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zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
 Posted - 01/19/2008 : 3:21:52 PM
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Since the other thread was heading in that direction anyway:
The Mary Tyler Moore Show. TV critics will utter this show's name with the hushed reverance usually reserved for holy texts. Although I did enjoy this show in its heyday, in retrospect it's hard to see what all the hoopla was about. The Mary Tyler Moore Show is a good sitcom, yes, but that's all it is: a well-oiled but otherwise standard, by-the-numbers office comedy masquerading as a satire about network news. More notable was the number of careers the series helped vitalize: Ed Asner, Gavin MacLeod, Ted Knight, Betty White, Valerie Harper, et al. (In fact, it's fair to say that Moore herself was sometimes the show's weakest link.)
The Bob Newhart Show, also from MTM productions. Again, a cute, harmless comedy, but like its sister show, rather than being bolstered by top-notch comedy scripts, this seemed to rely more often on the strength of its cast of personalities -- particularly Newhart, one of the great deadpan comedians IMHO, but also Suzanne Pleshette, Bill Daily, Marcia Wallace, and various guest stars playing Newhart's whacked out patients (Newhart played a psychiatrist).
These shows were hardly the weakest of their lot, but they're good for starters. |
Edited by - zombiewhacker on 01/19/2008 3:23:05 PM
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Sardu
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1126 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2008 : 3:40:44 PM
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The Bob Newhart Show pales, I think, in comparison to its 80's successor, Newhart. If it hadn't been for such a great sequel, the first series might seem stronger in hindsight...
Mine is Night Stalker. Man, I LOVED that show as a kid and waited years for it to hit DVD and when it finally did... well, Darren McGavin is truly great and about carries the whole thing by himself but the rest of the show ranges from bad to ludicrously bad. You can't go home again.
"Meeting you makes me want to be a real noodle cook"
--Tampopo |
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RossM
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
427 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2008 : 5:46:33 PM
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For me its Colombo. Peter Falk is hilarious for sure, and I like how the show is from the point of view of the killer, but the plots are all exactly the same. Colombo knows right from the start that its the millionaire killer and spots the key evidence within seconds. Then its just a matter of trapping the guy. But Falk is so watchable that the show is not bad by any means, just not nearly as good as I remember it being.
One show that is even greater than I remember it being is The Addams Family. But thats another discussion.
rossM |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 01/20/2008 : 08:41:33 AM
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The thread mentions Suzanne Plechette, and less than 24 hours later, she dies. :(
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hbrennan
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Philippines
1455 Posts |
Posted - 01/20/2008 : 10:21:37 AM
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For me, it's The Twilight Zone. When I was a kid, I found them to be quite frightening and unwaveringly eerie. Now, when I watch them, I can see how they tended to telegraph their "ironic\shock" endings and loped along with their by-the-numbers plots. Don't get me wrong, some are classics - just not as many as I remember. Their biggest strength lied in Rod's ability to find excellent actors (like Jack Klugman) and help them get the air time they deserved.
On that note, I'd like to point out one show that was actually better than I remembered it. That would be The Outer Limits. Most likely because a lot of it must have gone over my head when it first aired and I was too young to pick up on many of the nuances. In my opinion, the stories presented on that show outclassed The Twilight Zone in sheer imagination.
BTW - R.I.P. Suzanne Pleshette
"...yet it hadn't destroyed his brain."
re: Charles "The Butcher" Benton (1956)
http://www.henrybrennan.com/
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Edited by - hbrennan on 01/20/2008 10:22:31 AM |
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Terrahawk
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
644 Posts |
Posted - 01/20/2008 : 11:50:25 AM
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Actually, I tend to find it to be the reverse. I find that the Twilight Zone holds up better than The Outer Limits. While Twilight Zone does at times tend to telegraph what is going to happen, The Outer Limits, to me, does the same thing and then takes twice as long to do it. I find the pacing in Twilight Zone to be a lot tighter where to many of The Outer Limits episodes just meander along. Of course, Twilight Zone suffered from the same problem when it went to an hour format for a season.
Okay, I'll shoot fish in a barrel. I always love Space 1999 as a kid when they showed it on PBS. I figure the wonderful model work was a lot of what did it. Now, I'm trying to figure out who did the science for the show. It's absolutely horrid. Also, the acting is pretty sub-par. Still, I can enjoy it just for the camp.
- Si desea pulse 2 para español, encontrar un país diferente. - |
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 01/20/2008 : 12:25:13 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by RossM
For me its Colombo. Peter Falk is hilarious for sure, and I like how the show is from the point of view of the killer, but the plots are all exactly the same. Colombo knows right from the start that its the millionaire killer and spots the key evidence within seconds. Then its just a matter of trapping the guy. But Falk is so watchable that the show is not bad by any means, just not nearly as good as I remember it being.
As I see it, the problem with Columbo is that te episode is always as good as the villain and the world that surrounds him. I remember watching amazing episodes, such as the ones with Donald Pleasence or that one that takes place in a military school. But then you have lots of apisodes that are pretty lame, and not even Falk can save them.
My turn, the original Bionic Woman. I use to love the show when I caught the reruns as an early teenager. It was fun, a bit campy and I had a big crush on Lindsay Wagner. I watched a few episodes a while ago, and the camp element seems a lot bigger. Not to mention they have lots of scenes where Wagner uses her powers for domestic tasks. Not only it borders on sexism, but it also amazes me the show creators couldn't find anything better to let her show her skills. |
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RossM
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
427 Posts |
Posted - 01/21/2008 : 07:36:55 AM
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The Bionic Woman depends entirely on the considerable charm of Lindsey Wagner. I have always thought that the show around her though is pretty lame. The story lines are idiotic, the villains are very standard and the special effects are tacky (even for then). There is a hilarious video over on YouTube of Bionic Woman blunders and outtakes. Lindsey Wagner, this really nice girl, blows her lines and swears like a sailor. Absolutely hilarious.
rossM |
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R. Dittmar
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
420 Posts |
Posted - 01/21/2008 : 10:00:04 AM
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I think this is a harder call than movies frankly, because - let's face it - any TV show that ran for more than a handful of episodes is going to have it's share of total clunkers. What is the ratio of bad to good episodes required before we call it a bust? 20%? 30%? Even 40%?
Take "The Night Stalker" as a case in point. Just like Sardu, I was a total fanatic about the show when I was a kid. When I finally got to see it again as an adult, I was struck at to how disastrously cheap it was. Still for the most part I think they really tried to come up with clever stories and McGavin’s banter with his boss and the various TV-star cameo police chiefs is still funny for the most part. And even cheapness doesn’t sink some of the episodes like “Horror in the Heights” and “Chopper” and “The Spanish Moss Murders”. I’d come down on the side of it holding up reasonable well simply because I can name roughly two good episodes for every one laughably cheap fiasco like “The Werewolf”. It really shows how misbegotten that whole remake from a year or two ago was. They could have just simply redone some of the originals with a higher budget and it would have been great fun. “Columbo” is the same in that for every lame and forgettable killer there were probably two good to great ones. I still enjoy renting the DVD’s when I come across them and rewatching some of my favorites.
I’ll go out on a limb here and make a prediction that “The X-Files” won’t hold up as well as its current reputation suggests. My wife and I were great fans of it and caught every new episode when it aired. (My wife actually found it first and started watching before I did!) Even being the fans we were, however, I don’t think either of us could explain what all that nonsense about bees and black oil and alien abductions and Mulder’s missing sister and Scully’s immaculate conception and all that other crapola was about. The roughly 50% of the Night Stalker-esque monster-of-the-week episodes will stand up pretty well, but I think it’s become clear that they were just making up all that other nonsense as they went. |
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zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
Posted - 01/21/2008 : 10:38:36 AM
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Concur about the varying quality of X-Files episodes. The monster-of-the-week episodes still rock, as well as the far-too-infrequent satiric episodes (the Peter Boyle and the "killer" cockroaches episode ranking near the top of my list)...
BUT...
The alien stuff really dragged the show into the tar pit. One wonders why Chris Carter felt so compelled to make the series primarily a UFO conspiracy show when IIRC his inspiration, Kolchak, never really dealt in that area much.
That said, my next choice is far more deserving than either Kolchak or X Files:
The original Dark Shadows. When I was a kidster I caught this show in syndication from episode one and never missed a single episode for quite a long time. Nowadays I look at this monotonous catastrophe and think to myself, "What on earth was I thinking? What was Dan Curtis thinking?" (Man, that guy gets around, doesn't he?) |
Edited by - zombiewhacker on 01/21/2008 10:39:21 AM |
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R. Dittmar
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
420 Posts |
Posted - 01/21/2008 : 10:58:04 AM
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| I'll even go out futher on that limb and conjecture - even before it's gone of the air - that "Lost" won't hold up very well. This is another show that my wife and I became big fans of after watching the first season on DVD. After tuning into the second season on TV, however, we both just totally lost interest as it became clear they were just spinning their wheels. Especially deadly I thought was how they introduced a whole set of new characters from the tail of the plane and killed them all off within a handful of episodes. That in and of itself makes me think they're just making stuff up as they go. Maybe if they've really thought all this through and there is some big, boffo reveal at the end it would be worth watching all the way through. At this point, however, I couldn't care less. |
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Gristle McThornbody
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
Germany
186 Posts |
Posted - 01/21/2008 : 11:58:44 AM
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Moonlighting. I enjoyed this quite a bit when it originally aired, at least for the first two seasons. My wife recently picked up those seasons on DVD and I just found them annoying.
Especially irritating was the constant "talking/arguing at the same time". Much was made of this when the show was first aired, as this was almost unheard of on TV. I watch it now and think to myself "Would one of you self-absorbed idiots just shut up and LISTEN? Who does this in reality???"
One thing that is still amusing, though, is that every time Cybil Sheppard is in a shot that is even remotely close-up, it's shot with an incredibly soft focus. It's so obvious that it actually takes you out of the story. To paraphrase something Michael J. Nelson once said somewhere "Did the cameraman smear Vaseline on the lens?"
"Hi, I'm Bob Evil!" |
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Terrahawk
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
644 Posts |
Posted - 01/21/2008 : 1:24:27 PM
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You might want to give Lost a second chance. They finally realized in season 3 that they couldn't drag it out forever. My understanding is that they plotted out the last two seasons and it has a definite conclusion. Season 3 started to show some movement again.
Can't agree more with the X-Files comments.
- Si desea pulse 2 para español, encontrar un país diferente. - |
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New Hinda
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Israel
469 Posts |
Posted - 01/22/2008 : 09:29:26 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by hbrennan
For me, it's The Twilight Zone. When I was a kid, I found them to be quite frightening and unwaveringly eerie. Now, when I watch them, I can see how they tended to telegraph their "ironic\shock" endings and loped along with their by-the-numbers plots.
AMEN TO THAT!!!!How long did it take you to see the "ironic/shock ending of "To Serve Man" coming? Also, there are a few "Twilight Zone" episodes, like "To Serve Man" and "Death's Head Revisited" that get shown to death, and some wonderful episodes, like "Nick of Time" and "In Praise of Pip" and "The Big Tall Wish" that practically never get shown. |
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 01/22/2008 : 09:57:21 AM
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A good way to see the difference between The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zoneis by looking at the OT Episode "A Feasibility Study." It is the story of city block that is taken off the Earth to the planet Luna to see if humans would make good slaves for the Lunans. If it had been a TZ episode the story would have been about the mystery of what had happened to the block which would have been revealed as "shock" ending with the humans finally learning where they had been transported to. In the actual OT episode the "mystery" is given in the opening narration and the story is about how the characters deal with the situation. In other words a typical TZ style "shock" ending is used instead as the launching point of a more complicated (and interesting) story.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
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