MeTV's SuperSci-Fi Saturday Night

Then too--they would worship him as the Green Man.

 

Hulk: “Equinox”: Wow. This was great. Usually the main story is about the people David gets involved with, while McGee’s pursuit is a secondary element. This episode inverts the formula in a way I would’ve liked to see more often, with the guest-of-the-week story serving as a backdrop to a tense, dramatic story about the cat-and-mouse game between McGee and David. The stuff with the spoiled heiress was forgettable (though the actress was really hot), but this is the best confrontation between the two lead adversaries in the entire series. It starts out in the middle of the chase, and McGee is relentless throughout. Jack’s even got a trenchcoat like Zenigata from Lupin the Third! Not to mention that he goes full James Bond with the wetsuit and the fancy costume for the ball. McGee’s been closer on David’s heels these past few weeks than ever before. Granted that it’s an artifact of the airing order, but it’s as if his experiences in “Proof Positive” have given him a second wind. He’s been getting closer and closer, and now it finally happens -- he corners “John Doe”(conveniently at a masquerade ball) and we get the frank exchange I’ve been waiting for since “Mystery Man,” if not since the pilot. No amnesia, no evasions, just pure truth, everything on the table. (Well, everything except David’s identity.) It’s terrific stuff.

The one flaw is the Hulk-out in the middle of the big confrontation. It’s almost slapsticky the way David klutzes himself into a quickie metamorphosis -- and then the Hulk runs off after a brief confrontation with McGee and seemingly changes back almost instantly, because there’s no trail of destruction for McGee to follow, and it’s comical to see him opening perfectly intact doors and windows to look for the Hulk. Given that the episode opened with the Hulk, they could’ve skipped this transformation entirely and still met their usual two-per-episode quota of Hulk appearances.

 

Good point!

 

Indeed, it seems trivial now.

No, the Dallas thing was huge. People were betting on the outcome. I guessed right, but I wasn't smart enough to place any bets.

They were already starting to get popular in the late 70s. When I was still in high school, they were a common prize on radio call-in contests ("Guess the secret sound," that sort of thing). When I graduated and went to work full time, and suddenly found myself overflowing with money, one of the first things I did was buy a VCR. It was as big as a wagon and weighed a ton, and it cost me almost a thousand dollars. I think I still have it packed away in one of my dungeons.

 

Yes it was--covered by competing networks, radio talk shows discussing it, on more magazine covers than one can imagine. You could not go far without seeing Hagman or a Dallas reference at the time.

Yep--commercially available, and I knew a few of families who had VCRs--to the point where they debated the qualities of Beta vs. VHS. My family bought a Sony Betamax in '81, and I've since transferred surviving tapes of that period to digital. What a different TV culture that was.

 

I don't think they would've used a Flash villain in a Batman show, not back then. Heck, it was rare enough at the time to use comics villains at all in live-action superhero adaptations. So if they'd used either of those, it would've been the Human Key. But they weren't above creating original characters that covered similar territory to comics characters -- for instance, Marsha, Queen of Diamonds had a similar "love potion" angle to Poison Ivy. (And the Archer was basically an evil Green Arrow.)

I had no idea who Howard Duff was when I saw the cameo, so I looked it up to find out what was being referenced.

 

...with his usual dark intentions (curare).

If it was Bixby's main double--Frank Orsatti--he was in an unusual position, since Orsatti had moved up to directing, and while still contracted as a stuntman, probably was not as focused on keeping his appearance similar to Bixby's, hence the hair difference. Or, he just did not think about such things.

He's a begging, moaning ass throughout the episode...oh, and let's not forget that attempted murder thingy. Not really high on the likeability scale.

McGee did not mention it, but its clear he can only be talking about John Doe.

Ah, but in 1980, disco was a still-popular genre of music, many nightclubs still played it well into the New Wave era (which had not taken over more adult clubs' play lists), and as in the case of rock-heads either slowly warming up to (or flat out rejecting disco's arrival), you had the same among the disco crowd when New Wave entered the culture.

1: After "Mystery Man," where McGee failed to see John Doe's face, it would make sense that the man would do anything to protect his identity--no matter who he was. After hearing "McGee's Manifesto" in that episode, it only makes sense that John Doe would aggressively protect his identity--maintaining the edge of anonymity from a man who constantly proves he will do anything to capture/exploit him.

2. There's no denying John Doe was present at the lab explosion--and his focus on Elaina might speak to the fact that the Hulk was able to attempt to save her--there's a stronger personal connection in that act, than anything he might say about Banner--believed to be burned to death (and beyond the Hulk's ability to eve attempt a rescue).

..and in the same scene, he was more threatening in approaching McGee than he was with a man who just tried to kill Diane.

It was little more than a passing reference--there's no hard action, process or dialogue about David trying to find a cure. Like the library scene in "Deathmask," its a reference with no true, plot significant effect (e.g. the pilot, "Kindred Spirits," "Married," "The First," etc.).

 

Part of a larger problem. The series was dialing it in at this point--living off the fumes of the "Batmania" from Winter/Spring 1966. That, and Dozier was simply not as committed to his signature production, with Greenway also producing The Green Hornet, The Tammy Grimes Show, the Batman movie, the Wonder Woman presentation reel and the Dick Tracy pilot. Too many irons in the fire, to be sure. So, the scripts having Gordon just magically assume the Joker was behind it all was a departure from the more measured way the GCPD would guess a particular villain's involvement in the season one days.

Dialing it in. Lazy writing.

That line would have mattered if it had been introduced in S1's "The Joker is Wild," then referred to again here--at least here would be a bit of character / continuity building, but...

AKA cheapie costume department recycling.

...er...maybe they were running thin on the two or three plot templates so often used at this point in the series?

 

Maybe...

This is why I also mentioned nightclubs; establishments were not quick to "flip the switch" to a new genre on a clientele overnight--particularly if said clientele were set in their tastes. While some New Wave and extended single tracks did work their way into clubs, disco was still being played in many establishments in 1980.

...having no real effects, particularly since songs such as the Bee Gee's "Love You Inside Out" and "Tragedy" had been major hits in the spring of the same year. If that rally had any meaning at all, the sentiment behind it would have been seen having negative sales effects on the aforementioned music released only a couple of months earlier. Moreover, the Donna Summer / Barbra Streisand duet, "No More Tears" (Enough is Enough) was a US #1 hit after its October, 1979 release, and Summer's own "On the Radio" a US #5 hit the following month. They were nothing except big dance songs, so it proved disco still had the power to shoot to the top, since there was a culture still enjoying it. If there was a decline, it was on the fringes at that point in '79, and cultural trends do not vanish overnight.

I categorize a true cure related episode as one where its a functional part of the plot (like the episodes mentioned), or framing Banner's actions, such as the reason he's travelling in "Death in the Family." In "Deathmask" and "Equinox," he just happens to be reading, but those brief scenes are not explored, nor do they have any real bearing on the plot.

 

I can't think of anything that really compares to it. Roots, maybe, but that was a more general excitement, rather than an obsession with a single plot twist or mystery.

Oh, yeah, Beta versus VHS. The first video store that opened down the street from my apartment complex had both-- but the Beta was just a tiny corner of limited selections way in the back. I always felt sorry for the poor Beta people.

I always thought that was so cool when I was a kid, not just on Batman but in general. Like that sequence where Green Goblin has Spider-Man tied to a chair, in costume but without his mask.

"This ain't no night club. No CBGB's."

 

Land of the Giants: "The Inside Rail": I hadn't expected much from an episode revolving around Fitzhugh's antics at a giant racetrack, but this one was actually a lot of fun. There were some clever problems and solutions for the team, and some excellent witty banter among them. Also an interesting score from Harry Geller, although it got a bit sitcommy in the parts with the friendly bum. The ending was a little weak, though. Fitzhugh was right that having a supply of giant money could've potentially been useful, if they'd figured out the right way to use it.

I like how Barry was written and played here. He's a bit more mature now, and not so wide-eyed and gullible about Fitzhugh's nonsense. He was also pretty resourceful in figuring out a way to lift the bridle off Fitzhugh. (Although it seemed like it would've been a lot easier just to dig out the loose sand underneath him.)

They're making more use of bluescreen effects this season, rather than the split-screen stuff they usually go with. And the main split-screen shot they did, with Fitzhugh on the back of the bench talking to the bum, did a pretty poor job of matching the real bench to the enlarged set piece.


The Time Tunnel: "Merlin the Magician": This was mediocre and weird. It's not the first time they've added fantasy to the sci-fi premise -- the episode about the ghost of Nero did it before -- but adding a Merlin with such immense magical power was problematical, since they didn't do a very good job justifying why he could do such extraordinary things yet still needed Tony and Doug's help. Sure, there was handwaving about how certain things needed to be done by mortals (with no explanation why) and how Merlin's "miracles" were limited in number, but surely he could've used that finite number of miracles to enact a less convoluted plan to help Arthur drive out the Vikings.

Although, of course, it's about 250 years early for Viking raids in Britain. If this is a 6th-century Arthur, then he would most likely have been a Cornish chieftain fighting against Anglo-Saxon conquest. (It's odd that the culture Arthur saw as an invading enemy ended up co-opting him as their own foundational hero.) But then, the script was obviously written around the stock footage they had -- apparently from the 1954 James Mason/Janet Leigh Prince Valiant, which I guessed right away based on Arthur's haircut. (Apparently that film's Franz Waxman score was often drawn from for stock music in this and other TTT episodes.) Merlin's random plan to make the British raiders of the castle look like Vikings was clearly an excuse to match the Valiant footage.

The teaser clip for next week has some silly bits. "Check all channels from 100 to infinity -- and make it quick!" Plus the trend of future/alien people being spray-painted silver continues... and the cliffhanger comes on an exciting scene of... Woody and Ray putting a data card into a computer!!


Can someone remind me of MeTV's Kolchak: The Night Stalker schedule? What's tonight's episode? I've totally lost track, and I think I missed at least one.

 

Okay, then I missed "The Spanish Moss Murders" last week. Here are my reviews for both Kolchak episodes:


“The Spanish Moss Murders”: This is Richard Kiel’s second monster gig in a row on this show. And it’s still going backward in time -- we’re in July now. Speaking of time, Kolchak says he’s lived in Chicago a long time, but two years ago he was based in Las Vegas and the year after that in Seattle, and at the end of the second movie, he and Vincenzo were headed for New York City. Maybe he started out living in Chicago and moved back in ’74? I dunno, I’m starting to feel this is the kind of older show where every episode is pretty much in its own separate parallel reality -- given how the timeline jumps around and the police captain is a different person every week. Plus, there’s the implausibility that one guy would keep stumbling upon supernatural crimes 20 times in a year, or that Kolchak would keep his job and stay out of jail given all the stories he fails to get published and the antics he gets up to in the course of them.

Nice twist, though, with Keenan Wynn’s captain getting anger management therapy and being a departure from the usual shouty authority figures -- although it was a given that Kolchak would eventually overwhelm his self-control.


“The Energy Eater”: Another unusual monster, this time an invisible one (which saves money). It’s fairly imaginative and makes for an interesting situation, but once again we get a white actor pretending to be Native American, and a fairly hamfisted treatment of North American history and anthropology. Not only is Chicago just beyond the westernmost edge of Iroquois expansion, but there’s no way there were ever Neanderthals in North America. The plot is also inconsistent. Poor Nurse Eisen is killed off without Kolchak even noticing, and the big x-ray mosaic of the creature is forgotten when Carl suddenly decides to go get an IR or UV photo. Which puts him in danger rather uselessly in the climax, since it’s the hospital staff’s use of liquid nitrogen that stops the monster and Kolchak just gets in the way and gets himself hurt for nothing. That’s a pretty clumsy way to do a climax.

Good news for Jack Grinnage (Ron Updyke), though, since he gets promoted to a “Co-starring” credit in the Act I titles.

 

The older Jackson's big splash after leaving his oppressive father (and other players') control. The song is more memorable for the behind the scenes drama leading to Jackson's emancipation than any creative merit.

Dance music raged on in 1980, though the shift to then-new producing styles pointed toward the decade to come.

What a year: Ambrosia was one of the well embraced top 40 acts of the late 70s/early 80s, and even as a near total shift of music culture / producing already hit the industry, there was still a place for their kind of mature soft rock (later categorized as "adult contemporary."

...and this week on The Incredible Hulk...BADA-BING!

 

Another one that elicits next-to-nothing in the way of recollections.

An enduring classic of silliness (and a sexy video).

Pat Benatar. Not her best song, but still one of the greatest voices ever in Rock'n'Roll.

Not a big Ambrosia fan.