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50th Anniversary Viewing (Part 2)
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Mission: Impossible
"The Western"
Originally aired March 2, 1973
Slightly edited Wiki said:
After a brilliant thief and his accomplice loot a country's national treasure of pre-Columbian art worth $5 million, the IMF makes the thief believe that he has precognitive visions in order to locate the art and prove his guilt.
The penultimate aired episode was actually produced third from last, so it's about where it should be.
In the aftermath of their theft, Matthew Royce (Barry Atwater) tells Van Cleve (Ed Nelson) that he wants out of their partnership; following which Van Cleve uses a preset bomb to blow up the cave where they'd apparently intended to hide the treasure, while Royce is in it.
The miniature reel-to-reel tape in a fountain keeper's toolbox said:
Good morning, Mr. Phelps. The Azteca Museum was recently looted of over five million dollars worth of Pre-Columbian art by a brilliant thief, Van Cleve, and his partner, Matthew Royce, now missing, presumed dead. In the process, a guard was murdered. Conventional law enforcement agencies have been unable to move against Van Cleve. We've determined that the stolen art has been brought into the United States and is hidden here. Our government is most anxious to return this national treasure to its rightful home. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, will be to locate the treasure and prove Van Cleve's guilt. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Jim!
The IMF's plan involves making Van Cleeve think he's got second sight. First they stage an accident in which he runs into the victim wearing a skull mask just before it happens (which is covertly removed before the body is turned over); then he sits next to Casey--posing as a psychology student specializing in probability theory--on a plane, where she practices her card trickery and lets him see a large bundle of $50 bills in her trick purse, then reopens it and they're gone. Jim and Barney, posing as geological surveyors for the Department of the Interior, are caught on Van Cleve's ranch by henchman Ed Stoner (Michael Ansara). Their arranged credentials seem legit, but Van Cleve calls a Washington contact, Ralph Driscoll (Frank Farmer), to find out why a hush-hush survey is being done on his land.
Stoner spies on Jim and Barney at a casino, where Jim loses a lot of money at a crap table manned by Willy. Van Cleve, who's found that Jim is deeply in debt from gambling and child support, offers him money in exchange for intel about the survey. Van Cleve runs into Casey, who's enjoying a lucky streak that causes her trick purse to be filled with the bundle of Grants that he foresaw. Jim and Barney sneak into Stately Van Cleve manor...and Willy into the Van Clevemobile...to plant devices to simulate an earthquake. Meanwhile, Van Cleve shares his visions with Casey, who rationalizes that these were manifestations of his subconscious ability to predict outcomes in a computer-like fashion. While they start to get romantic, Royce turns up alive to take a shot at them from outside with a silenced Mauser.
Hearing offscreen shots that weren't part of the plan, Jim and Barney see the sniper fleeing and pursue his vehicle to a ghost town hideout...where he takes shots at them and they take cover to exchange fire. The firefight runs through the town and Royce gets away, but prints on the Mauser that he dropped to switch to a rifle identify him. Jim decides to up the timetable of the plan before it gets ruined, so he goes to Van Cleve with the survey results, which indicate that a fault structure under the dam threatens to cause the entire valley to be flooded with the next quake. When Jim leaves, Barney triggers a fake vision of a dummy of Van Cleve's body rising from and then sinking back under his bubbling swimming pool.
At 3 a.m., the IMFers trigger their fake tremor, caused by lots of little hydraulic devices shaking his furniture (which look like they'd be easily spotted) and backed up by a taped news broadcast fed into his radio. Van Cleve heads for the cave set where he hid the treasure (which looks like the same one the Brady boys were recently tied up in)--his truck's radio also playing taped broadcasts--while Royce follows him and the IMFers track him via a homing device. Royce confronts Van Cleve in the cave, and the gun-toting IMFers come in behind him to get the drop on both of them.
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Love, American Style
"Love and the Mind Reader / Love and Mr. and Mrs. / Love and the Soap Opera"
Originally aired March 2, 1973
"Love and Mr. and Mrs." opens with Dennis Stephens (Peter Kastner) starting his job in the office of Sid Daniels (Arch Johnson), Public Defender, Misdemeanor Trials. Dennis runs into fellow PD Valerie Stephens (Victoria Principal), who turns out to be his wife, to Sid's surprise. Eddie Colfax (Frank Welker) questions why Dennis left a good firm for this gig, and Dennis agrees to take a case for him despite Valerie's warning that he typically tries to unload his work on others. Things get awkward at home when the Stephenses find that they can no longer talk about what happened at work. Neighbors Mary and Carol (Dick Yarmy and Pamela Rodgers) drop in to draw attention to how the Stephenses split the household work, Carol being a housewife. Back at work, Dennis meets his client, Bonnie Lee (Shelley Duvall), a poor young woman who was caught shoplifting lingerie. Her story is that she ran out of the store to put money in a parking meter without realizing she had the merchandise, but Val counters Dennis's idealistic gullibility with a cynical outlook informed by experience and Bonnie's previous record.
Val is later incredulous that Dennis has invited Bonnie Lee over for dinner, and they have a little argument about one of them needing to quit the practice to see to the home. Dinner is canceled when Bonnie laughs at Dennis wearing an apron while preparing the meal, causing him to walk out of the room in a huff. Dennis stops doing his part around the house the next day, and Carol tries to advise Val about how to be less liberated and more attentive to her husband's needs. The tension between the titular spouses follows them to work, but Dennis later comes home to reveal that he won his case, getting Bonnie off; and Val reveals that she isn't surprised because she knew he was a terrific lawyer. They come to an understanding about their work boundaries and she confesses that she can't be the type of wife that Carol is. Bonnie drops by to give the couple a gift--a lighter that she lifted off them during her previous visit. Afterward, as the Stephenses retire to their brass bed, Dennis considers himself to have lost his case, but Val disagrees.
In "Love and the Soap Opera," actor Roger Adams (Tom Lowell) pays a visit to Sally Holmwith (Sarah Kennedy), whom he met on a cruise that they've both just returned from. While Sally's mother (Kaye Ballard) tries to chat him up, Sally references a number of tragic family events in progress. When Sally fixates on the TV at the crack of noon, Mrs. Holmwith explains that her daughter is a soap opera addict, and the tragic events were happening to characters on her shows. Sally's mother has Roger over for a date with Sally, but Sally's dressed and has the place decorated for a wedding happening on a nighttime soap. Sally takes a greater interest in Roger when he starts playing the part of Bill on one of her soaps...but their dates are still stymied by Sally's inability to distinguish fiction from reality, as she only identifies him as Bill and is more invested in his onscreen romance with Mona. When a frustrated Roger storms out, Sally's philosophical about it: "Well...that's the way the world turns."
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All in the Family
"Everybody Tells the Truth"
Originally aired March 3, 1973
Wiki said:
While dining out, Archie and Mike have opposing (and exaggerated) accounts of the events of earlier that evening, involving Archie and the repairmen who came to repair the refrigerator.
Mike and Gloria have taken Archie and Edith to an affordable French restaurant, but Archie is in a foul mood because of the refrigerator being broken. When Mike disagrees with Archie over whether somebody they met earlier had a knife, Mike goes into his account of the evening's events, which sets the highly exaggerated tone of the flashbacks. In Mike's story, Archie comes home acting like a monster, while Mike and Gloria act flawlessly polite and agreeable. Archie's contrasting account has Archie coming home in a good mood and approving of everything the family does, while painting Edith, Mike, and Gloria as the sources of all hostility in the house. Mike and Gloria take over to describe the refrigerator repairmen, Bob and Jack (Ken Lynch and Ron Glass), coming over, their account having Archie treating Edith like a dog and portraying Jack as an overly accommodating and stereotypically behaving "Uncle Tom" character (in Mike's words)--much like the act that Lionel routinely puts on for Archie's benefit. Archie's contrasting account portrays Bob as a gangster type and Jack as a hostile Black Power activist.
The next contrasting accounts involve Jack eating an apple while Bob works on the refrigerator. In Mike's account, Jack has no knife and happily lets Archie treat him like dirt. In Archie's account, the more aggressive version of Jack threatens Archie with a large switchblade. Edith provides a third account, with a more realistic version of Jack who falls somewhere between Mike and Archie's extreme stereotypes. Jack offers Archie some of his apple while holding up a small pen knife that Archie overreacts to. Archie ends up sending the repairmen out and unsuccessfully trying to fix the fridge himself after Jack expresses his objection to Archie calling him "boy". In the restaurant, Edith produces the knife from her purse, supporting her account and disproving both Mike's and Archie's.
While it makes sense that the guileless Edith would have the most objective account, I think they missed an opportunity to show us things from her own unique POV.
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Emergency!
"Boot"
Originally aired March 3, 1973
IMDb said:
Boot the Dog isn't eating and the firemen are concerned,...consulting with Rampart's staff about their mascot's health.
When the crew find that Boot hasn't eaten his food, they search the station for him to find him hiding under one of the beds. Chet, the last one to have seen him before this, is defensive when questioned and makes a show of being unconcerned.
The squad is called to an apartment where they have to crawl in a window to help a woman (Ann Prentiss, whose character is billed as Fran Lillington) who's gotten her hair caught in a meat grinder while preparing a meal for a date. She doesn't want to cut it, so Roy takes the grinder apart to free her bob, and she cheerfully sees them out the door.
At Rampart, Roy and Johnny ask Dix about Boot, and she, Brackett, Early, and Morton all have their own questions and opinions about the situation. The paramedics' ultimate takeaway is Joe's recommendation that they take Boot to a vet. Back at the station, Johnny feels Boot's nose, which is moist, but Boot won't even eat hamburger.
The station and other units, including a phone crew, are called to the site of a traffic accident involving a convertible that's crashed into and gotten stuck under a fuel truck. Remarkably, the young driver of the car (Susan Madigan, whose character is billed as Carol) is injured but alive and conscious. The car is pulled out via a tow line while the underside of the truck is sprayed with foam. The girl is freed from the vehicle and taken away via ambulance; and once the truck driver (Vic Tayback) has verified that she's going to be okay, he insists that the accident was her fault.
A young man named Don Herrold (Zack Taylor) brings his father, Hoyt (Jock Mahoney), into Rampart, saying that he keeled over at lunch and passed out during the ride. Don tells Brackett of how his otherwise very healthy father suffered a stomach bug a couple of years back. Morton finds mysterious bruises on Hoyt's leg, and Brackett calls Hoyt's personal physician and learns that he's been taking Warfarin for his heart. Having found that Hoyt was carrying aspirin, Morton questions the revived patient to determine that he suffers from pain caused by an old leg injury, and diagnoses that the combination of aspirin and Warfarin has been causing stomach bleeding.
At the station, the paramedics are still trying to diagnose Boot themselves--taking his temperature rectally but not knowing what it's supposed to be. While they're trying to contact a vet, Chet gets up to do some studying in another room, and Boot follows him.
The paramedics are called back to Fran Lillington's apartment, where they have to crawl in the window again to free her hand from her mixer. She admits that she doesn't normally cook.
At Rampart, Brackett enlists Early's aid in dealing with an occultist who can't move his right arm because he believes he's been cursed (uncredited Jamie Farr; apparently this segment was repurposed from the episode "Helpful," where he was credited as playing an Alan Austen, but didn't appear). Early, who seems to have some experience with this sort of thing, plays along with Austen's beliefs and makes a show of helping to lift the curse, which does the trick.
Another call comes in concerning Fran Lillington's apartment, this time for the station to deal with what turns out to be a small stove fire that's managed to smoke the place up. Fran decides to give up on her date and go to the movies.
At Rampart, after advising that Dix not get further involved in the Boot matter, Morton tells her what a dog's normal temperature is, which indicates that the station mascot isn't running one. Then they hear an explosion outside the hospital and see that an unattached immunology laboratory has burst into flames. Station 51 and several other units are called to the scene, and the hospital staff take supplies outside to get directly involved at the site of the emergency for a change. Brackett questions Dr. Frye (Jack Manning) about how many people were inside and whether they were keeping anything infectious or toxic. Frye is primarily concerned about his records, and while the firefighters are still battling the blaze, he runs in to grab them, badly burning himself. A man is rescued from inside, and afterword the fire is determined to have been an arson.
At the station, Boot finally eats when Chet brings him his dish, and it comes out that Chet yelled at Boot earlier when the dog jumped and slobbered on him. Chet is shamed into agreeing to be more tolerant of their canine companion.
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The Mary Tyler Moore Show
"Mary Richards and the Incredible Plant Lady"
Originally aired March 3, 1973
Season finale
Wiki said:
Mary and Rhoda's friendship is strained after Rhoda borrows money to set up her new plant store but does not pay Mary back.
Last appearance of: The 1966 CBS in Color logo.
Mary and Rhoda are at a dealership having their unseen cars worked on. In a beat reminiscent of a recent
Odd Couple, the service manager, Harry (Henry Corden), brings out two of the mechanics, Bob and Charlie (Robert Karvelas and Craig Nelson), to meet Mary, who's a figure of awe to them for how well she keeps her vehicle maintained. Back at home, Mary learns that Rhoda, who now has a special touch with plants, has a greenhouse going in her apartment despite the lack of anything resembling natural light. Rhoda shares her idea for opening a plant boutique, and Mary agrees to loan her nearly $1,000 to get it started. Georgette drops in with some rehearsed reactions to the plants to try to help Rhoda make her pitch to Mary, and is informed that Mary has already agreed.
At work, Mary learns from Ted that Georgette has given up her job to work at Rhoda's store, and Rhoda calls Mary needing a few hundred more. Mary goes to her bank to try to remove money from an account type that only allows withdrawal under certain circumstances, so the bank officer (Louise Lasser, Louise Lasser) ends up steering her into taking out a loan. Over six weeks later, Rhoda's business is doing well but she hasn't paid Mary back yet. Rhoda makes an excuse for her and Mary to return to the dealership, where she reveals that she's taken the money she owed Mary to make downpayment on a car that Mary was interested in buying on their previous visit but talked herself out of.
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The Bob Newhart Show
"Bum Voyage"
Originally aired March 3, 1973
Wiki said:
Bob is reluctant to go on an ocean voyage with Emily and abandon his therapy group.
The episode opens with a group therapy session featuring several of the usual suspects--Mr. Gianelli, Michelle Nardo, Mrs. Bakerman, Mr. Carlin, and Mr. Peterson. A wonky-sounding exercise for the group to express their feelings while being totally silent proves surprisingly successful, and Bob's enthusiastic about it when he goes home. What he isn't enthusiastic about is the 63-day cruise that Emily already has booked and made a deposit on. (The length does seem a bit excessive--more of a sabbatical than a vacation. We're not all working a teacher's schedule...) Emily drops by the office on another therapy night and Bob invites her to sit in. (If she says that this is the first time she's seen Bob work...) When Bob reprises the silence exercise, everyone can tell that something's bothering Emily and she explains the situation...
Emily: Well, last night my husband and I...
Bob: Uh, Emily...I'm not your husband here, I'm the doctor.
Emily: Oh, right. Well, the doctor and I were in bed last night...
The group is surprisingly supportive of Bob and Emily taking the trip, and when Bob shares his concern about the therapy sessions, they agree to continue meeting in his absence.
Emily: Oh, Bob, isn't that great? Look, they don't need you at all!
Emily overpacks for the occasion, including bringing ten pairs of shoes (as a formerly married man, I can name that tune) and an old Nehru jacket of Bob's that Emily thinks might still be in style in Europe.
Bob: I don't think it's still in style in India.
When Mrs. Bakerman calls the apartment, Emily assumes that Bob's agreeing to cancel the trip, but he's just taking a request to place a bet in Monte Carlo.
When the Hartleys board the ship, Bob's put off by the "coziness" of their stateroom. The place becomes more crowded when their roughly bed-sized trunk is wheeled in and Jerry, Carol, Howard, and the entire therapy group drop in for a bon voyage party, to be joined by the steward (Archie Hahn) and a random passenger (Pat McCormick). (This very much reminds me of that bathroom scene.) As I saw coming a mile away, the group lingers too long and the boat starts to ship out.
In the coda, the group has somehow gotten off, and the Hartleys are still trying to figure out where the bed is.
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Not much there that's new and interesting, except the full-length Carol Burnett episodes. Also, it would be nice to see The Honeymooners and Our Miss Brooks again. But I'm sure we won't be getting the channel anyway.
You can always give Frndly a spin...
