scottyrocks
I'll Lock Up
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- Isle of Langerhan, NY
As for series television, the only one I have been watching recently is Ray Donovan. I enjoy it, but if I suddenly couldn't watch it anymore I wouldn't be disappointed.
...Honey West had style too, and had to move fast, as it was only 30 min. long. Honey, as played by Anne Francis, was more than competent, did not depend on her partner Sam for everything (nor did he depend solely on her), and was way ahead of her time. Anne had a neat ability to make her characters look like they were really thinking -- Honey, here, her villainess Gervaise Ravel on The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and anything else she was in. And she really sold the character; there was a clip shown on Decades with Honey leveling her revolver at the firing range, and she looked like a pro.
HW had a too-cute opening montage and theme; the noir-ish, jazzy end theme would have been better suited to open the show. Still, it managed to rack up an entire season at a time when nearly all crime shows were going to color and to 60-minute lengths.
That's usually the problem with 30-min. drama/cop shows; they have no time for in-depth characterization and major plot twists. Peter Gunn managed it to a degree, not so much with Gunn himself but with the eccentric characters he meets in the course of each story, and with Herschel Bernardi (the original voice of Charlie the Tuna!) as his long-suffering cop contact/friend. But otherwise, the scripts are quite a bit alike.I've been aware of "Honey West" forever, but don't remember ever seeing an episode; so, based on your comments, I streamed the pilot yesterday.
It struck me as very similar to other '60s shows like "The Saint," early "The Avengers" and "Peter Gunn." All are very stylish in a '60s cool way with attractive, fresh-to-the-period stars, "faster" plots and, IMHO, more style over substance - you either buy into the cool vibe (theme music and "artsy" intro included) or not as the stories (with some individual episode exceptions) were lather-rinse-repeat.
I enjoy these shows for the style as noted and the time travel, but find, most of the time, I'm a bit bored with the plots as they are, overall, two dimensional and too similar. That said, it was fun to see a female lead (cute as heck Anne Francis) with, for that time, a strong, I-can-handle-myself-with-the-boys-thank-you-very-much attitude, which echoed Emma Peel.
I admire Seth MacFarlane; he's got one of the best TV/radio voices I've ever heard. But his usual humor isn't my style. There have been episodes of Family Guy that I liked; their Star Wars parodies, for example. Far too often, though, his writers go the route of "Look how outrageous/transgressive we're being" without actually being very funny.The pilot episode of The Orville. Created by Seth MacFarlane, the show is a loose parody of, and homage to, Star Trek. As pilot episodes go, it did what it was supposed to do--establish the premise and the characters--but not much more. Occasionally blending a watered-down version of MacFarlane's usual sarcastic/bathroom humor with action sequences, if they were going for "semi-humorous by-the-numbers sci-fi dramedy series", they've succeeded. It's difficult to "telegraph" in a single episode what a television series might become, but if this is the best they can do I'll be surprised if it lasts a full season. It wasn't horrible, but there was nothing special about it.
For me, much of the time Seth MacFarlane's humor works not so much because of what's being said, but because of the way it's presented--the deadpan/sarcastic delivery and the timing of the rapid-fire banter between characters. When he's working with actors, directors, and editors who understand this, even a line that isn't particularly funny can seem to be comedy gold. One brief example of this in The Orville's pilot episode was between Ed Mercer (MacFarlane) and Kelly Grayson (Adrianne Palicki) during the demonstration of the "temporal field" device:I admire Seth MacFarlane; he's got one of the best TV/radio voices I've ever heard. But his usual humor isn't my style. There have been episodes of Family Guy that I liked; their Star Wars parodies, for example. Far too often, though, his writers go the route of "Look how outrageous/transgressive we're being" without actually being very funny.
For me, much of the time Seth MacFarlane's humor works not so much because of what's being said, but because of the way it's presented--the deadpan/sarcastic delivery and the timing of the rapid-fire banter between characters. When he's working with actors, directors, and editors who understand this, even a line that isn't particularly funny can seem to be comedy gold. One brief example of this in The Orville's pilot episode was between Ed Mercer (MacFarlane) and Kelly Grayson (Adrianne Palicki) during the demonstration of the "temporal field" device:
Ed Mercer: So, it's an anti-banana ray?
Kelly Grayson: It's really interesting.
Ed Mercer: We need no longer fear the banana.
Kelly Grayson: Does it work on all fruit?
Ed Mercer: What about salads?
Reading those lines as I've typed them, it seems like an uninteresting conversation. But between the delivery and the way it's edited with MacFarlane and Palicki nearly stepping on each other's lines, to me it's possibly the funniest five seconds of the episode. Of course, for people who don't understand or like sarcasm, it probably wasn't.
That was one of those great "non sequitur" moments in the show's history, and it always reminds me of a clip from an entirely different show. Years ago actor Tony Randall was on one of those game shows where the goal is to get your partner to guess a specific word; in this case the word was "weather". Mr. Randall used the word "whether" in his clues, and the penalty buzzer sounded. After his turn Mr. Randall questioned the penalty, argued his use of "whether" and not "weather", and when the judges reviewed the recording they discovered he had indeed pronounced "whether" with the emphasis on the "h". They conceded, and he and his partner were awarded the point....For my money (I know Macfarelane birthed "Family Guy" and while I don't know if he wrote this specific scene, it's in his style), the "Cool Whip" scene in "Family Guy" is one of the best ever in that style. I can laugh about it just remember it in my head.
That was one of those great "non sequitur" moments in the show's history, and it always reminds me of a clip from an entirely different show. Years ago actor Tony Randall was on one of those game shows where the goal is to get your partner to guess a specific word; in this case the word was "weather". Mr. Randall used the word "whether" in his clues, and the penalty buzzer sounded. After his turn Mr. Randall questioned the penalty, argued his use of "whether" and not "weather", and when the judges reviewed the recording they discovered he had indeed pronounced "whether" with the emphasis on the "h". They conceded, and he and his partner were awarded the point.
I watched the first episode of Ken Burns' massive Vietnam doc series on PBS. Not surprisingly, it was very well done. It pulled me in, even though I had no intention of watching it.
I'd planned to watch the second episode of The Orville to see if it's still worthless, but the ball game ran long and as of 8:30 it hadn't started yet.
I also watched a little of the Emmy Awards, but I wasn't especially interested this year. However, in looking over the winners list today, I saw some things I am happy about. Most notably that the single best-written and executed half-hour episode of anything I watched last year - Master of None's "Thanksgiving" - won Best Writing in a Comedy Series.