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50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 2)
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Love, American Style
"Love and the Awakening / Love and the Bashful Groom / Love and the Four-Sided Triangle / Love and the Naked Stranger"
Originally aired October 22, 1971
"Love and the Awakening" opens with actress Elizabeth (Elaine Giftos) doing a brass bed love scene with Earl (Aron Kincaid), under the direction of German-accented Mr. Chaney (Bernie Kopell), who isn't pleased with the results. Elizabeth explains to her director that she doesn't have real-world experience in that area; and Chaney learns why when he meets her nebbish of a boyfriend, Stanley (Peter Kastner), with whom she has a wholesome, non-physical relationship. Chaney tries to resolve this by going through Stanley, but he refuses to consummate their relationship until marriage. Chaney then lures them into doing a love scene together, which involves convincing Stanley that he's got star potential; but Stanley's nervous and lousy, so Chaney tries to show him how it's done with Elizabeth...which she starts to get into, making Stanley jealous. It looks like Stanley and Elizabeth are starting to get into the groove with each other when Stanley breaks into his usual sexual tension reliever of doing push-ups. After he leaves, Chaney offers to help Elizabeth rehearse. Cut to Elizabeth giving a much more convincing brass bed performance, while Chaney does push-ups.
"Love and the Bashful Groom" has Linda (Meredith MacRae) bringing Calvin (Paul Petersen) to the Green Glen Resort--a nudist colony where she grew up--for their wedding; though he'd rather have a traditional church ceremony. Cal meets a friend named Jerry (Christopher Stone), who's in the buff, and is told that he'll have to undress to impress Linda's parents.
Calvin: Can't they like me with my clothes on!?!
Cal doesn't even want to see Linda nude before the appropriate time, but meets her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Hutton (Dick Wilson and Jeff Donnell) in the their native attire. Cal ultimately ends up bringing himself to strip down for the ceremony, walking out into the courtyard with his eyes closed, but when he opens them he finds that everyone else is traditionally clothed (saw that coming a mile away)...though the parents and guests decide to follow his example and start enthusiastically stripping down in front of the shocked minister.
In "Love and the Four-Sided Triangle," Melvin (Elliott Street) is trying to woo his boss's bespectacled, romance magazine-reading secretary, Alice Graff (Karen Valentine), though she doesn't notice him. The boss, Mr. Cal Tucker (Dick Gautier, whom I wouldn't have recognized here as Hymie), notices that Melvin's been fouling up, and Melvin confesses that he's in love with Miss Graff. Tucker offers to tell her for him...but clearly more enthusiastic about the hunky boss, she gets the wrong idea, thinking Tucker's talking about himself. Melvin listens as Alice tells a friend about the situation on the phone and thinks that Tucker took his gal. Protesting that he's happily married, Tucker promises to clear things up. Cal gets a pink, perfumed lover letter at home, which his wife, Nancy (Ruta Lee), notices, so he drops it in the toaster. At work, he has the lovestruck Alice brought in to see him. When he tells her that he's married, she just thinks that he's feeling guilty about the situation. When Cal's unable to clear things up, Melvin goes to see Nancy, telling her that Cal and Alice are madly in love with each other, and that Alice is planning to come to ask her to give Cal up; but from his description of how things went down, Nancy comes to understand the situation better than Melvin does. Having been spitefully tipped off by Melvin, Cal tries to get Nancy out of the house. Alice comes to the door announcing that she's going to take Nancy's husband away from her, and describes their love in florid prose emulating her magazines. Nancy pretends to go along with it and insists that Alice should move in with them so they can share Cal, claiming that they've done this sort of thing before. Being turned off by this, when Melvin comes to the door, Alice sees him in a new light. Melvin goes with it, and Cal thanks Nancy for getting him out of the situation.
In "Love and the Naked Stranger," the exaggeratedly described man (Ronnie Schell) comes home to a woman in a brass bed, strips down to his underwear, and gets in with her...only to find that the woman, Nadine (Joyce Van Patten), isn't his wife and he's in the wrong apartment. He hides under the bed as her husband, Arthur (Frank Aletter), comes home to tell her that the company president, A. J. Potts (Dana Elcar), is coming up to discuss a potential transfer to Paris. Nadine tries to keep Arthur distracted so the stranger can get out, though he doesn't succeed. This includes a bit where the stranger has to climb over the bed as Arthur's crawling under it to retrieve something. Mr. Potts arrives, and more shenanigans ensue in which the stranger always ends up back under the bed. In a final escape attempt, he crawls out to run right into Potts, and promptly leaves. Potts announces that Arthur's got the job, as he now believes that he and Nadine will fit into the French lifestyle fine...and ends the episode on a note of flirting with Nadine, thinking that she's that kind of woman.
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The Mary Tyler Moore Show
"Cover Boy"
Originally aired October 23, 1971
Wiki said:
Ted receives a visit from his super-competitive brother, a male model.
That Ted's actually reading the news correctly tips Mary and Murray that something's up. Ted's commercial actor brother Hal (Jack Cassidy) arrives at the station, and there are clear indications of rivalry. Ted wants Lou to give him a raise in front of Hal, but he blows it by asking for too much. When Hal wants to double date, Ted pretends that Mary's his girlfriend and asks her to hook Hal up with "that Israeli friend of yours"...Rhoda. At Mary's apartment, Ted starts to blow his cover when he isn't familiar with the place. The brothers explain how their extreme competitiveness goes back to how their parents raised them. Ted proves to be out of his element at the fancy restaurant that they go to...and feels the need to act romantic toward Mary to compete with Hal's affectionate gestures toward Rhoda. This continues back to Mary's place, where Ted feels that he has to stay into the night because Hal is upstairs at Rhoda's and he can't let Hal see him leave. Mary and Ted stay up until dawn playing Go Fish, only to learn from Rhoda that Hal left in a cab a half-hour after they got there. Mary struggles the next day at work without sleep, while Ted, who comes in much later, still gets a full night's worth. Mary persuades Ted to come clean to Hal about their relationship charade, and Ted further admits to his own feelings of inadequacy. Even this turns into a sort of competition, as Hal tries to one-up Ted in that department. The episode ends on the note of Murray being frustrated because nobody else in the newsroom hears Ted admit that he's a lousy newscaster...Mary having fallen asleep at her typewriter.
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Mission: Impossible
"The Miracle"
Originally aired October 23, 1971
Wiki said:
The IMF makes a Syndicate drug smuggler (Joe Don Baker) believe he has received the heart of a priest in a transplant operation, faked for the benefit of him and his associate (Billy Dee Williams), and that he is taking on the donor's personality traits in order to intercept a large heroin shipment.
Frank Kearney (Joe Don Baker) and Milt Anderson (Lee Delano) are waiting for a man named Taynor to bring in a boatload of "H" when Frank pulls a gun on Milt, outing him as narc. A struggle ensues in which Frank knocks out Milt and rolls him off a drinkside cliff in a car.
The miniature reel-to-reel tape with no establishing set up in a bait shop or something said:
Good morning, Jim! Seven weeks from now, on November 10th, $8 million worth of heroin will be landed at an unknown point along the coast. Undercover agent Milt Anderson lost his life trying to find out where. Only two men know the actual landing site: Alvin Taynor [Ronald Feinberg], biggest narcotics dealer in the northwest, and Frank Kearney, his chief executioner. Conventional law enforcement agencies have been unable to develop any further information. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to intercept that heroin, and to get Taynor and Kearney. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Jim!
No unrealistic hurry in this ticking clock! I just realized that Greg Morris got a promotion this season. He's now in the "Starring" category behind Peter Graves, with Lynda Day George and Peter Lupus falling under "Also Starring". He does not, however, get a separate "Starring" bill like Martin Landau and Leonard Nimoy did.
The IMF's plan involves the cooperation of a hospital, which gives them control of part of a floor and all the personnel they need. Guest agents attending the briefing include Steve Johnson (Lawrence Montaigne) and Manny (Ollie O'Toole)--who demonstrates his pickpocketing skill by tossing Barney and Willy their wallet and keys, respectively. We learn that Kearney's Catholic upbringing is believed to still be a significant factor in his psychology. Casey waits on and flirts with Kearney at a restaurant meeting with Taynor. Outside, Rival Mobster Jim holds a gun on Taynor and his man, Hank Benton (Lando!) in their car, trying to strongarm them into doing a deal that would involve the November shipment. In the restaurant, Willy walks up and fake-shoots Kearney with a tranquilizer bullet. At the hospital, Father Stonn tends to Kearney's just-in-case rites, while Barney fake operates on a sometimes conscious(!!!) Kearney, who gets to watch fake footage on a monitor of his open heart!!!! Benton also gets to watch, from the hallway through an open door!!!!! Having just gotten my first operation last year, I'm happy to report that this is not how any of this works!
Willy pays a visit to Taynor, pretending to work for Jim...wait, he does work for Jim, but you know what I mean. Taynor presses hospital worker Sam Evans (Leon Russom) to keep tabs on Kearney. Casey visits Kearney at the hospital and shows him a fake newspaper article about his surgery. Barney uses drugs to condition Kearney into wanting to marry Casey. Evans walks in on this but is stopped from making a call by Barney. Jim and Willy tail Taynor and Benton to a warehouse and hold them up along with the men they're doing a deal with, then make an escape under gunfire. Benton learns that Evans has come up missing. When they see Jim walking into the hospital, Taynor sics Benton on him. Jim, still in his role, propositions Kearney. Outside, Willy stops Benton from putting the hit on Jim, who seems genuinely surprised when Willy brings him the shotgun afterward.
Quack Dr. Barney sets up the idea that the new heart may affect how Kearney feels about things as Frank is checking out of the hospital. At the restaurant, Taynor and Benton confront Kearney as he's romancing Casey, and Kearney finds himself ordering wine--which he normally eschews because he associates it with Catholic priests--thanks to his conditioning. Seeing Casey in private, Kearney slips and refers to her as his wife, and ends up fake-slapping her...as in I think it was supposed to look like a real slap, but we literally see Baker's slapping hand clap his other hand in front of her face, like it accidentally got in the shot,
Dark Shadows-style. Casey plays a fake radio program via KRTR (reel-to-reel) about transplant patients taking on the behavior of their donors. Kearney brings up the subject of marriage deliberately, feeling that he wants more than to fool around. Jim calls Kearney and sets a rendezvous for their deal. Kearney calls Taynor to let him know that he's about to hit Jim...as in execute him with a gun, not really obviously fake-slap him.
Manny bumps into Kearney outside, swapping his gun with a trick one that he can't pull the trigger of...which Jim subsequently demonstrates does work. Kearney goes to Father Stonn to find out who the donor was, and Stonn is persuaded to reveal that it was a fellow priest. Kearney starts smashing up the church's statuary in frustration. Outside in the backlot, somebody tries to do a drive-by hit on Kearney. I wasn't clear if this was a real attempt on Taynor's part of a fake one on the IMF's, but I think it was the latter. Frank wants Casey to run off with him to South America, and takes her to the boat with the H on it, intending it to be their nest egg. Taynor and Benton drive up to find Kearney with the box of illicit cargo. Kearney tries to tell Taynor that the dead priest made him do it, and Benton's about to put a real hit on Kearney when the police swoop in, as the IMFers openly watch...Mission: Accomplished.
If you had trouble following parts of this plot, join the club.
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In retrospect, Charlie Brown kind of reminds me of Rorschach.
At least Rorschach was symmetrical...
This is what Martin Landau had to say about how he played Rollin Hand in Mission: Impossible.
'More than most characters on series television,' Landau feels, 'we had to fatten the characters we played. You had to make the audience believe that this guy was all the things that were said about him.' One way he made Rollin 'fatter' was his behavior in crises. Rollin was the supreme master of the bluff, often blustering his way out of tight spots and exhaling relief when the performance was over. 'People use the word 'cool' in relation to my character,' he says. 'Well, the character was cool, but he was also scared from time to time. You learn the most about a character when he's alone, and it's in those moments alone when you saw the real Rollin, his vulnerability.'
Whatever his intent, he typically showed way too much on his face while in assumed character in the middle of a situation. His replacement, at least, was more practiced in keeping his emotional reactions in check.
