier between life and death, Hoffman seems to be trying to lure Woodard into becoming a partner in her research. She talks of needing to devise protection against the supernatural threat of which she vaguely speaks...this plays into my speculation that vampire folklore is more obscure in the world of DS. If she could pick up Stoker at the local library or catch the Bela Lugosi film on the late late show, she'd already know of some potential protections. On the outdoor set, David finds Sarah crying over having lost her friend Maggie. [See last part of episode description.] He seems a little nicer to his playmate than last time. No you're not--You're Beneath the Planet of the Burkes. Anyway, [see middle part of episode description]. Victoria interrupts their conversation by bursting into the Great House to tell Burke that she's fallen in love with the abandoned house of her dreams, which she describes in a poetic manner. David tries to bring Sarah in for supper, but she disappears before anyone else can see her. He mentions in front of Hoffman how Sarah claimed that Maggie is still alive, which piques the undercover doctor's interest. Just as she's trying to convince Vicki and Burke that Sarah is a figment of David's imagination, Vicki finds the girl's cap in the foyer. Episode 293 Originally aired August 9, 1967 Barnabas is down in the basement getting up for the evening when Willie tells him that Hoffman had been there that day. (Not sure why that's supposed to be news at this point.) Barnabas informs his servant that he's going to Collinwood for the evening. As the camera fades on the turtleneck-sporting, half-lit Willie, he looks like an homage to the iconic With/Meet the Beatles cover. Despite his master's admonitions in the teaser, Willie continues not only to question Barnabas's motives toward Vicki Wintahs, but to demand that he leave her alone. Touching upon the subject of Maggie being alive, Barnabas momentarily reverts to that brief sub-continuity in which Hoffman was referred to with male pronouns. They recently said that it was late summer in an opening narration, even though it was shown to still be April not that long before. But whatever time of year it's supposed to be, they're still running the fireplace 24/7 at Collinwood. And Vicki's still being all poetically imaginative about her dream house, but Burke doesn't play along--Dude, you're not gonna be gettin' any tonight! Barnabas drops in and he and Burke engage in a bit of their now-customary organ measuring. Barnabas talks them out of making their outing to the house a daytime picnic, so that he can accompany them. While Vicki's getting around, a prolonged pissing contest ensues in which each man tests the other about his mysterious past. Frid holds up his end, but George, while he seems to be growing into the role, just makes me miss Ryan more. Script-wise, Burke actually had Barnabas on the ropes for a bit there, but George just doesn't sell it. Episode 294 Originally aired August 10, 1967 (The DS Wiki says that it's less fancily spelled Windcliff, so that's what I've been going with.) Maggie is grasping at the chicken wire on her room's window when Sarah appears--she can manifest for miles and miles! Add Nurse Jackson to the list of characters who've seen our ectoplasmic l'il scamp, who serves as a distraction for Maggie's escape. Meanwhile, Vicki, Burke, and Barnabas take their odd tour of Maggie's dream home by candlelight. It definitely strains credibility that Barnabas can convince people to do things like this to avoid coming out in the day. (For that matter, I also have a hard time picturing Barnabas taking a ride in a car....) Barnabas tours the upstairs alone and comes back with a lady's handkerchief, embroidered with the initials F McA C. I suspect that Barnabas has a past with this house, though a bit of Googling only turns up one purely speculative connection with Flora Collins, a Joan Bennett-portrayed ancestor yet to be revealed on the show, so I take it that this thread was never definitively followed up on. The trio proceed to the Blue Whale, where Maggie walks in--Evidently Sarah used some supernatural mojo to allow Miss Evans to complete a 100-mile journey through the woods set in one night. Barnabas conspicuously avoids his former captive's gaze until she conveniently faints from a panic attack. In their conversation just prior to the climax, Burke makes an odd comment about how Vicki should be able to get to and from the house they've been looking at in no time in the age of jet travel. I was under the impression that it was close enough to Collinsport that they'd probably use the same, not-particularly-close airport (probably one in oft-referenced Bangor). This is the same sort of TV writing that gives us jet service from Chicago to Gary...! Episode 295 Originally aired August 11, 1967 DARK SHADOWS--IN COLOR! The episode begins with a polychromatic recap of yesterday's climax. When Maggie comes to, her memory is sketchy--She only vaguely remembers Vicki, doesn't recognize the Blue Whale...and it soon becomes clear that she's still blocking the details of her ordeal with Barnabas. Vicki and Burke take Maggie to see Doc Woodard, and the deliberate hoax that he perpetrated with Sam and Joe comes to light. Meanwhile, Barnabas rushes to Collinwood to confront Dr. Hoffman. Saved by Ma Bell, Hoffman gets a call from Woodard and orders that nobody question Maggie until she can get there. Just as Maggie's starting to become eager to volunteer newly remembered details of her captivity for Woodard, Hoffman arrives and seizes control of the situation. As soon as Doc W has been ushered out, Maggie finally identifies her captor...but Hoffman is the only one there to hear the name Barnabas Collins. On the topic of how well-known the subject of vampirism is in the world of DS... Maggie displays a genuine unfamiliarity with the word for that type of supernatural being. Anyway, Hoffman starts to put Maggie into a hypnotic trance...and cut to Woodard being allowed in to find Maggie in Stepfordish bliss...happy to remember everything about her life except her captivity, which she no longer recalls even having happened.... _______ 50 years ago this week: A holdover chart entry from the previous week: "Things I Should Have Said," The Grass Roots (#23 US) New on the charts in the current week: "I Had a Dream," Paul Revere & The Raiders feat. Mark Lindsay (#17 US) "Get on Up," The Esquires (#11 US; #3 R&B) "I Dig Rock and Roll Music," Peter, Paul & Mary (#9 US) And new on the boob tube: Dark Shadows, episodes 296-300 _______
Double benefit--protecting his "ancestor" while damning Jeremiah...again. For all of the mistreatment and generally ungrateful attitudes toward Willie, it makes one wonder why he did not attempt to leave during the daytime. I know its implied Barnabas employs some measure of mind control over Willie, but Willie never tries to just drive over the border and keep going. I suppose his feeling responsible for setting Barnabas free / playing roadblock to Barnabas' schemes is the reason he feels compelled to stick around. By now its clear Barnabas knows his property is being visited by the only little girl the Old House had as a resident (in his time). Like someone shouting down the talk of ghosts in a house they've just bought, Barnabas does the same to Willie, as if suppression will make it all go away. Credit that to Barnabas' supernatural creeping skills. Yeah, talk about Liz not knowing how close to the truth she was. ...verrry interessstink... As it should, since she's telling us she's zeroing in on someone.... I do like that about Liz; she actually knows much of her family history, but is not so dreamy-eyed about it, or at all. Great stuff. ...not at the expense of his surrogate big sister. He's closer to her than his own cousin. A light noose is now forming around Barnabas' neck... Barnabas sort of walked into that one, but in his defense, being a self-described family historian, he would know what the Old House looked like throughout the years. A scene perfectly recreated in the 1970 movie, House of Dark Shadows. Interesting how he knows so little about Hoffman, yet his sixth sense has gone "red alert" about her. If so, then that's the syndicated version when the original video master was lost or accidentally destroyed. Vicki is wishy-washy in her extrasensory perceptions, as she can pick up vibes from long dead brides, yet not get the sense that the spooky occurrences in her life have intensified since the costume party and sleepover at the home of you-know-who. Great detective work (scripting and Hall's performance) by Hoffman. Vicki is already moving herself toward victim status, hence her becoming irritable that anyone would even hint anything negative about Barnabas. Top flight episode all around, with another great cliffhanger. Robert Colbert's score never fails, no matter how many times they were used. He just understood what this kind of series needed in a way other composers would not, meaning they would force their tastes on the show, rather the letting the show dictate compositions. Hoffman and Barnabas are two sides of the manipulator's coin, the only difference is that Woodard knows he's being played. As mentioned before, the series was on fire at this point, and topping its mix of fear and tension seemingly every week. Grayson Hall's fantastic performance as Julia took the series to another level, with her bold, badassery on full display here. These were among the periods that made Dark Shadows "that show" viewers dare not miss.
Incorrect, as TV Batman has referred to The Mad Hatter as Jervis Tetch (or just Tetch, when he's really angry or dismissive) and Mr. Freeze as Dr. Schimmel for the same reasons. No double standard there.
There was a scene during Maggie's captivity when he outright said that he'd tried to escape during the day, but found that he couldn't. Apparently Barnabas does have a long-term supernatural hold over him. And yet he keeps letting himself be played. It's all for plot convenience at this point, but he's fallen into a pattern of basically being her tool. He may have referenced their real names, but I can't recall him ever making such a blatant, stubborn show of refusing to use their supervillainous pseudonyms.
I'm pretty sure Freeze was Dr. Schivel (pun on "shiver"), not Schimmel. At least, that's what The Official Batman Batbook by Joel Eisner says. The final King Tut episode revealed that his real name was Professor William Omaha McElroy. We also get a partial name reveal for Black Widow (Mrs. Max Black, widow). Then there's Siren/Lorelei Circe, though that might've been an alias.
I find that makes him the most sympathetic character in the series--even beyond Maggie or Vicki. He keeps coming for more in the hope that he will get something--but despite her best efforts, Woodard will use his own medical skill to learn more than he bargained for. By not calling them by their supervillain name (usually in a dismissive and/or angry tone), Batman is disrespecting their ego and identity--essentially reducing them to the way they will only be addressed by the police/prison. Its the same case as his treatment of Emma Strunk.
It and the show are comic-booky enough for it to be her real name. While on the subject of Batman...H&I is concerning me a little with their Season 3 airing schedule. They're so centered on keeping two-parters together that they're skipping as many as two episodes at a time to air them all on consecutive weeks. How it's lining up so far: They played episodes 1 and 2 in advance as part of their reordering hijinks surrounding the Season 2 three-parters; Today they aired episodes 4 and 5 (Penguin two-parter); even though episode 2 ends with a cliffhanger tease of the Siren story; Next week they're skipping up to 8 and 9 (Egghead two-parter), which makes no damn sense; The week after, they're doing 11 and 12 (first two of the Londinium two-parter)--good news there is that they have to air a standalone the following week; All of which must be pretty damn confusing to people who are actually trying to watch them as they air, especially given the little end-of-episode teases for episodes that get skipped (like King Tut's appearance at the end of episode 5 this morning). At this point, I just hope that they don't neglect to get around to airing episodes 3, 6, 7, and 10 by the time I get to them as 50th anniversary business...! So I set The Rat Patrol to record. On the old subject of series that have episode-naming formats--and I don't recall this one having come up before--RP has one pretty similar to TMFU's...all episodes end with the word "Raid," and they usually begin with "The"...e.g., "The Truce at Aburah Raid," "The David and Goliath Raid," etc. ETA: Also, those three M:I episodes finally showed up on the cable guide.
Hoffman thinks on her feet, but she underestimated Barnabas, or assumed her medical promise would mean anything to one who was literally cursed into his current state. He was made to believe in the supernatural (and Satanism, as we will see in the 1795 arc), and cannot imagine any real-world solution for that. While Hoffman seems like she's still in this one-sided match, revealing Maggie being alive was risky, as he could have tortured Maggie's whereabouts out of her with ease. The last thing Barnabas needed was a crazed servant screaming "You know too much to live!" at everyone... Hoffman suddenly trying to ease Woodard into an associate role is clever, as she will have numbers to counter those capable of hurting her (Collins and Loomis), and Woodard always being elsewhere as a floating threat knocks Barnabas off of his game a bit...or so she believes. In order for the horror to sell, it had to be a truly unusual thing and not dragged down by pop culture references, which (in the half real, half bleak fairy tale world set by the series) would have (subconsciously) made characters and viewers doubt the serious nature of what they're facing, with "aww, that's in the movies..." kinds of conversations. The original Kolchak TV movie got away with it as the setting (Las Vegas) and its hero were hard-set in the "real world", so it had the natural ground & flexibility for Kolchak to make mocking references to vampires speaking with "marbles in their mouths", and other Bela-isms. Dark Shadows' world is that middle ground between reality and the aforementioned bleak fairy tale feel of the 1931 Frankenstein (where the Monster was the only game in town at that point), so the fantastic could not be challenged in that way. We can assume David knows what its like to be a lonely child (as he was before Vicki's arrival), and is maturing to a degree. There's that noose again. Funny you should point that out, as I've thought that early DS Frid in his Ohrbach's suits looks like he would be at home in a Beatles '64/'65 photoshoot (their matching suit days). The actors playing off of each other well, as always, and as noted in another review, love the way Willie challenges Barnabas when it matters most, and is not really afraid to do it, despite the consequences. He's firmly planted on concrete, and she's in the clouds. Both should have known theirs was not a match made in Heaven. Did he ever get any with Vicki? uh-oh.... *resists posting Ryan's love photo to Mixer again* Back to the scene: Burke--whether portrayed by Ryan or George--made a good, "normal" adversary for Barnabas; he represented the one type of person his powers could not overcome: a grindstone type of romantic interest who only places other men in the category of someone to push aside as something less than a strong male. It says much about Sarah plotting to free Maggie, knowing what will happen once she returns to Collinsport. IOW, she's older than her original years and has a strong moral compass. The house will take on greater meaning once the series returns from 1795. One of the last major B&W series to convert to color. By '67, series originally shot in B&W, such as My Three Sons, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Bewitched, Combat!, I Dream of Jeannie, Gilligan's Island, Lost in Space, My Favorite Martian, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and others had already made that transition some time earlier. However, while it was fascinating to see the Collinsport gang in living color, B&W lent an air of shadow (no pun intended) and mystery to the art direction and performances that felt absent from this point forward. Shocking cliffhanger and recap. Barnabas was petrified--like viewers who were almost certain Maggie was going to expose him on the spot. Close call, but now one must question Julia's ethics; she's protecting a real monster for her own ends, while constantly manipulating the real victim--Maggie--who was violated in ways beyond imagination. If she was a genuine vampire hunter planning to kill Barnabas, her methods might be understandable (to keep the situation from becoming a runaway disaster the involvement of law enforcement, and the possibility of Barnabas escaping), but she has this cure business in mind..but for what reason? Her ethics in this matter were also explored in House of Dark Shadows, with T. Elliot Stokes questioning how she could aid Barnabas while knowing he's murdered several people (Carolyn among them). See the point made about the need for vampirism to be unusual.[/quote][/quote]
We won't, I won't be going that far in. As opposed to a merely frantic servant screaming "You gotta get outta heah! You gotta get outta heah right now!!!" Oh, I agree. I'm just supporting my prior speculation, which wasn't based on enough actual watching of the show, that the show is treating vampirism as a matter of obscure folklore that hasn't had pop cultural exposure. He's definitely working an English look of the era...a trendy touch that makes for an interesting juxtaposition with his true nature as a being who hails from over a century prior. Don't trust anyone over 130! I meant to comment somewhere about how I like that Willie is taking on a role that's reminiscent of modern-era Alfred...a sort of gadfly to Barnabas, constantly questioning and criticizing him from that vantage of a subservient role. Was anything on this show made in Heaven...? You tell me, you've seen the whole series! I just can't shake the impression that what's going on with Burke and Barnabas now is exactly the story relevance that Ryan's version of the character was waiting for when I was making fun of him for just sort of conspicuously being there. Yeah, if ever a show was made for black & white...it was an unfortunate bit of keeping up with the times in the moment. In a later era, it's the type of show that they might have shot in b&w deliberately. I haven't gotten the impression at all that she's supposed to be seen as a vampire hunter at this point...maybe that's a later development? She's definitely unethical and working the situation for her own ends, which she no doubt sees as the bigger picture.
I don't remember this one at all. Not bad, though. No recollection of this one either. Nice music, but a bit short on lyrics. I remember this one now that I hear it. Catchy, if also a bit short on lyrics. I love this song. The part about the words getting in the way is unfortunate, but the part about laying it between the lines makes up for it (and contradicts it), but my favorite part is the little homages to Donovan and The Beatles.
Yeah, it's catchy for a below-Top 20. Can't say that I ever heard it on oldies radio, but I'm pretty sure I have on Sirius, and definitely have on Music Choice. This one, OTOH...I can't remember how it goes an hour after I've listened to it. Alas, Paul Revere & the Raiders are past their '60s hitmaking prime at this point, though they still have a few less memorable Top-20's to churn out before they achieve their greatest hit as the Raiders in 1971. Decent, catchy, solid soul number, but not one of the true classics of the era. Don't forget the Mamas & the Papas. This is a good sign o' the times song for me, referencing as it does then-current acts. I don't think those two lines are contradictory...it's saying that the typical radio hit doesn't have much to say, and if it does have something to say, it has to pretend that it doesn't. _______ The Monkees "Monkee See, Monkee Die" Originally aired September 19, 1966 I know it's all just absurd sitcom humor, but it occurs to me that if these guys didn't spend so much money on costumes, props, and scientific experiments for their zany schemes, they might not need gigs or rent money so badly.... The gag with the messages on the (not-)carrier pigeon and St. Bernard were funny, as were the telephone connection gags during the seance. Overall the plot is a bit repetitive of last week's...a scheme against a beautiful young woman whom Davy falls for. Songs: Ah, there it is... (Charted Sept. 10, 1966; #1 US the week of Nov. 5; #23 UK) ...and another song that sounds a lot like it, "Tomorrow's Gonna Be Another Day"... Between this episode and the last, it seems like they could have picked the songs a bit better so that you didn't have pairs of songs that sound too much like each other in the same episode...unless they did that on purpose. It looks like Stacey Maxwell, the actress who played the heiress, has a role in the Londinium episodes of Batman. "Monkee vs. Machine" Originally aired September 26, 1966 Alas, the best gags in this one came early in the episode: a job-interviewing computer misunderstanding Peter's answers to its questions; following which Mike turns the tables on the machine and confuses it into short-circuiting--beating then-new TV character James T. Kirk to the punch at what would become one of his signature moves! The rest of the episode leans on having the Monkees go into the toy factory in various combinations disguised as toy-testing kids and their parents. The suspicious manager trying to de-costume one of the actual parents was the best part of that, if a little predictable. And the episode's climax--the Monkees accidentally invent the boomerang? Songs: "Saturday's Child" Decent but not very catchy. On the plus side, it's not another soundalike of "Last Train to Clarksville," which is reused here with its own episode-specific sequence. Plugging the first single two episodes in a row makes the choice not to have it in the first-aired episode seem all the more peculiar. _______ Mission: Impossible "Odds on Evil" Originally aired October 22, 1966 Ah, for the days when spies played baccarat instead of Texas hold 'em...and the basic premise is pretty much the same as that of Casino Royale. Conveniently for the audience, Cinammon's character needs the game explained to her. This episode, Briggs gets his message through a hand-cranked movie-viewing whatchamcallit...I thought the guy in the blog might identify it specifically, but no luck. And that's it for Briggs this episode, he isn't involved in the actual plan. This installment gives us an elaborate con without significant setbacks, which is more what I'm used to from later episodes. OK, I've since read that Peter Lupus actually is from Indianapolis, so being a genuine Hoosier is a point in his favor. It's a good thing that he's not from 130 miles further north--then I'd have to like him, it'd be a matter of hometown area pride! Anyway, this time Willy's job is to wear a 90-pound computer in his vest! Cinammon gets to do a bit of fighting in the climax. Which makes up for the fact that somebody forgot to put footage on the green screen for the interior shots of the red car that the others are driving. Or was that supposed to be a bulletproof screen or something? "Wheels" Originally aired October 29, 1966 This time the recording is on a big reel-to-reel tape in a TV van. And yep, another nearby furnace. Guess that is the usual method at this point. This one prominently features TOS guests Percy Rodrigues and Mark Lenard. Yeah, the scheme here seems less clever and more contrived...relying a little too much on the idiot factor, as well as on the fact that this district has two residents who look like Martin Landau. Barney had to pay for that convenience by getting shot...it's plot karma. The ol' TV fu knockout karate chop was also leaned on in this one. "The Ransom" Originally aired November 5, 1966 Because this is our first major format-breaker, with no formal assignment. Though the premise relies on Egan, the aforementioned czar, seeming to know what Briggs does for a living, which certainly raises some questions. Also, I couldn't tell if the location where Dan was approached by Egan was supposed to be a pool hall done low-budget, or if Dan's just got two pool tables in his den. And it's jam-packed with TOS guests: William Smithers (Merik, "Bread and Circuses") as Egan); Vic Tayback as an uncredited goon; Eddie Paskey, also uncredited, even though he's an IMF operative who gets a photo in the portfolio scene, which the regulars aren't included in this time; Don Marshall as a police officer; Michael (Lt. DeSalle) Barrier as a hospital intern; and I didn't spot Jack Donner (Romulan Subcommander Tal) as a drive--I read that he was in it on the blog. The lineless Eddie Paskey's role in thie mission involves him doing a Black Beauty-style switcheroo on an X-ray table. It's a bit odd as the witness he's replacing isn't particularly similar in physical type. Willy plays a motorcycle cop, so his talents include being big and intimidating, not just lugging stuff around. It's interesting how improvised the part in the hotel room was in-story...definitely not a flawless plan. _______ Kung Fu "Cry of the Night Beast" PC 166251 Originally aired October 19, 1974 Now with cold opens! And we enter the season production-wise with some bounty hunters in hot pursuit (and Caine eluding them with a bit of badass hiding in plain sight). I take it from episode descriptions that I've seen that in this season they make up for the Fugitive Premise's long absence in spades. This installment gives us more mysticism, with the flashbacks featuring Young Caine having flashforwards to the situation that his adult self is in...which is pretty trippy. Later, adult Caine senses that if the buffalo hunter kills the calf, his unborn child will die. Guest stars include Albert Salmi, who previously played characters in two other episodes (the pilot and "Nine Lives"), as the buffalo hunter; Mrs. H herself, Stefanie Powers, as the expectant mother; and classic Trek film guest Alex ("Not now, Madeline!") Henteloff. The episode partly explores an extinction theme, emphasizing how the buffalo are dying out. And it features multiple characters who aren't particularly interested in the reward for Caine. "My Brother, My Executioner" PC 166252 Originally aired October 12, 1974 Well, the Brother Quest element of the Fugitive Premise is officially back! This is a fakeout story in which a man is using Danny Caine's identity to escape his own burdensome reputation as a gunfighter. At least it turns out that Kwai Chang himself wasn't fooled. Caine consults another Chinese mystic to find "Danny". And among the treasures that he's been carrying around in his bottomless pouch are the letters that grandpa gave him, which makes sense. Caine's badass moment in this one would have been taking out the gunfighter who was after "Danny"...but Quickdraw looked a little too much like Gene Wilder in Blazing Saddles for me to have taken him seriously. It occurs to me that if the Chinese government or bounty hunters knew about the Brother Quest, they could use it to set a trap for Caine. Maybe something like that will come up this season, with the Fugitive Premise now in the forefront. "This Valley of Terror" PC 166253 Originally aired September 28, 1974 They must've really loved James Hong on this show...he returns for still another role, this time as "Mad Man"...Flashback Mad Man to be specific. Caine badass moment: Casually beating down the men from the asylum with his flute! The mysticism element here is that the woman is having genuine prophetic visions. The Brother Quest angle factors in at the very end, when Kwai Chang asks her if Danny still lives...which is also an example of production-order continuity, as his doubt on that issue had just been expressed in the previous episode. Coming up in our next episode: The Shat! _______ I've had the Ironside Binge on this weekend. I had enough of a a mild interest in this show that when they did the Daily Binge airing the first few episodes, I recorded just the first one to watch as 50th anniversary business. Seeing more of the early, late-'60s episodes, I'm actually regretting a bit that I didn't set them all to record...they have some good sign o' the times business, and Ironside himself is a bit badass in his "gruff mentor" way. I could have seen including this on a weekly basis, though I'd definitely be stretching things with amount of shows to view and DVR capacity. (I'm planning to start recording Laugh-In when they get back around to Season 1, which at 10 episodes a week will fill up a good amount of space real fast.) _______