No, mostly just first season, which I have on DVD, aside from the random ones I saw years ago. I never really get to see MeTV's Sunday night schedule, because of time, unfortunately.
MeTV's SuperSci-Fi Saturday Night
- Thread starter JD
- Start date
Is it New Year's Day? No, it's the Twilight Zone Series Binge!
So, did Dark Shadows just end like that? Must've sucked if you followed it for years.
So, did Dark Shadows just end like that? Must've sucked if you followed it for years.
Batman: "The Greatest Mother of Them All"/"Ma Parker": The second non-rhyming title, and surely the most anticlimactic part-2 title yet. Ma Parker is another original villain, yet not really original, since she's based on real-life criminal matriarch Ma Barker, with all her kids named after famous gangsters (like Machine Gun Kelly, Legs Diamond, etc.). This episode is by the noted mystery/detective/SF writer Henry Slesar, a pretty impressive credit.
Another gangland reference: The movie the gang robbed was called The Woman in Red, which was the nickname of the girlfriend of John Dillinger (who was killed coming out of a movie theater).
Oops, there's a hyphenation typo in the cliffhanger text: "Same Bat-time, same-Bat channel."
I love it that Batman has a seismograph to alert him to explosions in the city. That's so perfectly Batman.
Milton Berle as the prison guard? Can we retroactively interpret this as a cameo appearance by Louie the Lilac?
Plus we get a Catwoman cameo too. It's too bad we didn't get more of the rogues' gallery included. Ma's plan to form a gang of the best and brightest criminals (worst and darkest?) could've been epic if they'd had the casting budget for it.
But Ma didn't have a coherent plan at all. First she tried to blow up Batman and Robin. Then she did a 180 and told the convicts that B&R would do them a favor by putting more master criminals in jail. Then she did another 180 and tried to electrocute them. (Literally. The word "electrocute" was coined as a portmanteau of "electric" and "execute," as a verb specifically describing the act of executing someone in the electric chair.)
"Next week, the Dynamic Duo meets the Clock King"? That was unexpected. Are promos like that going to be a feature from now on?
Wonder Woman: "Knockout": Not much to say about this one -- a pretty boring episode. But Jayne Kennedy was rather lovely. Reminded me a bit of Freema Agyeman from some angles.
And I find it creepy that the IADC has a camera installed in Diana's living room.
I'm getting annoyed with how much MeTV is accelerating the video to cram in more commercials. The characters are talking so fast that it borders on the ridiculous at times. I'm tempted to go back to renting the DVDs from Netflix instead.
Another gangland reference: The movie the gang robbed was called The Woman in Red, which was the nickname of the girlfriend of John Dillinger (who was killed coming out of a movie theater).
Oops, there's a hyphenation typo in the cliffhanger text: "Same Bat-time, same-Bat channel."
I love it that Batman has a seismograph to alert him to explosions in the city. That's so perfectly Batman.
Milton Berle as the prison guard? Can we retroactively interpret this as a cameo appearance by Louie the Lilac?
Plus we get a Catwoman cameo too. It's too bad we didn't get more of the rogues' gallery included. Ma's plan to form a gang of the best and brightest criminals (worst and darkest?) could've been epic if they'd had the casting budget for it.
But Ma didn't have a coherent plan at all. First she tried to blow up Batman and Robin. Then she did a 180 and told the convicts that B&R would do them a favor by putting more master criminals in jail. Then she did another 180 and tried to electrocute them. (Literally. The word "electrocute" was coined as a portmanteau of "electric" and "execute," as a verb specifically describing the act of executing someone in the electric chair.)
"Next week, the Dynamic Duo meets the Clock King"? That was unexpected. Are promos like that going to be a feature from now on?
Wonder Woman: "Knockout": Not much to say about this one -- a pretty boring episode. But Jayne Kennedy was rather lovely. Reminded me a bit of Freema Agyeman from some angles.
And I find it creepy that the IADC has a camera installed in Diana's living room.
I'm getting annoyed with how much MeTV is accelerating the video to cram in more commercials. The characters are talking so fast that it borders on the ridiculous at times. I'm tempted to go back to renting the DVDs from Netflix instead.
I wasn't really watching WW, but I caught the video phone bit. It's funny because there's a recent thread in the TNG forum about why they didn't use video communications on the ship, with the general consensus being that it would've been too much trouble and wouldn't have added anything to the scenes. This WW bit bore that out...there didn't seem to be any purpose to Diana having to talk on a video phone other than to say, "Hey, look, they have video phones!"
I had to look up Jayne Kennedy on IMDb to see if I knew her from anything else. Looks like she just did a lot of guest appearances on various shows back in the day. She was very striking.
ETA: Me has announced their Summer of Me lineup. Super Sci-Fi Saturday remains intact...looks like the only real changes are to the primetime weeknight lineup, and are underwhelming. I'll probably be spending more time on Decades.
I really liked it a few years back after I'd first discovered Me when their Summer lineup was a completely different set of shows every weeknight...more variety.
I had to look up Jayne Kennedy on IMDb to see if I knew her from anything else. Looks like she just did a lot of guest appearances on various shows back in the day. She was very striking.
ETA: Me has announced their Summer of Me lineup. Super Sci-Fi Saturday remains intact...looks like the only real changes are to the primetime weeknight lineup, and are underwhelming. I'll probably be spending more time on Decades.
I really liked it a few years back after I'd first discovered Me when their Summer lineup was a completely different set of shows every weeknight...more variety.
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It did end abruptly, but not there (I don't think-- I didn't really get to see what they showed on Saturday, but I think they continued to show them sequentially). But they never even got to any of the time travel episodes, or Quentin Collins, or Kate Jackson, or any of that stuff-- the show got increasingly crazier as it went along. They didn't give dates for the episodes, but as far as I can tell, they didn't come anywhere near where I even started watching the show. According to Wiki, they switched to color in August 1967, which happened on Decades sometime during the day on Friday, which means that they ended sometime possibly in November 1967. I didn't start watching until 1969-- possibly 1968, but I doubt it.
She was quite a babe back in the day. I remember when Kate Jackson left Charlie's Angels (odd that she would come up twice in one post), Jayne Kennedy was rumored to be one of the contenders to replace her. I was very disappointed when she didn't get the job (especially since the actress who did get it was so bad).
I only caught bits and pieces of DS, including the last ten minutes of the last episode that they showed. It had the older woman scientist/doctor who was conspiring with Barnabas confronting a man in an office who had a journal that exposed his secret and the fact that she was conducting illegal experiments. He was threatening to call the authorities when Barnabas shows up at his window as a bat.
The episodes from before they cut to other programming on Saturday morning revolved around a boy who was having encounters with the ghost of a young girl, whom I think was supposed to be Barnabas's sister, and the boy trying to show them Barnabas's secret room in the crypt so that a shrink wouldn't take him away. Eventually the ghost showed the shrink the room.
I caught a couple episodes in that group, from after the show went color, that were black and white and seemed generally poorer in quality. I take it those are cases where the master recordings didn't make it? And really, was there ever a show that should have stayed in black and white despite the times? Going all Technicolor took away some of the atmosphere.
The episodes from before they cut to other programming on Saturday morning revolved around a boy who was having encounters with the ghost of a young girl, whom I think was supposed to be Barnabas's sister, and the boy trying to show them Barnabas's secret room in the crypt so that a shrink wouldn't take him away. Eventually the ghost showed the shrink the room.
I caught a couple episodes in that group, from after the show went color, that were black and white and seemed generally poorer in quality. I take it those are cases where the master recordings didn't make it? And really, was there ever a show that should have stayed in black and white despite the times? Going all Technicolor took away some of the atmosphere.
And I don't think they even thought of the video phone bit until after they filmed Lynda Carter's half of the scene, because there was nothing in the way she performed it that suggested she was doing anything other than talking on a regular phone. And of course the footage on the screen was just the regular camera footage of her talking on the phone. So that was really sloppy.
Yeah, that's been the practice at least since the 1980s. When starting with Barnabas, there's a few major plots going on at the same time, but the viewer is just tossed into it with no chance of understanding the players and their reason to be (going on for weeks). Some programmers tend to forget DS had its supernatural elements of interest (i.e. a Phoenix, ghosts, etc.) before the vampire.
^^ They may have shown some of those episodes on Channel 56 back in the 70s, but I don't even remember. I don't think so, though, because my girlfriend at the time was really into it and I remember her constantly talking about it taking so long for Barnabas to show his fangs.
Yeah, I saw those in repeats but it was before I started watching it first run.
Yeah, you're right about those black-and-white ones-- the master recordings are lost. And it is definitely better in black and white. It didn't matter to me at the time, though. We didn't get a color TV until 1975.
So...looks like The Fugitive begins at 4 a.m. I may have to set my Not-DVR to catch the first episode.
And looking further ahead on my program guide, it looks like they're no only skipping episodes and going out of order, but will be alternating with more Twilight Zone episodes into the afternoon....
But look who's listed as a guest in the first episode...that guy who played Uncle Bill on Family Affair....
And looking further ahead on my program guide, it looks like they're no only skipping episodes and going out of order, but will be alternating with more Twilight Zone episodes into the afternoon....
But look who's listed as a guest in the first episode...that guy who played Uncle Bill on Family Affair....
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Yeah, I just got the end of it a few minutes ago. I knew I recognized him, but it took a minute to place him because he looked so young.
This alternating between Fugitive and Twilight Zone is kind of weird. Apparently they will begin their regular format on Monday, and I still don't really understand what that is.
This alternating between Fugitive and Twilight Zone is kind of weird. Apparently they will begin their regular format on Monday, and I still don't really understand what that is.
I see Richard Kimble getting beat up by local troublemakers, I'm thinking, "Don't make him angry...you wouldn't like him--oops, wrong show."
Just watched the first episode...not much of a pilot here, either. Same intro as the other episodes, he's been on the run for six months, a little bit of exposition in a couple places.
And Uncle Bill was a big, crazy jerk!
I'm looking forward to seeing exactly what they're doing Monday.
Just watched the first episode...not much of a pilot here, either. Same intro as the other episodes, he's been on the run for six months, a little bit of exposition in a couple places.
And Uncle Bill was a big, crazy jerk!
I'm looking forward to seeing exactly what they're doing Monday.
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I'm not sure what they actually did yesterday. I was on my way out the door at about 8oclock and there was a Twilight Zone episode listed in the guide, but a Fugitive episode was actually playing.
The Bill Bixby Hulk definitely drew on the classic Fugitive format in a big way, and there have been some others that did so as well. One that springs to mind is the half-hour Werewolf series from the 80s, that was one of the first shows on the brand-new Fox network (and one of the rare half-hour adventure shows since the 60s). I wish that would come to DVD.
You have high-def, right? Next week's schedule might be available to you by now. The high-def guide goes pretty far ahead.
The Bill Bixby Hulk definitely drew on the classic Fugitive format in a big way, and there have been some others that did so as well. One that springs to mind is the half-hour Werewolf series from the 80s, that was one of the first shows on the brand-new Fox network (and one of the rare half-hour adventure shows since the 60s). I wish that would come to DVD.
You have high-def, right? Next week's schedule might be available to you by now. The high-def guide goes pretty far ahead.
^Also the short-lived The Phoenix with Judson Scott...and a little show that was on the other week called Kung Fu.
I don't have HDTV...if there's a hi-def guide in my cable, I don't know how to use it.
I don't have HDTV...if there's a hi-def guide in my cable, I don't know how to use it.
Rather, both shows' creators were independently emulating Les Miserables. The network probably saw Hulk as a Fugitive knockoff, but Kenneth Johnson has always insisted he based it on LM and Dr. Jekyll. And TF's creators are on record as being inspired by LM.
It's definitely true that a lot of shows over the decades followed TF's format, a lone hero forced to flee across the country and get involved in different people's lives each week. I daresay TF was not the first show with that format, although some had other reasons for their characters to travel (e.g. Route 66, though I don't know whether that was before or after TF). It fit the goal of doing an anthology-like series with a continuing lead.
Part of the reason Gene Roddenberry's The Questor Tapes pilot never went to series is because the network wanted to write out Mike Farrell's character, erase the lead character's discoveries about his purpose at the end of the pilot, and turn the show into a Fugitive knockoff with Questor as a lone hero on the run from the government. Roddenberry abandoned the project rather than compromise it to that extent. Much later, Lawrence Hertzog did a failed pilot called Project: Tinman that was basically trying to be what the network wanted Questor to be, and it was pretty bad. Hertzog went on to do Nowhere Man, which was an attempt to do The Prisoner in the format of The Fugitive, which was ridiculous, because taking a paranoid premise like that out of a controlled, finite environment like the Village pretty much required 95% percent of the population of the US to be in on the secret evil conspiracy to screw with the hero.
Not if, y'know, they really are all in on it, man. They're out there, man, y'know?
Well, now my program guide is showing the same thing for each half-hour after 7 a.m. on Monday for DECADES--"Classic TV Shows". Yeah, that helps.... 
Another thing that "Fugitive premise" shows tend to share, which I don't know whether or not Les Miserables also has, is that even while he runs from somebody, the protagonist is driven to find something or someone specific--the one-armed man, his long lost half-brother, the cure to his metamorphoses, etc.
That's exactly what Kenneth Johnson would say, but the way it played out as a TV series whose protagonist was wandering from town to town, odd job to odd job in America made TIH more strikingly similar to The Fugitive.
Another thing that "Fugitive premise" shows tend to share, which I don't know whether or not Les Miserables also has, is that even while he runs from somebody, the protagonist is driven to find something or someone specific--the one-armed man, his long lost half-brother, the cure to his metamorphoses, etc.
Who was looking for his half-brother? And are there any shows in this category that are female-led?
Oh, I just remembered, it was Caine in Kung Fu who was looking for his half-brother, right?
I checked TV Tropes, and they have a few pages for stories of this type -- Adventure Towns and Walking the Earth for the general setting-of-the-week format, Stern Chase for the on-the-run format. I don't see any female-led shows included, unless you count something like Xena, but that wasn't about a character on the run or searching for something.
And they point out that The Fugitive was not the first show of this type by a long run; there were a number of Westerns built around the pattern, like Cheyenne, Have Gun -- Will Travel, Wagon Train, and Rawhide. Although I guess those were more just about traveling around in general than searching for something in particular.
I checked TV Tropes, and they have a few pages for stories of this type -- Adventure Towns and Walking the Earth for the general setting-of-the-week format, Stern Chase for the on-the-run format. I don't see any female-led shows included, unless you count something like Xena, but that wasn't about a character on the run or searching for something.
And they point out that The Fugitive was not the first show of this type by a long run; there were a number of Westerns built around the pattern, like Cheyenne, Have Gun -- Will Travel, Wagon Train, and Rawhide. Although I guess those were more just about traveling around in general than searching for something in particular.
