MeTV's SuperSci-Fi Saturday Night

[Christopher]

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.

I'd say that of the three major superheroines of '70s live-action TV -- Jaime Sommers, Wonder Woman, and Isis -- I'd put WW last, not only in the quality of the show but in the talent of the actress.

And yes, I know there were also Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, but I haven't seen them since I was a kid, and even then I could tell their show was pretty cheesy.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

And yes, I know there were also Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, but I haven't seen them since I was a kid, and even then I could tell their show was pretty cheesy.

Take a chance....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wXNQDGXugw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JloMFCPVFus

 

[publiusr]

According to my TV listing--WVTM will be showing football tonight--bumping sven to ten.

Football...

 

[JD]

It's happening for me too. Have they done this before? I don't remember ever seeing them show live sports on MeTV before.

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.

I'd say that of the three major superheroines of '70s live-action TV -- Jaime Sommers, Wonder Woman, and Isis -- I'd put WW last, not only in the quality of the show but in the talent of the actress.

And yes, I know there were also Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, but I haven't seen them since I was a kid, and even then I could tell their show was pretty cheesy.

I might have to check out Legend of Isis some time. That and Electra Woman and Dyna Girl are the only ones of those show's I've never seen.
EDIT: I swear they had Isis on Hulu, but I can't find it now. It's not on Amazon Streaming or DVD or Netflix either. I guess I might have to try YouTube.

 

[Christopher]

I might have to check out Legend of Isis some time. That and Electra Woman and Dyna Girl are the only ones of those show's I've never seen.
EDIT: I swear they had Isis on Hulu, but I can't find it now. It's not on Amazon Streaming or DVD or Netflix either. I guess I might have to try YouTube.

Well, it's called The Secrets of Isis on home video, though it was just Isis when I watched it as a kid. It is on Hulu here: http://www.hulu.com/the-secrets-of-isis Oddly, they don't have its sibling show Shazam!

I rewatched it myself a few years back. It's not brilliant, and it had a tiny budget for special effects, but Joanna Cameron was a pretty striking lead, as was Joanna Pang as her teenage friend in the first season. What's weird and amusing about it is that Isis is basically omnipotent. She has total control over the elements and the forces of nature. So it's kind of odd that she actually does so little with her powers. If she weren't so benevolent, she could be quite terrifying.

 

[The Old Mixer]

It's happening for me too. Have they done this before? I don't remember ever seeing them show live sports on MeTV before.

I think that sort of thing would depend on your affiliate channel, not the cable network itself. My affiliate replaces some of Me's lineup with paid programming...not too much now, but it used to be a lot worse. Ergo I'd see Me commercials for shows that I couldn't watch.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

They're doing it on KVOS too!

 

[The Old Mixer]

We got Batman here.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

According to my TV listing--WVTM will be showing football tonight--bumping sven to ten.

Football...

College football is huge--popular and earns more money than you can imagine. That's why reruns are routinely bumped from the schedule during the fall season.

 

[Saga]

luckily i have two chs that carry Me TV. one has football and one is playing the regular Saturday shows.

 

[Christopher]

Well, my MeTV affiliate isn't showing sports, luckily.

Batman: "Catwoman Goes to College"/"Batman Displays His Knowledge": College students wearing beanies? Was that ever a thing, even in the sixties?

Lots of New York City geography puns in this one. Chimes Square, the Gotham White Way, the Avenue of the Armenias, Spay Stadium.

And Stanley Adams appears too, as Captain Courageous. I'd forgotten he was in this.

Why did Batman break out of prison, anyway? Why not just have Robin call the Commissioner and get Batman released?

Bruce brought Dick up to speed "on the way down" the Batpoles? Just how long a trip is that?

It took me a moment to get the joke behind the name of the woman selling the cat's-eye opals, Amber Forever. And though I immediately got Catwoman's line "Pack up those baubles in your old kit bag," it took me a longer while to realize that "Old Kit Bag" was another cat pun.

In the Freddie the Fence scene, it was kind of odd to see one of the villains on this show doing something as conventionally criminal as trying to fence stolen goods. Yet almost refreshing too.

I wonder why the climactic location was something as mundane as a model house, of all things. Maybe the budget was tight and they had an opportunity to reuse a standing set from some other show.

They hardly did anything with the whole "Bruce Wayne is Catwoman's parole officer" angle. Why even bother?


Wonder Woman: "Disco Devil": Ohh, good lord, it's a disco episode. And a psychic episode. And there's a Wolfman Jack cameo, with no Cylons in sight.

Still... it's the Professor! Yay! Though Russell Johnson is kind of wasted here as the general or colonel or whatever he was.

Although I wasn't expecting much, it actually turned out pretty well. It was written by Alan Brennert, a fairly accomplished TV/comics/SF author, and it had some good moments, like Dell's angst about the power he has, and the amusing way that Cathy's seduction routines fell flat with Dell because he was just too nebbishy. And I liked how it set up that the bad psychic was afraid of Dell and then waited until the end to explain why. That was a nice payoff. Plus, though I'm no fan of psychic stories, at least it was a fantasy/SF premise instead of an ordinary crime caper.

But still... disco??

 

[The Old Mixer]

You're watching a show that was produced in the late 70s...your reaction to an episode featuring disco and Wolfman Jack should be, "Thank God, both shoes have dropped!"

"Captain Courageous" is a pretty silly character name even by Batman's campy standards.

 

[DWF]

They should've made Wolfman Jack the criminal mastermind, nobody'd ever suspect him.

 

[Christopher]

You're watching a show that was produced in the late 70s...your reaction to an episode featuring disco and Wolfman Jack should be, "Thank God, both shoes have dropped!"

Well, sure, that's my reaction after it's over. But I semi-live-blog these during commercials.

Not that I really have anything against Wolfman Jack. He was sort of an icon of my childhood -- not someone I was hugely a fan of, but part of the zeitgeist of my formative years, a familiar face and name and voice (definitely the voice).

"Captain Courageous" is a pretty silly character name even by Batman's campy standards.

Yeah. In the early episodes, they tended to adapt the comics fairly faithfully and let the humor come from the deadpan literalism of their interpretation of the comics' tropes. Over time, the show became more overtly comedic and gag-driven. The bit with Art Linkletter in the window was a bit more self-conscious and labored than their previous gags about how "ordinary" Batman and Robin considered themselves to be.

Speaking of recurring tropes, isn't this the second time that Batman and Catwoman have had the "It'll be just you and me"/"What about Robin?"/"We'll kill him!" conversation?

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

I wonder why the climactic location was something as mundane as a model house, of all things. Maybe the budget was tight and they had an opportunity to reuse a standing set from some other show.

That other show would be Dozier's The Green Hornet. The model home set was Britt Reid's living room. Nevermind that producers should have assumed that fans of both series would instantly recognize the Reid living room, or that TGH was still a first run series with three episodes left to air, where the set would be featured prominently.

On that note, if Me-TV is running Batman in broadcast order, the famous Green Hornet crossovers "A Piece of the Action" / "Batman's Satisfaction" (with Roger C. Carmel) will air next weekend.

Too bad the original "Next Week" tag (with Dozier voice over) was cut, since it was at the end of this Catwoman episode, announcing the crossover.

You can check it out at 3:20 into this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUWLrimVemM

They hardly did anything with the whole "Bruce Wayne is Catwoman's parole officer" angle. Why even bother?

Consider it an unintentional send-off of Wayne's permanently unrequited romantic feelings, as "Batman Displays His Knowledge" was the final appearance of Julie Newmar as The Catwoman--a major loss for the series.

 

[RJDiogenes]

We had sports preemptions in Boston, too. In the afternoon and evening.

On the other hand, the Decades binge this weekend is Naked City.

 

[Christopher]

By the way, I liked Paul Sand as the friendly psychic in Wonder Woman last night. He was kind of like a more understated Tom Baker.

That other show would be Dozier's The Green Hornet. The model home set was Britt Reid's living room.

I wondered if that might be it, but I haven't seen TGH recently enough to have recognized it. Plus I was, err, kind of distracted...

Nevermind that producers should have assumed that fans of both series would instantly recognize the Reid living room, or that TGH was still a first run series with three episodes left to air, where the set would be featured prominently.

Well, shows reused familiar sets all the time. The Man from UNCLE would often reuse the same mansion set as totally different mansions in consecutive episodes. Mission: Impossible did the same with their standing prison, hospital, apartment, and house sets -- and in one episode, they borrowed the living room set from The Brady Bunch, while an earlier episode used Stalag 13 from Hogan's Heroes. It's the same sort of deal with Columbo using Robby the Robot, or Kirk and Edith Keeler walking past Floyd's Barber Shop in Star Trek -- they know viewers will probably recognize it, but they still have to stay within budget and reuse what they can.

On that note, if Me-TV is running Batman in broadcast order, the famous Green Hornet crossovers "A Piece of the Action" / "Batman's Satisfaction" (with Roger C. Carmel) will air next weekend.

Indeed they will.

Consider it an unintentional send-off of Wayne's permanently unrequited romantic feelings, as "Batman Displays His Knowledge" was the final appearance of Julie Newmar as The Catwoman--a major loss for the series.

Ohh, I wish I'd realized that. Well, this wasn't one of her best stories, and it did feel like the freshness was gone. I mentioned how self-conscious the Art Linkletter bit was, and Robin's musing about the deathtraps they keep getting into and out of was also a bit self-consciously meta. And it did repeat the "We can kill Robin and be happy together" gag. The show is starting to get tired by this point anyway.

And yeah, I guess this would be the end of the Batman-Catwoman romance. The show might've been progressive enough to cast Eartha Kitt as Catwoman, but not enough to let her have a romance with a white leading man.

Let's see, what's left in the second season? Just five more 2-parters -- Green Hornet/Colonel Gumm, King Tut, Black Widow, Joker, and Mr. Freeze's swan song.

 

[publiusr]

According to my TV listing--WVTM will be showing football tonight--bumping sven to ten.

Football...

College football is huge--popular and earns more money than you can imagine. That's why reruns are routinely bumped from the schedule during the fall season.

I flipped the channels--no football after all--another listing error.

 

[Greg Cox]

According to my TV listing--WVTM will be showing football tonight--bumping sven to ten.

Football...

College football is huge--popular and earns more money than you can imagine. That's why reruns are routinely bumped from the schedule during the fall season.

I flipped the channels--no football after all--another listing error.

Yeah, here in Pennsylvania, the guide listings were in error. Our local MeTV affiliate showed their regular Saturday night programming, despite the listings saying "college football" would be aired instead.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Interesting. I never actually turned it on, so I don't know what they actually showed here.