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55th Anniversary Viewing
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Branded
"Taste of Poison"
Originally aired May 2, 1965
Xfinity said:
McCord battles thirst and Indians en route to an Army hospital.
And this is the extended version of the opening with the extra drumbeats and a title card.
Jason is escorting a Dr. Evelyn Cole (Carol Rossen) through the desert to the hospital of a Dr. Mitchell when they find Mitchell dead behind an overturned wagon, alongside a cavalry officer (Stuart Margolin) who survived. They bury Mitchell and take the unconscious, wounded officer with them.
Meanwhile, shady travelers Howland (Clarke Gordon) and Taeger (Joseph Perry) pay a call on the homestead of a man named Luke (Walter Burke), who has the only well for 40 miles but says that it may have been poisoned by Apaches. Nobody wants to try the water, so when Jason and company come along, they decide to let them try it, though Jason finds out about it just in time.
Then the Apaches lay siege to the homestead with guns, first shooting Taeger as he's approaching the well. Howland tries to make a break for it and is also shot. When the Apaches close in, Jason runs out of ammo and gets in some hurled saber action saving Dr. Cole. After the battle, the cavalry officer expresses his faith in Jason's innocence to Dr. Cole.
Jason later catches Luke getting some water, realizing that it was never poisoned. He learns from Luke of how Howland and Taeger had stolen small bags of gold from a prospectors' office in Cascobel, which Luke had taken off their bodies. Jason takes the bags from Luke to return them.
This one definitely came off like they were trying to fill time throughout the episode. Some story beats played much more slowly than they needed to.
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12 O'Clock High
"The Hero"
Originally aired May 7, 1965 (season finale)
Xfinity said:
A World War I flying ace (James Whitmore) takes command of a new unit, but can't abandon his reckless technique of fighting.
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/the-classic-retro-pop-culture-thread.278375/page-72#post-12266728
"The Hero" is a story we've seen in other shows...the older, behind-the-times warrior who's become a liability. In the context of this show, it strikes a decent balance of semi-anthology and mission of the week, focusing on Savage's personal connection to Whitmore's character, a beloved old mentor whom he wants to give every chance, but finds he has to get tough with. In this case, "Pappy" goes out in a blaze of glory, doing a successful (if unconvincingly portrayed) solo suicide run on a vital target before he can be put out to pasture.
Unfortunate sign o' the times: An archaic usage of a slur that we're more familiar with in a post-Korean War context, here apparently referring to people in South America...and nobody bats an eyelash at its casual use over drinks.
And so ends Season 1 of 12 O'Clock High...and with it, General Savage's command of the 918th. I like Paul Burke, but I'll miss Robert Lansing's glowering presence.
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Gilligan's Island
"Physical Fatness"
Originally aired May 8, 1965
Wiki said:
When rescue looks imminent Gilligan helps the Skipper lose enough weight to get back into the navy once they are rescued. Gilligan must also gain weight so he too can return to navy life.
This week we get our first look at the Professor's lab hut. He's working on "shiny junk" that will serve as a beacon for passing planes. The thought of rescue brings up what the Skipper will do for a living after the loss of the Minnow, which leads to various bits of fat business, including breaking scales, sneaking around at night to find something to eat, and the other castaways offering various diet ideas. At one point, Gilligan accidentally puts a coconut cream pie in Skipper's face, and the Skipper enjoys it.
When Gilligan's opposite weight issue comes up, he finds himself getting overstuffed to the point where he can't stand the thought of more food. But while the others are taking the beacon raft to the lagoon, Gilligan accidentally eats the phosphorescent die, and goes all glow-in-the-dark. In the coda, the still-glowing Gilligan plays lighthouse, rotating on top of a platform, trying to attract a ship or or plane.
The castaways' food sources in this episode include soft-shelled crab and pineapple.
One of Thurston's outfits reminds me of LBJ. I wonder if that was deliberate.
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50th Anniversary Viewing
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Get Smart
"Do I Hear a Vaults?"
Originally aired May 8, 1970
Wiki said:
The Chief meets Smart at a public library to recover a special book. The book is a master list of CONTROL agents but its hiding place has now been compromised. Max and Larrabee transport the book in an armored car to a bank vault, but Max accidentally locks the vault door on both the Chief and Larrabee. As the vault only has a limited amount of air, Max and 99 decide to get an imprisoned safecracker (named "Baffles", a spoof of Raffles) but come back with a convicted master forger instead. Will the Chief and Larrabee be freed in time? Title is a spoof of Do I Hear a Waltz?
The Chief compiled the book and says that it represents 30 years' work. That wouldn't seem to work out with the idea of the Chief and Max having gone to CONTROL training school together.
When Max and 99 are visiting the prison and ask cellmate Freddie the Forger (Ned Glass) if Baffles is coming back soon, the lights briefly dim, and Freddie says, "I hope not." Freddie actually gets the Chief and Larabee out of the vault quite quickly, by putting ink from his pen into the lock to serve as a lubricant, hastening the timing mechanism. Then Larabee gets locked in again, and the Chief shushes Max about summoning help for him.
The Chief uses his Harold Clark alias again, without 99's mother around.
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Adam-12
"Log 173: Shoplift"
Originally aired May 9, 1970 (season finale)
Wiki said:
Malloy and Reed track a teenage female shoplifter who has escaped custody to the lair of a known con artist/cult leader; in a crossover From 1968 Dragnet episode "The Big Prophet" Liam Sullivan guest stars as similar con artist/drug dealer.
Being cast again as a similar character doesn't constitute a crossover.
Reed and Malloy get a call to a department store where a groovily dressed shoplifter, M'Liss Cournay (Nira Barab / Catlin Adams), has been apprehended by Jane Hayes (Nina Shipman), a policewoman who works security there part time and is an old flame of Malloy's. Malloy was seeing her a year before, and Reed wasn't familiar with her, so I guess that's supposed to be prior to the series, given how they're stretching out Reed's probation year.
At the station, Reed and Malloy lend a hand in subduing a berserk arrestee, during which time M'Liss makes a break for it and escapes the station. The officers visit the home of her wealthy family, talking to her mother (Jo de Winter), who shows them her spacious room, where they see a small shrine with a picture of a guru (Sullivan). They track down the guru, Merodach, to his backlot temple, where they learn that M'Liss goes by a different name there and that she stole the watch as an offering. They're back at the station looking into Merodach's history of unsuccessful fraud convictions when they learn that Mr. Courtnay (Richard Eastham) has gone to the department store to write them a check. Proceeding to the store, Malloy tells Courtnay that it's not that simple, and that he's figured that Courtnay must be harboring his daughter, as the officers had never disclosed the name of the department store. They then return to the Courtnay home, where M'Liss is supposed to be locked in her room, but has escaped through a window.
The officers return to Merodach's place, where they find M'Liss undergoing a christening ceremony. She's more than willing to turn herself over, having found spiritual fulfillment that fills a void left by her unattentive parents, but they also arrest Merodach for harboring her and accessory to grand theft, against his protests that he refused the watch and was planning to call them. In the coda it sounds like both will be doing some time, tough M"Liss is happy about it as she feels that it was the result of her own choice.
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I don't remember ever hearing this before. Pretty funky. Sounds like the 70s. Later 70s, that is.
I think it sounds like the period that it's in...more post-psychedelic than disco era.
Better than I expected from the title.
Pretty nice, actually.
The ol' hobgoblin is starting to regret this borderline choice of artist for inclusion in my collection. One song sounds like another.
That's a bit of a surprise.
One of my Elvis never-heard. Pretty sweet, though, and just in time for a sadly cancelled Mother's Day.
I hadn't thought of that.
Ah, okay. That's an interesting match.
I had to look it up...and had initially assumed you were right.
