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50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 2)
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Mission: Impossible
"The Fighter"
Originally aired February 9, 1973
Wiki said:
The IMF returns to boxing to expose and destroy the criminal boxing operations of the Syndicate handled by its man (Joe Maross) and his partner (William Windom) who is a corrupt promoter.
Following a thrown fight in which he's badly beaten, Gunner Loomis (OK, Boomer--Herbert Jefferson Jr.) threatens to talk to the D.A. to force Paul Mitchell (Windom) and Jay Braddock (Maross) to let him out of his contract. They pretend to agree and have him murdered in the shower.
The reel-to-reel tape in a court building officer said:
Good morning, Mr. Phelps. The Syndicate operation in the boxing game is handled by Jay Braddock. He has corrupted Paul Mitchell, once an honest promoter, now his partner. Braddock and Mitchell own a number of promising fighters whose careers they are manipulating for illegal profits at public expense. Middleweight James Loomis recently defied them, and was brutally murdered in a phony "accident". Conventional law enforcement agencies have been unable to act. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, will be to expose Braddock and Mitchell and to destroy their criminal operation. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Jim.
In the briefing, Jim heavy-handedly emphasizes that two of the people they'll be manipulating in their scheme, Mitchell's daughter, Susan (Jenifer Shaw), and the fighter she's fallen for, Pete Novick (Geoffrey Deuel), are innocents who have to be protected. As the scheme commences, Jim and Barney don really low-tech masks of the nylon variety to hijack a Syndicate armored truck, impersonate the guards, and hold up the office where the profits are kept. After a fight, Casey shows up in the locker room to interview Novick for
NewsView (because Hollinger couldn't make it), and asks him questions about the game being run by the Syndicate. Barney visits Mitchell and Braddock to offer to buy Novick's contract for the sum that was just stolen from them.
Casey takes a ride with Novick, uses the IMF ring to give him a delayed knockout drug, and with the help of a remote that allows her to brake the car, the IMF stages an impending accident with Willy on a motorcycle during which Pete blacks out. Casey informs Pete the next day that he killed the man on the cycle and blackmails him on behalf of Barney with photographic evidence and a phony newspaper story. While Mitchell and Braddock are discussing how to handle their new rival, they get a visit from state AG investigator Willy, questioning them about the unreported robbery and shadily offering help in dealing with Barney. Susan subsequently pays Pete a visit, wanting to know why she was stood up the night before. He tells her about the accident and blackmail, and she goes to her father about it. Mitchell doesn't approve of their relationship in the first place and tells her to break things off with Novick. After she leaves, Braddock tells Mitchell that their best option for dealing with Barney is to kill Novick.
Braddock makes a call to Syndicate higher-up Steve Lawson (Martin Ashe) to get a hit man for the Novick job. The IMF cuts in on the call mid-conversation and has their answer to Rich Little, Dave Rawls (Walker Edmiston, apparently meant to be the same character who pulled this trick in the episode "Movie," but billed with a different character surname), impersonate Lawson to set Braddock up with Jim (who's reusing his Dave Ryker alias from a recent episode). Braddock and Mitchell meet Jim at a Japanese restaurant to negotiate the hit. Barney and Willy apprehend Susan to get her out of the way so Casey can don a mask to impersonate her. Fake Susan shows up at Pete's while Braddock and Mitchell are waiting outside for the hit and knocks Novick out with the ring. The IMFers set a bomb and take Pete out the back. The place goes up as Mitchell's approaching the house to go after his daughter.
Disgusted with what he thinks happened, Mitchell threatens to skip out, but is manhandled by Braddock. Jim shows up for the payoff, and Investigator Willy visits Mitchell. While leaving Braddock's office, Jim talks loudly about having been told there was a second contract, which Mitchell confronts Braddock about, accusing him of having deliberately had Susan killed and believing that he's next. Braddock offers to disprove this by killing Jim (which I don't follow the logic of). Jim subsequently waylays Mitchell in the empty boxing arena with a gun. Braddock aims to take a shot at Jim from the bleachers, but Willy spots him and takes him down. Willy then resumes his role to get the fake drop on Jim, and Mitchell offers to talk.
In an uncharacteristically feel-good coda that was telegraphed in the briefing, the IMFers have a friendly sit-down with Susan and Pete to exposit about Mitchell turning state's evidence and doing some time.
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Love, American Style
"Love and the Anniversary / Love and the Playwright / Love and the Trampled Passion"
Originally aired February 9, 1973
In "Love and the Trampled Passion," Carolyn (Susan Tolsky) calls a neighbor (and possibly landlady), Eloise (Barbara Brownell), in the middle of the night over the tapdancing noise that her upstairs neighbor is making. Eloise identifies it as the flamenco dancing of Raoul Sapicas (George Pan), whom she gushes over. Brainstorming over how to hook Carolyn up with him, Eloise knocks on the ceiling with a broom handle to bring him down, and Carolyn is frozen dumb by her attraction to the dashing man. While the ladies plan how to get Carolyn into Raoul's apartment by having her lock herself out in the hall in her nightie, she accidentally locks herself out in a robe, hairnet, and facial cream. Eloise's alternate plan is to set up a painting detour sign that will route Raoul through Carolyn's apartment, but she's instead visited by a handsome stranger (George McDaniel) with a suitcase and gun, who ties her to a chair and robs her. Raoul comes through afterward and takes the fire escape out, not even noticing Carolyn tied and gagged. Carolyn then tries a plan she must have gotten from watching Roadrunner cartoons, sawing a circle in her ceiling that Raoul will fall through when he dances. It works better than expected, as he ends up going through three floors down to the ground level.
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All in the Family
"Class Reunion"
Originally aired February 10, 1973
Wiki said:
Archie accompanies Edith to her high school reunion when he learns her old boyfriend will be there.
Edith gets a Sunday visit from her cousin Amelia (What, is Rae Allen looking for a spinoff?), who wants her to go to their thirtieth class reunion. Edith doesn't want to go without Archie, who has a bowling commitment, until she reminisces over her old heartthrob, Buck Evans (voted "The Boy Most Likely to Win the War"), and learns that he'll be attending. After Edith changes her mind over getting to see Buck again, Archie insists on going with her.
Archie gets dressed up, and at the venue generally acts miserable while striking up conversations with a women's libber (Evelyn King) and a black classmate whom he initially assumes to be a server (Bernie Hamilton). His concerns are also fueled when female classmates go on about how handsome Buck was. Finally, Archie learns that a bald, heavy-set late arrival whom he's talking to is the fabled Buck (Bernie Kuby). Archie's eager to bring Edith over to meet him, but she recognizes him immediately and is undeterred by his appearance, just being happy to see him.
Edith's maiden name was Baines, which doesn't seem to have come up before. When going into way too much detail about what she's been up to since school in response to a stupefied classmate (Harvey Lembeck), Edith brings up having been a secretary for the Hercules Plumbing Company, which has come up.
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Emergency!
"Syndrome"
Originally aired February 10, 1973
Frndly said:
Paramedics are the patients: Kelly is pinned under fallen debris, and DeSoto is the victim of a tonsillitis attack.
Johnny and Chet have just found Roy gargling with salt water when the squad is called to a cardiac case at Mammoth Studios. Producer Sy Kleiner (Jack Carter) frets over the condition of his star, Raymond Boyd (Robert Alda, who's being flattered regarding his approximate age by over ten years), while the director, Boris Miller (Ezra Stone), tries to keep his belligerence in check. Back at the station, Boot--who's now readily coming to Johnny--has just returned from having a tick removed at the vet, with the bill to be split among the station crew. Captain Stanley does this midwesterner proud when he notices that Roy is having trouble swallowing his pop.
At the hospital, the doctors are stumped as to what caused Boyd's attack; Kleiner, who wants his star back to work ASAP, butts heads with Brackett; and we learn that Boyd and Dix are old flames from ca. 1960 (when he was 33, not 46, and she was 18, not 34). She's eager to see him at first, but then avoids him for a few days before asserting that what they had is over.
After a few days off, Roy is still nursing his throat, which Johnny examines, diagnosing tonsillitis, though Roy dismisses this because he had his tonsils removed as a child. The station gets called to rescue a couple of boys (Perry Castellano and Michael Morgan) who are trapped on the scaffolding above a gas storage tank that automatically raises and lowers. The paramedics take the catwalk up and climb over to rappel down with them. The old man who called the paramedics (Dub Taylor) wants the kids to compensate him for his dime.
At Rampart, Brackett theorizes that Boyd's symptoms could have been caused by monosodium glutamate in Chinese food that he had. Johnny has Roy examined by Early, who confirms Johnny's diagnosis, telling Roy that his tonsils have grown back and giving him prescription medication on the spot. Afterward, the paramedics are called to a college athletic field to tend to injured female lacrosse players (Ta-Tanisha and Barbara Brownell) whose teammates are actively engaged in fighting one another while an overworked trooper tries to get them under control. Johnny's patient (Brownell) flirts with him as he tends to her ankle. (I'll give the writer of the unused Wiki description credit here, because I had no idea what sport they were equipped for.)
A few days later while the paramedics are at Rampart, we get another bit of "I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way" business when Early offers to remove Roy's tonsils without an appointment or check-in or anything, but the station and several other units are called to a fire at another hospital that was damaged in a recent earthquake. At the scene, the hippie friend of four trapped victims admits that they were trying to burn the place down for kicks. (This appears to be the same earthquake-damaged hospital that was featured in an M:I episode earlier this season--that's Hollywood for ya.) A couple of kids are carried out from an upper floor by the paramedics and firefighters, and their accomplice informs the rescuers that the other two are probably in the basement, where they were looking for the kitchen. Chet's trying to crawl under some debris when it collapses on him, injuring his shoulder, prompting a cut to him being treated at Rampart, where Boyd, having been given a clean bill of health, is checking out and exchanges goodbyes with Dix. Chet has Dix check on the guys, who are still digging through rubble at the other hospital. They finally clear their way to open a walk-in freezer where the last two members of the gang are.
The next week, Johnny--dressed up from having just appeared in court regarding the arson--drops by Rampart to bring ice cream to Roy, who's recovering from his operation. Johnny finds that Roy is sharing a room with Chet, who's blabbing his head off.
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The Mary Tyler Moore Show
"Murray Faces Life"
Originally aired February 10, 1973
Wiki said:
Murray sinks into a deep depression after he learns that a former writing classmate has won a Pulitzer Prize for journalism.
The episode opens with Lou in a tux preparing to attend a Press Club bash for local reporter Chris Matthews, who won the Pulitzer Prize. Murray is opting to skip it and acts sullen. Mary can tell that something's bothering him and takes him out for coffee to stop him from going out drinking, which causes her to forget to pick Rhoda up. Murray shows up for work very late the next day, and at Mary's prodding to be supportive, Lou takes the two of them into his office, where he reveals that he knows the source of Murray's depression (see above). Murray expresses how, now being 40 (pretty close to Gavin MacLeod's actual age), this has caused him to question whether he'll ever realize any of his dreams. Lou tries to encourage him to appreciate the life that he's got right now.
Lou tries to divert Murray by giving him some on-camera reporting work that doesn't work out, and Mary asks Ted to act nice to Murray. Murray ends up agreeing to dinner and drinks with Ted, following which the two go back to Ted's pad--which is, of course, adorned with pictures of him. Ted tries to cheer Murray up with Fluffy, his sock puppet dog, and Murray probes Ted about his own satisfaction with his life. Mary then drops by and encourages Murray to feel the way he feels, but when she starts to cry for him, Murray realizes the effect that he has on others, which helps him to feel a little better.
In the coda, Murray's back to his old self getting in jabs at Ted, and Mary has finished her subplot of typing up Ted's dictated memoirs for cash.
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The Bob Newhart Show
"A Home Is Not Necessarily a House"
Originally aired February 10, 1973
Wiki said:
Bob and Emily consider moving out of their apartment and into a house.
Emily comes home from having looked at a house with a friend who didn't take it, and wants Bob to come see it. He's immediately resistant to the idea but goes to get it out of the way, enduring an overzealous realtor, Shirley Wolfson (Jenna McMahon), whose colleague (Dick Clair) brings in another couple to look at it while the Hartleys are there, giving them the exact same sales pitch. Back at the office, Bob ignores calls from Wolfson, and is being counseled by Jerry not to rush into anything when Emily drops in with the realtor to tell Bob that the other couple put an offer on the house, and they have to make a decision now.
That night, after the Hartleys have put in their offer, Bob can't sleep because of his anxiety about becoming a homeowner. (The Hartleys' nightstand lamps appear to be connected--when Emily turns hers off, Bob's goes off; and when Bob turns his on, so does hers.) After Elliot Carlin and Jerry have stoked Bob's concerns at work, he comes home to find Howard showing the apartment to a trio of stewardesses whom he's enthusiastic to have as neighbors. After they leave, Bob and Emily talk about how both now think that they've made a big mistake. Then Wolfson drops by to inform them that the seller rejected their offer, and they have a hard time restraining their joyous relief.
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Which is why it made sense, but I'm not much of a fan.
Ah, I thought you were.
Ah, the Rutles. I keep meaning to get that album and I keep forgetting.
You should, it's inspired spoofery. (I actually haven't had it for several years, since I lost my CD.)
They generally do a pretty good job (allowing for it being an alternate universe
), so I'm inclined to think that the M'Benga thing is deliberate.
The situation does bring to mind two separate instances that I know of, from around the same time, when genre prequel shows had characters whose ages didn't seem quite right for the period, and ultimately revealed that the characters in question were older namesake relatives of the characters we'd been led to believe they were. In
Smallville it was Jimmy Olsen; in
Caprica it was Bill Adama.
