What Was the Last Television Episode You Watched?

THE INVADERS - The Ivy Curtain - Jack Warden is a cargo plane pilot who discovers his passengers are aliens since one of them gets a cut arm and doesn't bleed. Instead of killing him, they want to hire him to continue transporting their people to a school they have set up to instruct the aliens how to subvert the public. We see them learning about promoting drugs and criticizing the police in a fake soda bar where alien instructor Murray Matheson appraises their agitprop skills. One thing I wonder, is why doesn't David Vincent carry a knife or gun? Sjnce he knows the aliens are after him and he frequently gets into fights with them--wouldn't it be handy since the aliens disintegrate on contact so he doesn't have to worry about a murder rap. Susan Olivier plays the wife of Warden--I heard somewhere she became an actual pilot for real.

BARETTA - Half a Million Dollar Baby --- Tony has a new girlfriend but when she comes along with him on the job and he busts some counterfeiters, she finds a bag of money and takes it without telling him. Then the robbers come after him and mess up him and his apartment (but Fred is ok).

PETROCELLI Mark of Cain -- Now we are talking. This was a dramatic episode. John Saxon comes to town to see his old friend Tony and gets charged with murder. Turns out he works for the mafia and they want him out of the way. They aren't too happy with a public trial so they kidnap Maggie and beat up Pete! Paul Koslo plays one of the kidnappers and Ken Swofford, who had the "Pete" role in the feature film, reappears in a big role as the head cop. Interestingly, his character name in the feature film was different and so was the wife's name. Maybe Petrocelli re-married/ I hope Diane Muldaur shows up so we can get that settled.
 
I'm working my way through the first season of Elementary. As I was often gone at night I only ever saw the occasional episode of this when it was first shown. It is really, really, good.
 
CANNON "The Torch" - An insurance investigator accidentally kills the woman he was going to conspire with to defraud and murder her husband-and uses an arson fire to cover it. The arsonist (Anthony Zerbe) is tracked by Frank Cannon while the insurance man stays close to him and pretends to be helping him solve the case. Cannon takes out a couple of mafia goons by a gut feeling that they are hiding behind a door.

MCMILLAN & WIFE - The Fine Art of Staying Alive - Sally is kidnapped at an art museum and held for ransom--the kidnappers want a Rembrandt painting. Stuart tries to decode a cryptic message in her phone call which allows for various flashbacks to other episodes to save on production costs. Alan Hale Jr shows up for the finale at the docks. Premiered March 11, 1973.
 
The Raincoat Killer. An original Netflix documentary about a serial killer from the early 2000s.

It’s great, as is everything Koreans do in the entertainment industry. The docu is well-edited to have a gloomy, thrilling tone; and the crimes were horrendous. The people being interviewed were pretty honest about their inability to capture the killer, despite working around the clock.

However, they try giving a sociological explanation to the wave of murders in wealthy countries in the early 2000s, and I found it very hard to swallow. Resentment towards society may have been the raincoat killer’s motivation, but I won’t have this as the reason for a criminal spike in various countries. It’s funny that the series makes this statement in the first episode, only to contradict itself in the second by giving other motivations to the killer.

This may have inspired a lot of movies, especially The Chaser (2008). But what drew my attention the most is the police force’s incompetence. They don’t even try to hide their inability to solve crimes. Policemen from different neighborhoods don’t even work together. I guess that’s why there are so many dumb cops in Korean movies.

There are only three episodes. As soon as I’m done, I’m off to my next East Asian production.
 
I'm on a joyful rewatch of Blackadder III.

Utterly excellent. "The prince wants your daughter for his wife." "Well, his wife can't have her!"
 
The last ever Endeavour.
I won't give away the plot or the finale, but it was Great TV!
There were some nice Easter Eggs thrown in for people that had watched Morse, Lewis and Endeavour.
In the first ever episode of Endeavour, the title character see the maroon "Morse" Jag in a used car lot [ it is the actual car used in the Morse series ].
Sometime later he buys a black Jag and drive around in that.
Then in the last episode the Morse Jag drives passed him as he leaves in his Jag...
 
I’m busy rewatching the excellent French supernatural thriller series The Returned.
 
I'm not sure that this is the right place for this as it is a Paramount+ offering. But I've been watching Poker Face a very poorly named but very interesting TV Series. The first episode had a lot to do with Poker, the second had nothing to do with Poker. The hook of the story is that Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne) is a woman who can tell if someone's lying 100% of the time. She's on the run (why would be a spoiler) and as travels around the country she solves crimes.
1678821665918.jpeg
Natasha Lyonne
Natasha Lyonne - Google Search
Only 2 episodes in so I won't rate this, but so far I would recommend it. 99% on Rotten Tomatoes
 
Hidden Assets. On iPlayer. Irish/Dutch detective procedural with an engrossing twisty plot involving diamonds/cocaine/ terrorism.
 
As someone who loved/loves the Big Bang Theory I was sucked into the new iteration of Night Court.
All the things that gave Melissa Rauch character on the BBT: caustic wit, the ability to react to and even dominate the conversation with other strong characters, facial expression acting, are all missing in her lead character role on NC. Not to mention its lousy scripts where forced quirky characters take the place of plot.
Miz pogo and I actually viewed a couple of the original series to see what had changed andwas different between two essentially silly comedies.. Well, Harry Anderson in the original was actually given character and scripts, not just smarmy dogoodism. I am sorry for Melissa Rauch. She has done better.
 
Last edited:
(full disclosure: new member here but very, very long-time sci-fi reader plus my late brother published an sf novel)

It's strange: the day I knew my son was like out there as his own computer man: he showed up along with my daughter-in-law (they were both just 21) for Thanksgiving, and he hooked up his laptop to my tower and uploaded all of James Burke. These were the days of napster, so I didn't ask.

Yet more than a decade later, I still watch them. Just re-watched episode 3 of The Day the Universe Changed: 'Point of View'. All about perspective. And get this: the man's still around!
 
(full disclosure: new member here but very, very long-time sci-fi reader plus my late brother published an sf novel)

It's strange: the day I knew my son was like out there as his own computer man: he showed up along with my daughter-in-law (they were both just 21) for Thanksgiving, and he hooked up his laptop to my tower and uploaded all of James Burke. These were the days of napster, so I didn't ask.

Yet more than a decade later, I still watch them. Just re-watched episode 3 of The Day the Universe Changed: 'Point of View'. All about perspective. And get this: the man's still around!
James Burke is terrific. His first major TV series was Connections which was a really brilliant intro to interesting history for a young kid in the late 1970s who had hitherto made do with the dates of British monarchs. His delivery is quite distinctive and his commentary has a nice acid humour.

Burke seems to be a bit forgotten these days. Lots of his stuff is on Youtube.
 
I am continuing to make my way through the first season of Love, American Style whenever I have an hour to kill on the computer. Not much worthy of mention. Mostly slapstick, farce, and mildly dirty jokes. A couple of things to point out:

One of the little skits between full stories was surprisingly grim. Guy is picking up litter with one of those long sticks with a metal point on the end. He continues to do so while turning his head to watch a pretty woman walk by. When he looks back, he sees that he's stabbed a guy with the stick, who seems to be dead.

One of the full stories was of slightly more interest than others. Two shy ventriloquists (played by real-life ventriloquists Shari Lewis and Paul Winchell) communicate through their dummies. Not earth-shattering greatness, but cute.
 
THE WILD WILD WEST - "the Night of Jack O' Diamonds" A horse sent as a gift to the president of Mexico get stolen by some bandits and Jim and Artie must track him down. The actor who is the thief seems to be going for the Eli Wallach Mexican Bandito Award--it is a memorable character and he has some good lines. They shoot in desert locations that look awfully familiar--I swear a Gorn was hiding behind one of the rocks.

MANNIX "Then The Drink Takes the Man" -- A woman (Julie Adams) takes her husband in to a private clinic for drunks and we learn the drunk is Mannix! He is on a case for Linda Day (pre-George) involving her father who is a patient at the clinic. Whatever is going on leads to murder. Lou Wickersham does not appear at all in this one.

SWAT - The Bravo Enigma - A senator is fighting corruption (obviously this is fictional story) and is being targeted for assassination, so the team has to protect him. After they shoot the first assassins, a professional is called in from India. Christopher George! Isn't that a coincidence. He is very confident about the job but doesn't know that he has the plague that he picked up in India. And as he waits for his assignment, he is giving the plague to everyone, including his employer. Interestingly this professional assassin has a Interpol mugshot of him smiling into the camera like he was not shy about being photographed--which is not the usual openness we expect with professional killers. But as a kid who contracted the plague after sharing a water fountain with him says, "he looked like a movie star."
 
COLUMBO: The Most Dangerous Match - Is this the only one where Columbo is actually in the room when the murder takes place? Could be. Premiered 50 years ago this month.
 

Similar threads


Back
Top