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50th Anniversary Catch-Up Viewing
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Love, American Style
"Love and the Big Leap / Love and the Good Deal / Love and the Former Marriage"
Originally aired November 24, 1969
This one was the ninth episode aired, but the YouTube video is numbered 14.
In "Love and the Big Leap," Ralph (Rich Little) and Betty (Jessica Walter) are about to get hitched while skydiving. It's Ralph's first marriage
and first jump, so he's pretty nervous...which isn't helped when they both learn there on the plane that Reverend Hale (Dennis Day) has a nervous stutter, which could throw off the timing of pulling the ripcords after the couple exchange their vows. Ralph suggests that they just exchange vows on the plane, and his doubts bring up Betty's about whether or not they're right for each other. In one of his non-stuttering moments, the reverend gives an inspiring speech that convinces them both to go through with it. But once they've both dived and it's the reverend's turn to jump, he chickens out and tries to deliver his part from the plane, while the couple, down there in freefall, wonder where he is. Finally they're forced to just pull their cords.
I found myself distracted by Rich Little's hair...I think he may have been deliberately doing it to resemble Nixon at this point.
In "Love and the Good Deal," Paul and Corie Brader (Phillip Clark and Skye Aubrey) are unsatisfied with their apartment, which has a bedroom so narrow that they have to share a single-sized bed. They enlist Harry Dorfman (Frank Campanella) to get them a custom-sized mattress that will fit the width of the room, which isn't big enough for a double bed. Harry sends them to his cousin, Jack Lewis (Norman Fell), who cuts them a shady deal that involves them having to bring a truck to pick the mattress up. They recruit their attic-dwelling neighbor Victor Belasco (Hans Conried) to help them move the bed; Victor has an elderly friend from the old country who has a small, very old truck. Once the couple has gone through all that trouble, they find that the mattress makes strange noises and is uncomfortable. When they try to return it, Lewis won't even admit to having gotten it for them. Paul throws out his back, and the couple are met at the hospital by Corie's (I think) mother (Jane Wyatt). Corie realizes that the hospital bed is the perfect size, so they get one of those. Mishaps with its adjustable functions ensue in the final scene.
"Love and the Former Marriage" centers around how John Fillmore (Carl Betz) still finds himself tethered to his ex, Debbie (Dana Wynter) and her new husband, Paul (Elliott Reid), because they're always calling him for help with matters such as John and Debbie's 18-year-old daughter not coming home on time. John's resentful of being at their beck and call when they get to enjoy the nice house and his old car. While he's at their place, Julie (Jenny Sullivan) comes home with a boyfriend named Roger Crane, and he looks to be quite the scoundrel:
Julie announces that they're about to get married in Vegas. Debbie is horrified that her daughter's running off with this scruffy-looking nerf-h...er, "hippie"...but John is fine with it and chats Roger up some. John and Debbie get into a post-marital spat and Roger, who took three years of psychology, figures out what their bag is...that they had a symbiotic relationship; then he deduces that Paul is an Oedipal thing for Debbie, and taking things further, realizes that Julie's only steering him into marriage to get back at her mother, motivating him to back out of the arrangement.
Before leaving, John announces to Paul and Debbie that he's accepting a job transfer to Detroit, so he won't be available to troubleshoot for them anymore. That night, Paul comes over to his place wanting to crash there, as he and Debbie had a fight and she threw him out. John sends him on his way with advice about how to make up with her.
It's a cinch that Roger wasn't marriage material...he seems like more of an indy/solo type to me.
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Hawaii Five-O
"All the King's Horses"
Originally aired November 26, 1969
Wiki said:
Five-O investigates an ex-racketeer (James Gregory) suspected of heading a local crime syndicate, but Steve McGarrett follows a hunch that the politician seeking to indict the accused man is involved in some dirty dealings of his own.
Charles Irwin (Jason Evers), who's Chief Consul of the State Labor Investigating Committee, and is also running for office, is trying to serve subpoenas to Mike Finney (James Gregory), a former mobster now running a flower business who served his time and whom McGarrett believes to be clean. A sniper takes shots at Irwin at the pool of Senator Colt (Jim Demarest) while McGarrett is present, though Steve suspects that it was a phony hit. The Governor wants everything to be done on the up-and-up, so he won't intervene to take the heat off Finney, and sends McGarrett to serve the subpoena. We get another moment with Steve and animals when the German shepherds that had been let loose to drive away Irwin's man prove to already have a friendly relationship with McGarrett. Finney thinks that if he testifies, he'll be railroaded--at the very least, he'd be put under legal pressure to testify against his old associates. McGarrett doesn't approve of Irwin's tactics of using the press as a weapon against Finney, and convinces the committee's chairman, Senator Oishi (Keye Luke)--who faced internment in WWII and prejudice afterward--that Finney deserves a second chance. After Oishi tries to reign Irwin in, Irwin decides to "look into" whether McGarrett is being paid off.
Irwin's man, Fletcher (Lyle Bettger), approaches McGarrett with a phony proposition; Steve turns the tables by starting his tape recorder, making Fletcher clam up, then deprives Fletcher of the recording equipment he was wired with, savvy to how it was all a trap to produce some incriminatingly edited tape. Fletcher then breaks into Finney's office to type an incriminating thank you letter to McGarrett, to be accompanied by an envelope of money, when he's shot by a hit man (Nick Benedict) who's been stalking the place. Investigating the scene, Five-O finds the fake incriminating evidence that Fletcher was planting. McGarrett surmises that some of Finney's former associates may be nervous that he'll be made to testify against them, so he places the Finneys under protective custody. Finney's softer side is represented by his daughter, Judith (Karen Ericson), who teaches special needs children, and to whom Danny takes a liking. While attempting to take her to the airport to get her out of harm's way, Finney's limo shakes off the tailing Danno only for an attack to be made by the hit man, killing Finney's friend and major domo, Rudy (Charles Gilbert). Finney quotes the line in the title while expressing pessimism about his chances of surviving a third attempt.
Finney appears before the committee to testify, choosing not to take the Fifth or to be represented by a lawyer...now motivated by the attempts on his life to set the record straight before he's offed. Irwin lays on a thick, fictitious case against Finney while the hit man waits in the audience. Meanwhile, Five-O nabs Vince Watson (Morgan Sha'an), the man who made the false hit attempt on Irwin. When McGarrett bursts into the committee hearing to produce a statement by Watson implicating Irwin, the hit man shoots Finney in the back; McGarrett pursues him and takes him down outside. Finney dies before the ambulance arrives, quoting the title again.
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Dragnet 1970
"Internal Affairs – Parolee"
Originally aired November 27, 1969
Xfinity said:
Friday and Gannon must solve a 14-year-old crime before a prison convict can be released.
Sgt. Joe Friday said:
This is the city: Los Angeles, California. I work here. I carry a badge.
Wednesday, August 6 (1969?--see below): Friday and Gannon, working the day watch out of Bunco Forgery Division, are discussing the newly issued Special Order 51, which reorganizes the various detective divisions--of special interest to them, as they hop between those divisions every week! For example, the division they're in this week used to be Frauds Division. They're assigned to investigate a 14-year-old case pertaining to Lyle Thompson, who's been serving time since then in Colorado. The statute of limitations was put on hold for the LA crimes committed months before the left the state, so the detectives have to see if they have a case against him after all that time. Of particular interest is that they give a date reference for those crimes and his arrest in Colorado as having happened in early 1956. This should implicitly date the episode as taking place in August 1970, but the calendar doesn't agree.
Looking into the old cases in the Archives section, the detectives talk to the clerk there, Bertha Johnson (Alice Backes), who knew the since-deceased Detective Packard who investigated the Thompson case, and remembers him fondly. Gannon notes that her description of him as a work-obsessed bachelor sounds a lot like Friday; and brings up the similarity again when studying Packard's notes. Of interest here is that they pretty much play Packard as having been before Friday and Gannon's time, though Friday already had several seasons of the original
Dragnet under his belt by that point! One thinks that he'd have been at least casually acquainted with Packard.
There are three crimes involved. One involving an embezzled vehicle has gone cold--the car agency involved is no longer there, having been replaced by a gym, and the agency's former owner is dead. For a bad check case, they talk to the retired original proprietor of a jewelry store, Richard Burns Sr. (Robert Brubaker), at a country club where he plays golf. He won't testify as he feels that after fourteen years, Thompson has already paid his debt to society "with interest".
The last case investigated involves the theft of a valuable commemorative coin owned by Thompson's former employer, George Wentworth (Howard Culver, who seems to be
Dragnet's male Virginia Gregg). His attitude is the opposite of Burns's, as he held a longtime grudge against Thompson from the years before the theft when the suspect was a valued employee of his father. The crimes being investigated only occurred after George took over the business and fired Thompson. Friday notes with suspicion how Wentworth kept track of the exact value of the coin for all the intervening years. As the detectives are leaving, Wentworth's secretary explains how she feels that her boss drove Thompson to the point where he committed the crimes, and Friday comes to suspect that Thompson didn't steal the coin at all. Wentworth subsequently confirms this when he comes into HQ to admit that he found the coin five years previously, but didn't bother to report it. He explains that his secretary quitting after talking to the detectives brought his conscience regarding his treatment of Thompson to the fore.
The Announcer said:
On August 7th, a report was submitted to the office of the District Attorney....The outstanding felony warrant for the arrest of Lyle Thompson was recalled at the recommendation of the office of the District Attorney.
The mugshot said:
LYLE THOMPSON
Granted parole by the Colorado State Parole Board.
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This one's enjoyable enough to me, but there is a lot of soundalike sequel single to be found in this batch of lower-charters.
Wha--?
Exhibits B and C.
It's alright, and sign-o-the-timesy for the Bond connection at this point when
Goldfinger is still the latest film in the franchise. Sound-wise, I think I like the Jr. Walker song better.
This is a good one, and kinda sounds like the 70s.
So soon? That's interesting.
I guess, even though his vitals and authority could have been easily confirmed.
It was a lot more complicated than that. He'd just killed a local lawman. He didn't have any evidence that Fong was on the take.
Damn. I still don't see any sign of Decades returning here.
My DVR thinks I'm crazy for jamming it with so much stuff. I've had to limit myself to only keeping one season of recordings ahead for shows that are in one of the channels' regular lineups. Lord knows what's gonna happen if/when
Mod Squad pops up as a Binge again, cuz you know I'm gonna wanna grab that.
I'm kind of conflicted because in their wee-hours movie slot, Decades is going to be airing the
Wild Wild West reunion movies in a couple of weeks. Those are way off for anniversary viewing purposes, I haven't watched a good deal of the actual series yet, I don't know when/if I'd get to them as off-schedule viewing, and I'm probably not going to be able to maintain the space to just hold them for a rainy day. But I feel like it'd be a damn shame to just let them slip by without knowing if/when they'd be coming up again.
Any thoughts on
The Odd Couple? CBS AA has it, but not complete episodes; and Decades just did a Binge of it, so I recorded the missing episodes for the first couple of seasons...which doesn't amount to a lot space-wise, but if I find myself really in a pinch, I might have to dump the recordings and just go with the incomplete episodes that CBS has.
Likewise, it'd be nice to see the last season of
Ironside that I have on the DVR through, as it would get me exactly halfway through the show's run and it's the last season with the full original cast. But that's always been something of a bubble show in my line-up, and now I've got H5O as a generally more engaging hour-long cop/crime show. If
Mod Squad does come up,
Ironside may be doomed.
But looking further along in the cave paintings shows that Hotlegs evolves into 10cc...
