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50th Anniversary Viewing Revisited
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"The Night of the Diva"
Originally aired March 7, 1969
Wiki said:
West and Gordon investigate the recent disappearance of several opera divas in New Orleans. While there they unravel a plot involving the secret Order of Lucia and also reveal who among their new acquaintances is playing a role on and off the stage.
Artie rides into New Orleans on the train, transporting Italian diva Rosa Montebello (Patrice Munsel). Production-wise, I confirmed that this was Ross Martin's first episode back, and a very warm greeting is exchanged between Jim and Artie, who clearly haven't seen each other in some time. (More on the production order of Martin's absence below.) Artie is escorting the high-maintenance diva--who has him wearing earplugs--as a favor to the president. Jim offers to play Substitute Artie that night so that Artie can accept an invitation to dine at the governor's mansion. (Another instance of Artie receiving special attention that doesn't extend to Jim.) Outside in a coach that was at the station, two men watch Montebello's departure for the opera house--one of them wearing a gold, classical-style mask.
At the performance of
Lucia di Lammermoor, the curtain goes down when it's not supposed to, and Jim dives through a set wall to foil an abduction attempt by several costumed extras. One is killed by an accomplice's spear, and with his dying words brings attention to the ring he's wearing, which has a raised lightning bolt on it. Col. Richmond (Douglas Henderson) and a secretary from the local office, Ellen Collingwood (Patricia Dunne), turn up that the man was a Pierre Deluc (Khalil Bezaleel), that the ring indicates that the man is member of the Order of Lucia, and that there's a history of divas who've played the same role at that theater disappearing.
Artie, disguised as a Count Vladislav de Raja, escorts Montebello to a reception at the manor of the mysterious Crenshaw brothers. Montebello introduces Count Artie to her host, Max Crenshaw (Patrick Horgan), while the unmasked man from the coach (Martin Kosleck, whose character's name we eventually learn is Igor) watches from a landing. Max takes Rosa on a stroll in the garden, where he explains that his brother, Karl, is a recluse because of an affliction. After spotting a matching ring on Igor, Artie snoops around upstairs, where he hears the masked man complaining to Igor about the dinner that was brought to him and Max's wandering attention. Through a peephole cut into stained glass, Artie sees a handbill about a Caroline Mason and a prominent portrait of her.
Meanwhile, Jim investigates a club where singers are known to hang out, asking the bartender (Jorge Ben-Hur) about members of the order. The singer there, Angelique (Beverly Todd), takes an interest, as the ring belonged to her uncle. She arranges a rendezvous at the opera house while there's no performance. There she takes him to the back room where her uncle lived and tells him of how her Deluc started acting strangely after the death of Caroline Mason in a fire. They hear somebody outside and Jim is ambushed by men rappelling down from the rafters, but sends them scurrying. Ellen brings Jim Angelique's address. After he leaves, Artie exposits his plan to use Montebello as bait to draw the would-be kidnappers out, and when Ellen objects to the diva danger, he corners her into volunteering to impersonate Rosa.
Artie escorts Not Rosa on a coach ride, and reassures her that everything's proceeding as intended when they're gassed. Jim finds Angelique's place ransacked, and a clue drawn in some powder. Jim goes back to Deluc's room in the theater and uses the ring to unlock a locker that's actually an elevator. In the requisite underground lair, he hears singing and crawls through the requisite roomy ventilation shaft to see the gold-masked figure playing an organ with two singers captive in hanging cages, criticizing their performances of Lucia against Caroline Mason's. Artie and Not Rosa are brought down, and the masked figure tells them of his ambition to train her to take Caroline's place...or else. He starts to play an organ and insists that she sing, then removes her veil to find that she's...Not Rosa. Jim ziplines down to the rescue and makes short work of the minions. The masked man takes a fatal tumble from the stairs and Jim finds that under the mask is...Caroline Mason (Geraldine Baron), her vocal chords damaged so that she sounds like a man, baby. Max explains how it was her maid that died in the fire and was identified as her.
The coda takes place at a party hosted by the real Rosa, in which she's expresses her relief to the Fake Count that Mr. Gordon won't be there to spoil their evening together.
Lester Fletcher is credited as Karl Crenshaw, a character who wasn't explicitly introduced. I think he may have been the man playing Mason's voice and the figure in the mask, whom we were clearly meant to think was Karl. I'm guessing that there never was a Karl, and the brother was a cover story for the unseen, man-voiced person who lived upstairs, but this could have been more clearly established.
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The Mod Squad
"A Run for the Money"
Originally aired March 11, 1969
Wiki said:
Pete, romantically involved with a girl whose father (Tom Bosley) is in prison for robbery, faces a dilemma when he finds the stolen cash.
Pete's making out with his gal, animation artist Ginny Wells (Lesley Ann Warren, here sporting a short, dark blonde look), at her pad when she gets a call and rushes out, not even stopping for introductions to the arriving Linc and Julie outside. Being nosy cop types, they tail her in the now-functioning woodie to the state pen, where Pete learns from a trustee (Sam Edwards) outside that her father's an inmate. Back at Ginny's place, Pete fesses up to his snoopiness and asks her about the situation. She describes how a dying supermarket robber implicated her father as an accomplice; and tells him that a recent incident in which other inmates tried to beat the location of the money from him may have hurt his chances for parole. Pete asks to visit her father, John (Tom Bosley), and asks him to speak honestly about what happened. He admits that he did steal the money, and tells Pete that the two prisoners who beat him are threatening his life over the money, having a partner on the outside. He points Pete to the entrance of an old mine, saying that he wants to return the money via his lawyer. Pete seems suspicious of it all, but doesn't let on to what Wells told him to the other Mods outside. Meanwhile, John finds himself roughed up again over Pete's visit while hauling out laundry.
Pete makes a solo trip to the mine at night, is attacked by a guy with a shovel, and is promptly arrested by a couple of patrol officers. Pete is interrogated by D.A. Chambers (Ed McNamara) with Greer present but maintaining Pete's cover. Wells is brought in, but won't admit to what he told Pete, and claims that Pete threatened him and that he told Pete the same story about a mine as he told the guys who beat him. Greer tries to intervene on Pete's behalf, but the names of the other prisoners and Wells's lawyer that Wells gave to Pete turn out to have been made up. With the shovel attacker in the hospital, things are looking bad for Pete, so Greer lets Chambers in on Pete's secret ID, but the D.A. is incredulous and insists that Pete be treated as any other suspect...so Greer has him booked.
Ginny visits Pete in jail but wants to believe her father's story over Pete's. Greer informs the other Mods that Wells is getting his parole the next day (reinforcing the pattern that they're using the Gotham penal system on this show), then offers to get Pete out on bail if he behaves himself and doesn't go after Wells...though Greer plans to keep and eye on both, and breaks the idea to Pete that Ginny may be in on the whole thing. A couple of Larry's buddies watch as Pete leaves the jail, thinking that he knows where the money is. While Ginny's away, Wells slips out a second-floor window and loses his stake-out. Pete figures that the Wellses are heading to Mexico as Ginny had discussed doing with her father, and he and Linc head to the farm where she was raised that's along the way...while the shady goons follow. (Are they supposed to be the same guys who were just on the inside, too?)
At the farm, Wells insists on going for a solo drive, leaving Ginny at the house. Pete arrives to talk to Ginny, and plays hardball with her, trying to convince her that her father's going after the money...which includes revealing his secret ID. She takes him to a lake that was a favorite fishing spot. Wells gets there first and uses a crowbar to loosen some rocks under a bridge, where a lockbox is hidden, full of cash. Pete, Linc, and Ginny arrive, and she catches her father green-handed. Then the thugs drop in, armed. Wells tosses the box at one of them, a multi-party struggle ensues, and Wells is shot at close range. He makes a dying confession of his own to Ginny, that Pete was telling the truth.
In the coda, Pete's gotten off thanks to Ginny's testimony. She says that she plans to go to Mexico to see the place that her father was planning to take her too, and Pete joins up with the other Mods to walk off through the courthouse parking lot.
One of the thugs was named Phillips (Bob Hoy), which I only caught thanks to the closed captioning. I'm not sure who the remaining three characters on the cast list were, though I assume some of them were the other thugs after the money.
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"The Night of the Bleak Island"
Originally aired March 14, 1969
Wiki said:
To get a diamond for the National Museum, West travels to an eerie island supposedly haunted by a mad dog. While there he becomes reacquainted with an old friend, British detective Sir Nigel Scott.
The episode opens with very familiar footage of weather starting getting rough and a tiny ship being tossed...
Where's the courage of fearless agent Ned Brown when you need it? Jim's being boated to the island estate of Joseph Bleak, a wealthy, deceased recluse who donated the unique Moon Diamond to the National Museum. The boat is greeted by a guy who just killed the official greeter--a detail that doesn't seem to go anywhere--and the skipper (Jon Lormer) refuses to go ashore because of the legend of the Hound of Bleak Island...cue mysterious howling.
In the island's manor, Jim meets a cast list full of susp...people who are there for the reading of the will. In addition to two who were on the boat--Bleak's business partner Ronald McAvity (James Westerfield) and nephew Mark Chambers (Gene Tyburn)--there's also Bleak's sister and house resident Celia Rydell (Beverly Garland); her husband, Steven (Robert H. Harris); Joseph's ward Alicia Crane (Jana Taylor), who has a thing going with Mark that Celia doesn't approve of; attorney Mordecai Krone (Richard Erdman); housekeeper Helen Merritt (Lorna Lewis); and IMDb doesn't say who was playing Professor Plum. While showing Jim his room, Merritt tells him that the Rydells were keeping Joseph isolated from the outside world; implies that she was Joseph's lover; and alleges that the howling is that of a beast that Celia has brought to the island to kill her. Jarvis the butler (Pat O'Hara) slips Jim a note requesting a meeting before the will is read, then drops dead. Jim bolts out of a clattering French door to pursue a hooded figure into the greenhouse, where he's assaulted by a group of hooded figures, who are sent running when Sir Nigel Scott (John Williams) comes to Jim's aide.
An old acquaintance whom Jim worked with in London five years prior, Sir Nigel asserts that Jarvis was killed by a blowgun, expresses a low opinion of Scotland Yard, and insists that his old nemesis, Dr. Jacob Calendar--a master of disguise whom nobody has seen the true appearance of but is believed to be dead--is on Bleak Island. The famous detective was summoned by Celia to deal with the Hound of the Bleakervilles. The reading of the will commences. Celia and hubby get the estate; Mark gets the paintings; Alicia gets $300,000 for her wedding day; the National Museum gets the diamond; Helen gets Joseph's controlling shares in his company; and McAvity gets "a hell on Earth," "the fires of perdition". Then the lights go out, the doors burst open, and a pair of glowing eyes accompany the growling of the Hound, which is shot at, but no trace of it is found outside. Sir Nigel and Jim go to inspect the diamond in its chamber, and when the lights dim, Jim sends Nigel out, then is knocked out by a gas pellet thrown through the high, basement-style window, but not before seeing a figure carry the diamond off.
Jim is slapped awake by Nigel; outside they come across Ellen, who says that Steven was shooting at her, but Steven claims that he thought he was shooting at the hound. It's discovered that the boat is missing, but from before the diamond was stolen, which makes it a locked island mystery. Back in the diamond chamber, Jim uses his piton pistol line to go up and inspect the window, and determines that it was broken from the inside, so he and Sir Nigel look for a secret entrance...finding one in a panel behind a mummy's coffin, which leads to a wine cellar where they find Krone well into the process of sampling the stock. In a barrel they find the diamond, and Sir Nigel disdainfully dismisses Krone as being too incompetent to be Calendar.
In the greenhouse, Mark and Alicia have a rendezvous, but are interrupted by a figure with a knife. Alicia runs around outside for a bit and is caught up to by Jim and Mark. Jim asks her about the cellar, and she says that barrels of wine had been selected by Jarvis on behalf of Celia as gifts for Jim and some of the other visitors. Jim becomes intrigued by the nearby abandoned caretaker's cottage, which he inspects to be attacked by several hooded figures again. Then Sir Nigel reveals his presence, and Jim guesses that he's really Calendar...which I saw coming at least as long as Jim did. With some prodding from Jim, Nigel explains that there was a real Calendar, who is dead, but that he missed the excitement and challenge that his nemesis provided, so he assumed Calendar's role as well as his own. With the help of his henchmen, Sir Nigel takes the diamond and leaves Jim in a well. Nigel also reveals that the hound was brought to the island by him. Having left his pistol with Mark, Jim resorts to plan B for climbing out of the well...a pair of climbing claws that pop out of his sleeves (which I think may have appeared before). Meanwhile, the hound, which apparently doesn't get along with Sir Nigel, runs after and attacks him, causing him to fall off a cliff into the rock-lapping drink, leaving the diamond behind for Jim.
In the coda, Jim is entertaining a Nancy Conrad (Yvonne Shubert) on the train, having delivered the diamond to the museum, when the newlywed Mr. and Mrs. Chambers drop in with a gift and note from Artie, who at this point is promising his imminent return.
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Wild Wild West Season 4 production order note
I finally noticed that
Wiki's episode list includes production numbers off to the right...and as I suspected, the narrative of Artie's absence and return makes a lot more sense in production order than it does in airdate order, which makes a big deal about his prolonged absence when he's not in the episode, but has him popping in and out randomly.
- Ross Martin was present for episodes 081 ("The Night of the Fugitives," aired 7th) through 092 ("The Night of Fire and Brimstone," aired 9th).
- Martin was absent for 093 ("The Night of Miguelito's Revenge," aired 12th, which is Pike's first appearance in production order) through 101 ("The Night of the Tycoons," aired 24th as the season and series finale).
- In production order, all of Charles Aidman's appearances as Pike are consecutive, followed by William Schallert's and Alan Hale's appearances.
- "The Night of the Bleak Island" was episode 100, two episodes before Martin's return.
- Martin returned for the last three episodes produced, 102 ("The Night of the Diva," aired 20th) through 104 ("The Night of the Cossacks," aired 22nd).
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I actually like the early take of "Tomorrow Never Knows" better than the finished product. The ex and I used to refer to it as "the lava lamp song".
That's disturbing.
Eh, nothing wrong with a little harmless personification. I'm sure that other artists have written songs about their guitars and such.
What would be the point of doing it ironically?
Good question. The distinction was lost on me.
Just kidding. I do like this.
