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MeTV's SuperSci-Fi Saturday Night

How was that supposed to work in practice? I mean, sure, it was a concept car, but it was otherwise a fully functional one.

It was just an auto show car, Ford never tried to get it certified as street legal. It didn't have rearview or side mirrors, either.
 
I admit, I'm vague on the idea of "concept cars." Are they meant to be proposals for future auto designs and innovations, or are they just supposed to be cool-looking? Is it like fashion shows, where a lot of the outfits they show are nothing that anybody could ever practically wear in any context besides a fashion runway?
 
I admit, I'm vague on the idea of "concept cars." Are they meant to be proposals for future auto designs and innovations, or are they just supposed to be cool-looking? Is it like fashion shows, where a lot of the outfits they show are nothing that anybody could ever practically wear in any context besides a fashion runway?

That's it exactly. It's pretty much putting a bunch of seemingly far-out styling and/or technology in one car and seeing if any of it sticks, and at the same time generating some buzz for the brand. Some of it, in some form, will end up in production models down the road, but much of it won't.
 
DECADES is showing "Encounter at Farpoint" today in commemoration of the anniversary of its original airing. Interesting, I didn't know that their parent company (which is also Me's) had the rights to TNG....
 
Batman: "The Joker's Last Laugh"/"The Joker's Epitaph": A fun one. I love the absurdity that after Batman reveals that the Joker happened to slip a loudspeaker cufflink onto Gordon's sleeve, that -- hey, hold on -- he also "slipped" a really long induction antenna down Gordon's pants and around his waist. Great punch line! And the bit about fishing from "a shady bank" was funny (much more so than the "super-funny joke" told to Mr. Glee).

Oh, if only rich people today were as charitable toward the poor...

I like the miniature Batcave entrance as a fakeout for criminals. Batman sure has a cheeky sense of humor here. He's been spending too much time dealing with the Joker and the Riddler. They're rubbing off on him. It's fun when he pretends to fight Robin and trips up the robots too.

Speaking of which, due to the limitations of stock music, the part where the Jokemobile was chasing the false signal was scored with the Riddler's theme. It always annoys me when a recognizable leitmotif gets reused as stock for the wrong character or situation.

Hey, this is a double whammy for the "Familiar Trek guest stars" thread. We've got Phyllis Douglas (Yeoman Mears) as Josie and Lawrence Montaigne (Decius, Stonn) as Mr. Glee.

Great cliffhanger here -- really suspenseful. And Alfred saves the day again! He does that a lot in Joker episodes.

How could Dr. Floyd have diagnosed Bruce Wayne without examining him? Well, there wasn't exactly a very enlightened attitude toward mental illness here, with the "Anti-Lunatic Squad" and all. (And leaving aside the intrinsic problems with that, if there is an Anti-Lunatic Squad, why aren't they going after the Joker?)


Wonder Woman: "The Fine Art of Crime": This is a weird one. Freezing people into lifelike statues in order to commit crimes? People actually wanting such lifelike statues? I'd think most people would find them way too creepy. Also, the return of Ed Begley, Jr.'s Harold is not welcome. Even Roddy McDowall is largely wasted.

Hold on, is Diana wearing a cross necklace? How can she be a Christian? She's an Amazon. She's not only a native of a pre-Christian culture, she's actually 550-some years older than Christ.

And how dumb did Steve -- and IRAC -- have to be to miss the obvious zodiac theme of the stolen art items? Didn't he see last week's Batman episodes?
 
Let's not forget Penthouse Publishing...purveyors of...mirth.

No doubt a coincidence. Penthouse didn't begin publishing in America until 1969. It had been around in the UK since '65, but they didn't have the Internet then, so it wasn't as easy to know about what was happening on the other side of the ocean.

Hmm, I wonder. Was this the only episode of Batman that directly referenced the existence of comic books? Other than glimpses of them on newsstands, say?
 
I only popped on DECADES briefly yesterday to see if anyone interesting was on Celebrity Bowling...didn't see anyone distinctly recognizable. Put it on randomly this morning and look who it is--70s Shatman!

Episode after that, Robert Culp replaces Shat. Probably filmed the same day, as their recurring partner was wearing the same clothes. And the episode after that, the sci-fi cred continues as Robert Culp, also wearing the same clothes, gets teamed with Earl Holliman.

I'm not sure who's winning the prizes--the celebrities or whoever they're bowling for--but they're a hoot. A radar range...really hideous-looking 70s slacks...and an answering machine almost as big as the radar range.

(Attention Stirling Silliphant fans--Next weekend's Binge is Naked City.)

ETA: Now there's an all-star lineup with sci-fi cred to spare: Leslie Nielsen and Susan St. James vs. Angie Dickinson and Lloyd Bridges!

More ETA--Look what I found:

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNvnC-CaZ0s[/yt]

There's a joke about the Enterprise's mythical bowling alley in there somewhere, but I haven't found it....
 
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(And leaving aside the intrinsic problems with that, if there is an Anti-Lunatic Squad, why aren't they going after the Joker?)

They have their hands full at the Republican debates?


She's not only a native of a pre-Christian culture, she's actually 550-some years older than Christ.

A plus sign is a pretty easy thing to draw and all.

Take the Maya and the Foliated Cross.
http://www.freethoughtnation.com/images/stories/worldtreecross.jpg
http://www.witzmountain.com/2012_Crossandtree.html
 
The Classic TV channel MeTV has a line-up of Superhero and sci-fi shows that they show every Saturday evening. They include:
The Adventures of Superman (50's George Reeve series)
Batman (60's Adam West series)
Wonder Woman (70's Linda Carter series)
Star Trek TOS (Remastered)
Svengoolie (movies)
Lost in Space
The only things on there I haven't watched are TOS, since I watch it without commercials on Netflix, and Svengoolie.
I've tried a few episodes of LiS, but that is just to cheesy for me.
I have really enjoyed the three DC show though.
Anyone else watching this stuff?

Lost in space is definitely worth watching stay away from season two try the first five episodes for free on Hulu. These are gems!!
 
They actually have full episodes of Celebrity Bowling on MeTV's website.
These were the first episodes of Batman I'd watched in a while, and enjoyed them quite a bit.
I love how nobody realizes that Alfred isn't the regular Batman even though he is way skinnier and has mustache.
I liked Bruce pretending to work with Joker, and Robin actually fighting the robots on his own. But I guess Robin probably shouldn't do to many fights on his own since this one didn't end to well.
After Bruce and Alfred changed clothes, they just left poor Alfred on the side of the road. I wonder how he got home?
The miniature Batcave entrance was a nice gag.
I was a little surprised that they had them setting up the Joker like that at the end.

ETA: So I picked up the first collection of Batman '66 last week as part of the Batman Day sales on Comixology. Anybody else read any of them, or Wonder Woman '77.
 
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After Bruce and Alfred changed clothes, they just left poor Alfred on the side of the road. I wonder how he got home?

Yeah, I guess they didn't have time to bring his trusty Alfcycle.

Still, Alfred's in pretty good shape for his age. He managed that Bat-climb pretty well. And they weren't that far from Wayne Manor.

ETA: So I picked up the first collection of Batman '66 last week as part of the Batman Day sales on Comixology. Anybody else read any of them, or Wonder Woman '77.

I've read the first two Batman '66 trade paperback collections. They're not bad, though some things aren't entirely faithful to the show -- for instance, in the first issue, B&R take their masks off in the Batcave, although that doesn't happen later. Also there's a 2-issue storyline set in London rather than Londinium (although I think London was mentioned in the Chad & Jeremy episodes). And Commissioner Gordon has glasses and doesn't look like Neil Hamilton. But it's mostly a nice evocation of the period and the style of the show, with bigger comic-book action and some modern characters added in. And they let Catwoman get in on the fights, which the show never did. (It's featured both the Newmar and Kitt Catwomen, with no explanation.)

Haven't read any of Wonder Woman '77. I would've preferred an adaptation of the WWII-era first season. I haven't seen much in the '70s-era episodes that's worth reviving.
 
DECADES is showing "Encounter at Farpoint" today in commemoration of the anniversary of its original airing. Interesting, I didn't know that their parent company (which is also Me's) had the rights to TNG....
Wiki says Decades is owned in part by CBS, which owns all of Star Trek.
 
Wiki says Decades is owned in part by CBS, which owns all of Star Trek.

Well, owning a property isn't necessarily the same thing as having broadcast rights to it. Look at Marvel. Disney/Marvel owns all Marvel Comics characters, but Marvel Studios does not have the right to make movies about some of them.

Things like broadcast or publication rights generally come with exclusivity, otherwise there's no benefit to having them. So if you own a property and you license someone else to distribute it, the contract usually guarantees that nobody else, yourself included, will be able to distribute it as long as the license lasts. So just because CBS owns a network, that doesn't automatically give that network a license to air Star Trek, not if some other network already has an exclusive license.
 
After Bruce and Alfred changed clothes, they just left poor Alfred on the side of the road. I wonder how he got home?

Yeah, I guess they didn't have time to bring his trusty Alfcycle.

Still, Alfred's in pretty good shape for his age. He managed that Bat-climb pretty well. And they weren't that far from Wayne Manor.

ETA: So I picked up the first collection of Batman '66 last week as part of the Batman Day sales on Comixology. Anybody else read any of them, or Wonder Woman '77.

I've read the first two Batman '66 trade paperback collections. They're not bad, though some things aren't entirely faithful to the show -- for instance, in the first issue, B&R take their masks off in the Batcave, although that doesn't happen later. Also there's a 2-issue storyline set in London rather than Londinium (although I think London was mentioned in the Chad & Jeremy episodes). And Commissioner Gordon has glasses and doesn't look like Neil Hamilton. But it's mostly a nice evocation of the period and the style of the show, with bigger comic-book action and some modern characters added in. And they let Catwoman get in on the fights, which the show never did. (It's featured both the Newmar and Kitt Catwomen, with no explanation.)

Haven't read any of Wonder Woman '77. I would've preferred an adaptation of the WWII-era first season. I haven't seen much in the '70s-era episodes that's worth reviving.

I noticed the London thing reading through the descriptions, and thought it was off.
 
Haven't read any of Wonder Woman '77. I would've preferred an adaptation of the WWII-era first season.

Same here, the WWII season would have been a great backdrop, and granted the freedom to do what the TV budget did not. However, I get the impression that too many think of the Carter Wonder Woman as only being defined by the 70s era stories, and by lazy, blanket association, an idea of the decade only meaning Charlie's Angels or Saturday Night Fever.

I haven't seen much in the '70s-era episodes that's worth reviving.

Some of the early season 2 episodes were okay, playing more like standard spy or crime drama than what it would become in the final season. It reminds me of the Nicholas Hammond Spider-Man series, where pretty straightforward crime scripts just so happened to involve a costumed hero.
 
Some of the early season 2 episodes were okay, playing more like standard spy or crime drama than what it would become in the final season. It reminds me of the Nicholas Hammond Spider-Man series, where pretty straightforward crime scripts just so happened to involve a costumed hero.

I'd say that's more typical of the later second season than the early part. The first eight-ish episodes were from a different showrunner than the rest (Bruce Lansbury took over after that) and had more ties to the first season. The first few season 2 episodes focused on Wonder Woman's WWII legacy, with scenarios like neo-Nazis cloning Hitler or a Japanese man seeking revenge on Wonder Woman for her wartime actions, and also acknowledged Paradise Island and the Queen. Once Lansbury took over, the show completely ignored her backstory and her Amazon ties and treated her as if she'd been working with the IADC for years. It was then that it became a generic action show with Wonder Woman tacked on.

As for what it would become in the final season, the MeTV reruns are several weeks into season 3 now, and it doesn't seem at all different from the Lansbury-produced season 2. If anything, it's become even more focused on generic crime stuff, to the point that they've had to concoct labored excuses for why an intelligence agency would even be interested in these affairs.
 
Wonder Woman is definitely the most disappointing of the three superhero shows on MeTV for me, which is a shame because it was probably the one I was most curious to see.
 
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