Great TV Episodes: 5

77 SUNSET STRIP
"5"
September 20 - October 18, 1963
ABC
Writer: Harry Essex
Producer and Director: William Conrad

77 SUNSET STRIP was one of television's most influential drama series of the late 1950s. Based loosely on the 1947 novel THE DOUBLE TAKE by Roy Huggins and the film GIRL ON THE RUN, written by Marion Hargrove (MAVERICK) and directed by Richard L. Bare (GREEN ACRES) from Huggins' story, 77 SUNSET STRIP was the first and likely the best of Warner Brothers' formula private eye shows for ABC.

Starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (later Special Agent Lew Erskine for nine seasons on THE FBI) as Stu Bailey and Roger Smith (young Lon Chaney Jr. in MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES) as Jeff Spencer, 77 SUNSET STRIP was set - duh - along Los Angeles' fabulous Sunset Boulevard. Working of a posh office at Number 77, Bailey and Spencer solved a number of way-out cases, sometimes with the aid of Kookie, the hip parking attendant working at Dean Martin's nightclub next door. Edd Byrnes, who played Kookie, quickly became the show's breakout star and eventually joined Bailey and Smith as a full-fledged private eye.

The series was a smash hit, and ABC and Warner Brothers copied it ad nauseum. HAWAIIAN EYE starred Robert Conrad and Anthony Eisley in Hawaii, BOURBON STREET BEAT starred Richard Long and Andrew Duggan in New Orleans, SURFSIDE 6 starred Troy Donahue and Van Williams in Miami. Of course, none of these shows ever left the Warners backlot. And not all of the copies were private eye shows. THE ALASKANS with Roger Moore and Jeff York was set in Alaska during the 1890 gold rush. They all were basically the same show, to the point where scripts shot for, say, 77 SUNSET STRIP were recycled for another show two or three years later. Just erase the names "Stu" and "Jeff" and type in, say, "Sandy" and "Ken", and you have a "new" SURFSIDE 6 episode.

Ratings eventually waned until 77 was the only show left. To give its sixth season a kickstart, Warners gave it a radical reboot. Everyone but Zimbalist was fired, and Bailey moved into a new office in the Bradbury Building as a solo act. New producers Jack Webb (DRAGNET) and William Conrad (KLONDIKE, which was NBC's ripoff of THE ALASKANS) made the series less glossy and more noirish. While the new approach didn't work -- the series was cancelled after 20 episodes -- it did give 77 a creative shot in the arm.

To begin the sixth season, producer Conrad hired screenwriter Harry Essex (credited with CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, and I, THE JURY) to concoct an ambitious five-part story that Conrad would also direct. The result was "5," which aired on consecutive Fridays in September and October 1963. Loaded with guest stars ranging from Richard Conte and Cesar Romero to Diane McBain and William Shatner, "5" yanks Bailey out of L.A. to New York and even all the way to Israel to solve the case.

"5" opens arrestingly enough with a man dressed as the Devil run down by a car on a wet New York street. The man's brother, an antiquities dealer played by Burgess Meredith (BATMAN's Penguin), hires Bailey to right his sibling's wrongs. With police detective Richard Conte (OCEAN'S 11) working to solve the murder, Bailey's assignment is to take the dead brother's $9000 and "buy Andy's way into heaven" by making amends to those he has wronged over the years.

Essex's dialogue is tough and terse. Zimbalist narrates in first person like Phillip Marlowe. His path takes him to several of Andy's acquaintances, including storekeeper Ed Wynn (MARY POPPINS); finicky landlord Wally Cox (MR. PEEPERS); priest Herbert Marshall (THE FLY), who died a few months later; estranged wife Patricia Rainier (THE DAREDEVIL); angry stable boy William Shatner (STAR TREK); dancer Gene Nelson (OKLAHOMA!); poet Victor Buono (BATMAN's King Tut); and gypsy Peter Lorre (THE RAVEN). Zimbalist does a nice job playing annoyance around all these eccentrics. Even though Huggins was no longer involved with 77, Zimbalist's Bailey has a bit of James Garner's Jim Rockford in him (Huggins co-created THE ROCKFORD FILES with Stephen J. Cannell).

Eventually, Bailey strikes up a friendship with the mysterious blonde who has been following him around (played by THE MINI-SKIRT MOB's Diane McBain), Rainier is found murdered, and Conte puts Bailey on the hook for it. Essex's plot becomes sprawling from here, sending Bailey to Italy, the Netherlands (where he meets with monk Telly Savalas), Paris, and finally Tel Aviv before ending his quest back where he started in the Big Apple.

Conrad goes in for a lot of tight closeups, which is likely a Webb influence. In fact, each episode opens in an arresting fashion with each of that week's guest stars introducing themselves to the audience in tight closeup. Essex hasn't quite enough story for five parts, so Conrad pads "The Conclusion" with Bailey flashing back to various plot points.

As enormously popular as 77 SUNSET STRIP was in its heyday, nothing lasts forever. Webb and Conrad's experiment was a flop with viewers, and ABC cancelled the series before it could finish its sixth season. Everyone made out okay though. Webb brought DRAGNET back to weekly television a few years later, Conrad produced and directed films and starred in CANNON for five seasons, and Zimbalist launched a nine-season run on ABC's THE FBI in 1965.

Great TV Episodes: One Riot, One Ranger

WALKER, TEXAS RANGER
"One Riot, One Ranger"
April 21, 1993
CBS
Writer: Leigh Chapman (as Louise McCarn)
Director: Virgil W. Vogel

Leigh Chapman, the former actress who penned several television episodes and films, including THE OCTAGON for Chuck Norris, wrote the pilot episode of Norris’ first series. A massive CBS hit for nine seasons, WALKER, TEXAS RANGER got off to an uneasy start. The studio, Cannon, went bankrupt after only three episodes had been completed, so CBS had to bankroll the series beginning with its second season.

The two-hour pilot effectively sets the premise, presenting Norris as Cordell Walker, a taciturn half-Native American and Texas Ranger who investigates a series of fatal bank robberies being masterminded by former CIA agent Marshall Teague (ROAD HOUSE). After his partner is killed during one of the robberies, Walker is reluctantly teamed with Clarence Gilyard Jr. (MATLOCK), a young college-educated Ranger who prefers to look before he leaps. In his off-hours, Norris protects a teenage circus performer who is being harassed by the three rednecks who raped her, which allows Chapman to awkwardly lay out Walker’s backstory. Turns out Walker, Texas Ranger and Batman have the same origin.

Credit veteran director Virgil W. Vogel (THE MOLE PEOPLE) for keeping the action moving quickly. With extra time and money lavished on a pilot, Vogel uses Dutch angles and slick camera moves to complement the many fights, chases, and shootouts, ensuring the series’ standing as one of network television’s most violent at the time. Vogel must have relished filming around Dallas-Fort Worth, which had not been seen much on television (DALLAS filmed in Los Angeles).

Sheree J. Wilson (FRATERNITY VACATION) plays beautiful Assistant D.A. Alex Cahill, Walker’s love interest (and eventual wife at the end of Season Eight); Floyd Red Crow Westerman (HIDALGO) is Walker’s Indian uncle Ray; and Gailard Sartain (HEE HAW) plays retired Ranger C.D. Barnes (he was replaced in the series by the older Noble Willingham). Teague played the heavy in six different WALKER episodes, including the 201st and final one in 2001. Released on VHS as ONE RIOT, ONE RANGER.

760 TV Shows

760. That’s the number of television episodes I watched in 2014. That’s way up from last year’s 672, maybe because of the 168 episodes of THE PRACTICE I watched in the fall. In 2013, I binge-watched TAXI and in 2012, it was MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE.

295 episodes I watched as AVI files, which I streamed through my Xbox 360 or (later) my Roku 3 to my HDTV.
Amazon Prime: 1 (the BOSCH pilot, and where the hell is the rest of the show, Amazon?)
Blu-ray: 1 (THE PRISONER)
DVD: 107
HDTV: 123
Hulu Plus: 130
Netflix: 49 (mostly LOUIE, STAR TREK, and THE ROCKFORD FILES)
SDTV: 44
Warner Archive: 5
YouTube: 5

First episode of 2014: PARENTHOOD, “Feelings”
Last episode of 2014: LAW & ORDER: TRIAL BY JURY, “The Abominable Showman”

From the 1950s: 48 (mostly SEA HUNT)
1960s: 60
1970s: 127
1980s: 41
1990s: 80
2000–2013: 131
2013: 273

Genres:
Action/Adventure: 74
Cartoon: 1 (JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS)
Comedy: 11
Crime Drama: 157
Documentary: 1 (30 FOR 30’s “Brian and the Boz”)
Drama: 226
Game: 1 (PASSWORD)
Horror: 1 (QUINN MARTIN’S TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED)
Science Fiction: 15
Sitcom: 266
Talk/Variety: 6
Western: 1 (THE REBEL)

Classic Television Series I Watched for the First Time:
THE ABBOTT AND COSTELLO SHOW
THE ALASKANS
THE AMERICANS (1961)
BIFF BAKER, U.S.A.
CHOPPER ONE
CODE 3
CORONADO 9
DELTA HOUSE
FRIENDS & LOVERS
HARBOR COMMAND
HARDBALL (1989)
HUNTER (1975)
MAKE ROOM FOR GRANDDADDY
MY LIVING DOLL
THE PARTNERS (1971)
QUINN MARTIN’S TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED
THE REBEL
THE SNOOP SISTERS
SNOOPS
SURFSIDE 6
TERRY AND THE PIRATES
THIS MAN DAWSON
TIGHTROPE!
TIME EXPRESS

Series I Watched Only One Episode Of:
30 FOR 30
ADAM-12
THE ALASKANS
THE AMERICANS
ARROW
BEYOND WESTWORLD
BIFF BAKER, U.S.A.
BONNIE
BOSCH
BRONK
BUNCO (unsold pilot)
CAR 54 WHERE ARE YOU?
CHOPPER ONE
CODE 3
DEADLINE (2000)
DELTA HOUSE
DOBIE GILLIS
DONNY AND MARIE
FRIENDS & LOVERS
HARDBALL (1989)
HAWAII FIVE-0 (1968)
HOGAN’S HEROES
HOT IN CLEVELAND
HUNTER (1975)
THE INVADERS
IRONSIDE (1968)
ISIS
JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS
KRAFT SUSPENSE THEATER
LAW & ORDER: TRIAL BY JURY
M SQUAD
MAKE ROOM FOR GRANDDADDY
MICHAEL SHAYNE
MY LIVING DOLL
THE NAME OF THE GAME
OWEN MARSHALL, COUNSELOR AT LAW
THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY
PASSWORD
PETER GUNN
THE PRACTICE (1976)
THE RAT PATROL
THE REBEL
SCORPION
THE SEINFELD CHRONICLES (technicality)
THE SNOOP SISTERS
SNOOPS
SURFSIDE 6
TERRY AND THE PIRATES
THIS MAN DAWSON
TIGHTROPE!
TIME EXPRESS
TOMORROW (Tom Snyder)
WELCOME TO SWEDEN

Episodes directed by actors:
Adam Arkin, JUSTIFIED, “Shot All to Hell” and “Restitution”
Adam Scott, PARKS AND RECREATION, “Farmer’s Market”
Danny DeVito, TAXI, “Jim’s Mario’s”
Danny Thomas, MAKE ROOM FOR GRANDDADDY, “A Hamburger for Frank”
David Hemmings, HARDBALL, “Every Dog Has Its Day”
Dylan McDermott, THE PRACTICE, “Infected”
Fred Savage, MARRY ME, “Bruges Me” and MODERN FAMILY, “Marco Polo” and “Strangers in the Night”
Griffin Dunne, THE GOOD WIFE, “A Material World”
Ivan Dixon, ROOM 222, “Half Way” and THE ROCKFORD FILES, “The Real Easy Red Dog”
Jason Priestly, WORKING THE ENGELS, “Jenna’s Friend”
Jerry Lewis, THE BOLD ONES: THE NEW DOCTORS, “In Dreams They Run”
Joan Darling, THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, “Chuckles Bites the Dust”
Josh Charles, THE GOOD WIFE, “Tying the Knot”
Kelli Williams, THE PRACTICE, “In Good Conscience”
LisaGay Hamilton, THE PRACTICE, “Heroes and Villains”
Lou Antonio, THE ROCKFORD FILES, “The Aaron Ironwood School of Success”
Louis C.K., LOUIE, multiple episodes
Mariska Hargitay, LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT, “Criminal Stories”
Nick Offerman, PARKS AND RECREATION, “Flu: Season 2”
Peter Bonerz, THE TONY RANDALL SHOW, “Case: Franklin vs. Reubner and Reubner” and THE BOB NEWHART SHOW, “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do”
Peter Krause, PARENTHOOD, “A Potpourri of Freaks”
Peter Weller, LONGMIRE, “Wanted Man”
Roxann Dawson, STALKER, “Phobia”
Simon Baker, THE MENTALIST, “The Silver Briefcase”
Stuart Margolin, THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, “The Seminar”

Most different series by one director:
Ken Whittingham, 5 (PARENTHOOD, PARKS AND RECREATION, BROOKLYN NINE-NINE, SURVIVING JACK, THE MINDY PROJECT)
Jay Sandrich, 5 (THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, THE STOCKARD CHANNING SHOW, THE ODD COUPLE, THE TONY RANDALL SHOW, THE BOB NEWHART SHOW)
Michael Zinberg, 4 (THE BOB NEWHART SHOW, THE TONY RANDALL SHOW, THE PRACTICE, THE GOOD WIFE)

Episodes titled “Pilot”:
THE BOB NEWHART SHOW (actually “P.I.L.O.T.”)
BOSCH
CHOPPER ONE
DEADLINE
ENLISTED
THE FLASH (2014)
HUNTER (1975)
LOUIE
MARRY ME
MCCLAIN’S LAW
MULANEY
THE PRACTICE (1976)
THE PRACTICE (1997)
SCORPION
SNOOPS
STALKER
SURVIVING JACK
THE TONY RANDALL SHOW
WORKING THE ENGELS

How many TV shows did you watch this year?

Great TV Episodes: The Deadly Silence

TARZAN
“The Deadly Silence”
October 28 & November 4, 1966
NBC
Writer: Lee Erwin and Jack H. Robinson (Part I); John Considine and Tim Considine (Part II)
Director: Robert L. Friend (Part I); Lawrence Dobkin (Part II)

Sy Weintraub deserves credit for bringing adults back to Tarzan.

Before the Production Code went into effect, Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan were a Tarzan and Jane that you knew were definitely getting it on when MGM’s cameras were pointed the other way. They steamed up the screen in TARZAN THE APE MAN (1932) and the way-ahead-of-its-time TARZAN AND HIS MATE (1933), films that poured on as much sex and sadism as the studio thought it could get by with.

But as time went by, and MGM sold off the cinema rights to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ stories and characters to RKO, Tarzan became just another matinee hero like Roy Rogers and Flash Gordon, catering to kiddie audiences that enjoyed the buffoonish comic relief of Cheeta the chimp as much as the cheap sets, stock villains, and serial-type action. Always a consistent moneymaker, the Tarzan series even survived the loss of Weissmuller, who jumped to Columbia to make Jungle Jim programmers. Lex Barker took over as the Jungle King in five tepid adventures, and then hotel lifeguard Gordon Scott, a bodybuilder with no acting credits, swung into Barker’s loincloth for a couple more.

Even though Tarzan movies had become more juvenile, some of them were still entertaining, since the character and premise are so strong, it’s difficult to completely mess it up. But the films were becoming repetitive, and it seemed that something needed to be done to get audiences thrilled again about seeing Tarzan on the big screen.

Sy Weintraub had the answer. When he bought the screen rights from Sol Lesser, he seized on the idea of making Tarzan for mature audiences again. The result was 1959’s TARZAN’S GREATEST ADVENTURE, a tough, intelligent action picture for adults pitting a nasty gang of diamond thieves, including Anthony Quayle and a pre-007 Sean Connery, against Tarzan, still played by Scott, who was now allowed to be the silver screen’s first fully articulate Tarzan. No more “Me Tarzan.” Burroughs’ original concept of an Ape Man who was educated in civilization was finally being played on film.

Scott next starred in another terrific adventure, TARZAN THE MAGNIFICENT, before going to Europe to make movies. Legendary stuntman Jock Mahoney, who played Yancy Derringer on television, as well as the main heavy in TARZAN THE MAGNIFICENT, was tagged by Weintraub to play a slightly older and leaner King of the Jungle in two films.

Then television came calling. Weintraub served as executive producer of TARZAN, which premiered on NBC on September 8, 1966 (the same night as STAR TREK). His new leading man was Ron Ely, a lanky Texan who had bounced around television for years, including the co-lead in the shortlived THE AQUANAUTS. Handsome, athletic, and brave enough to tackle most of his own stunts, Ely was a natural Tarzan, and his square-jawed likeability and sense of fair play made him popular with both kids and adults.

Facing tough competition on Friday night against THE WILD WILD WEST on CBS and THE GREEN HORNET on ABC—both fantasy series competing for the same young viewers—TARZAN went to South America in search of natural production values no other network series could equal (except I SPY, which filmed all over the world). Weintraub took Ely and his crew to Brazil, where he could capture jungle terrain, roaring rivers, waterfalls, and animal life that couldn’t be duplicated on a Burbank backlot.

Unfortunately, after five months of production in Brazil, TARZAN could only complete five one-hour episodes, thanks to torrential rains that interrupted filming, crude shooting conditions, and Ely’s penchant to get hurt on the job while doing stunts (he performed one episode wearing a sling after he fell several feet from a swinging vine—footage captured on-camera and used in the episode).

TARZAN relocated to Mexico with Leon Benson (SEA HUNT) replacing Jon Epstein (THE RAT PATROL) and Don Brinkley (MEDICAL CENTER) as producer. Not only did Mexico offer similar terrain as Brazil, but the move also allowed TARZAN to film interiors at Churubusco Studios to help speed production along. Benson produced only five episodes there, but one happened to be a two-parter that also provided Ely with perhaps his finest hour(s) as Tarzan.

Aired early in TARZAN’s first season, “The Deadly Silence” benefits mightily from a terrific guest cast, particularly none other than Jock Mahoney, who had already appeared in one of the Brazil episodes, as one of the jungle king’s most intimidating and sadistic rivals. Lee Erwin (FLIPPER) and Jack H. Robinson (HOGAN’S HEROES) wrote Part I, which plops Mahoney’s The Colonel into an African village that he holds in sway with his bullwhip and total lack of morality. The Colonel and his two men storm into villages and demand all their grain and cattle. Communities that don’t pay up are burned to the ground. By the time Tarzan catches up to the Colonel, he is holding hostage a village led by Metusa (Robert DoQui, later in NASHVILLE, COFFY, and ROBOCOP), who fears the Colonel will do to his people what he has already done to Metusa’s father and brother. Despite pleas from his wife Ruana (Nichelle Nichols, who filmed this before joining the cast of STAR TREK as Lieutenant Uhura) and from Tarzan, Metusa refuses to fight back against the Colonel.

Even though the Colonel is only one man, Mahoney’s performance sells the idea that an entire tribe would be hesitant to rise up against him. A veteran of two wars who claims to know “a thousand ways to kill a man,” including a two-finger jab that supposedly brought down a sumo wrestler, the Colonel is a sadist and a sociopath, played by Mahoney without a hint of camp. Dressed in a blue suit with a red shirt collar that makes him stand out among the browns and the greens of Mexico, Mahoney was one of the few actors doing television at the time who could conceivably be a physical match for Ron Ely, who never appeared wearing anything more than a tiny loincloth.

Tarzan does manage to capture the Colonel after a fracas decently directed by Robert L. Friend (RAWHIDE), but victory is shortlived after the killer escapes on his way to jail with the aid of Sgt. Marshak, who served under the Colonel in wartime and remains loyal to him. Marshak is another casting coup: the great Woody Strode, who had not only guest-starred in a previous TARZAN episode, but played a memorable villain opposite Mahoney in the fun TARZAN’S THREE CHALLENGES. So Weintraub and Benson not only assembled two great guest stars in Strode and Mahoney, but also men with ties to the Tarzan franchise.

Part I ends on an anxious cliffhanger with Tarzan left deaf after being bombarded while underwater by grenades tossed by the Colonel and Marshak. The scene where Tarzan desperately claps his hands together and is unable to hear the sound is played by Ely with the perfect level of panic and fear—two emotions we aren’t accustomed to seeing in our jungle king, not to mention the lead in a 1960s action/adventure TV show. Some scenes are sloppily directed by Friend—for instance, the noticeably wobbly rubber spear tips and explosions that blow several inches away from where the grenades are tossed—but he and Ely nail this one.

It’s unusual for each half of a two-parter to carry different writer and director credits, but Lawrence Dobkin (STAR TREK’s “Charlie X”), a busy actor as well as director, sat in Friend’s chair for “The Deadly Silence, Part II.” Interestingly, the teleplay is credited to brothers John and Tim Considine, both better known as actors who had previously penned a script for COMBAT! and two for MY THREE SONS, on which younger brother Tim was starring as Fred MacMurray’s oldest son Mike Douglas.

Part II is basically a riff on THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME with the Colonel, Marshak, and a second confederate named Chico (Gregory Acosta) chasing a hearing-impaired Tarzan through the jungle. Sparks fly among them after Chico is killed in quicksand and the Colonel orders a hesitant Marshak to leave behind Jai (Manuel Padilla Jr.), Tarzan’s young friend who is wounded by a ricocheting bullet. Marshak, who has followed the Colonel unblinkingly through one war and who-knows-how-many killings, feels a tinge of conscience about leaving an unconscious Jai to be eaten by animals, but reluctantly acquiesces to the Colonel’s commands.

Dobkin was a good choice to handle an episode that’s mostly action, and he really earned his stripes with a knockdown dragout fight between Mahoney and Strode, two of the most physical actors ever to work in Hollywood. Comfortable with one another from their on-screen skirmishes in TARZAN’S THREE CHALLENGES, the two men really go at it, though it is something of a disappointment that Tarzan isn’t allowed to finish off the villain himself.

More than three years later, audiences got the chance to pay admission to see the episode again when National General Pictures released TARZAN’S DEADLY SILENCE to theaters with a G rating—a not-uncommon practice of the day. DEADLY SILENCE was one of four Tarzan “features” to star Ely, although I believe only DEADLY SILENCE and TARZAN’S JUNGLE REBELLION (comprised of the two-part episode “The Blue Stone of Heaven”) played in American theaters.

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Great TV Episodes: City Of Passion

HUNTER
"City of Passion"
November 7, November 14 & November 21, 1987
NBC
Teleplay: Charlotte Huggins & Thomas Huggins (Part 1); Dallas L. Barnes (Part 2 & 3)
Based on the Novel by Dallas L. Barnes
Director: James Whitmore Jr.

HUNTER's magnum opus, the three-part "City of Passion," based on a novel by real-life police detective Dallas Barnes, aired early in the series' fourth season. But the series almost didn't make it that far.

Low ratings and massive pummeling by critics that labeled HUNTER a crude DIRTY HARRY ripoff nearly got the show cancelled during its first season in 1984. However, Brandon Tartikoff, then the head of NBC Entertainment, allowed the show to find its legs by moving it to a Saturday timeslot, where it became a ratings hit for the rest of the 1980s.

Fred Dryer, a former Los Angeles Ram who narrowly lost the leading role of Sam Malone on CHEERS to Ted Danson, starred as Rick Hunter, who very much was influenced by Clint Eastwood during the show's first season. He even had a throwaway catch phrase, "Works for me," which Dryer usually delivered after blasting a bad guy. Hunter was, as all great TV detectives are, a maverick cop who shot first, shouted "Freeze!" later, and never balked at destroying whatever public and private property he needed to in order to capture a criminal.

Knowing this wouldn't do on a weekly basis, series creator Stephen J. Cannell (THE ROCKFORD FILES) Frank Lupo gave Hunter a partner--a woman who could bring out Dryer's softer side on-screen. Stepfanie Kramer played Dee Dee McCall, who was vulnerable and sexy, but also tough enough to earn the nickname "The Brass Cupcake" from her colleagues on the force.

Despite a rotating cast of variably apoplectic commanding officers (including John Amos, John Shearin, James Whitmore Jr., and Bruce Davison, who all barked at Hunter for crashing another car until the calmer Charles Hallahan joined the regular cast in the third season), Hunter and McCall burned rubber and broke the rules to entertain audiences for seven seasons (except Kramer, who departed after six).

By the fourth season, HUNTER--while not exactly shying away from gun battles and car chases--had become a more mature series that was marked with humor, strong characters, and a charming platonic relationship between Hunter and McCall that was a triumph of Dryer and Kramer's personal chemistry. This upgraded approach was reflected in its elegiac opening titles (see below), and HUNTER finished in the Top 20 in the Nielsens that season for the first time. A perfect representation of the stories HUNTER was telling that year was the epic "City of Passion," the series' lone three-part episode.

"City of Passion"'s sprawling narrative is indicative of its literary origins. Married couple Charlotte Huggins (billed as Charlotte Clay) and Thomas Huggins, HUNTER's story editors (and kin to executive producer Roy Huggins), and Dallas L. Barnes adapted Barnes' novel for television and spun three intertwining tales in rich detail. The strongest story teams up Hunter and McCall with Sex Crimes detectives Kitty O'Hearn (Shelley Taylor Morgan, MALIBU EXPRESS) and Brad Navarro (CHIPS star Erik Estrada) to track down a serial rapist (Fred Coffin, HARD TO KILL) whose most recent attack culminated in murder. Notable for his size 14 feet, the rapist is tagged "Bigfoot" by the detectives and is clearly the creation of Barnes, who had earlier penned the unintentionally hilarious "Big Foot," also about a rapist nicknamed Bigfoot, for a 1982 T.J. HOOKER.

Meanwhile, Hunter pokes into the case of a teenage prostitute named Stacey (FREDDY'S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE's Lezlie Deane), who contacts police with a harrowing tale of being kidnapped by Satanists who performed a blood ritual on her friend. McCall's spare time involves a political clash with Commander Cain (Arthur Rosenberg), her boss Charlie Devane's (Hallahan) boss, who pulls heavy strings in an attempt to coerce Dee Dee into dropping solicitation charges against the Governor's father-in-law, Superior Court judge Warrick Unger (BRADY BUNCH dad Robert Reed, who spent much of his post-BRADY career playing scumbags). The manner in which these subplots intersect add layers of menace to both.

It also gives the stars meatier material to play than their usual cops-and-robbers shenanigans. For Kramer, "City of Passion" is a callback to the second-season two-parter "Rape & Revenge," in which McCall was raped in her home by a foreign government official with diplomatic immunity. In part two of "City of Passion," the Bigfoot Rapist attacks McCall in her home. She fights him off, but tells her physician (Rosemary Forsyth) that she won't report the attack because of the shame and ostracism she suffered from her colleagues the last time. Because she's refusing to report a felony, she declines to tell even Hunter about Bigfoot's attack in order to protect his career.

Barnes' novel, which I haven't read, must have provided the screenwriters and producers Stu Segall and Jo Swerling Jr. with enough material for three parts, because "City of Passion" doesn't feel padded. They called on James Whitmore Jr., HUNTER's most prolific director (with 23 one-hours), to helm the epic, and he came through with a strong effort. The episode lacks the series' usual action beats for the most part, but Whitmore engineers a good deal of suspense in the rape sequences, particularly the harrowing scene that opens part one. The Satanic rituals, overflowing with candles and blood and men in robes, could easily have looked laughable, but Whitmore (a semi-regular in HUNTER's first three seasons) has a strong handle on the material and films them as horror, rather than crime drama.

"City of Passion" was HUNTER's peak in quality, as well as chronology, as the three-parter aired as episodes 70, 71, and 72 of a 152-episode run. To say it was all downhill from there isn't fair, as HUNTER turned out several more good shows in its fourth, fifth, and sixth year. The seventh season was something of a mess with Darlanne Fluegel (TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A.) and then Lauren Lane (THE NANNY) failing to fill Kramer's high heels as Hunter's new partners.

The series managed to have an almost unprecedented appeal even more than a decade after it was cancelled. Three reunion movies led to a return of HUNTER on a weekly basis in 2003, again on Saturday nights on NBC. Backstage complications and NBC's inept promotion caused the new HUNTER to be cancelled after only three episodes, so it never got a chance to produce an epic to compete with "City of Passion."

Great TV Episodes: The Day The Sky Fell In

THE TIME TUNNEL

“The Day the Sky Fell In”

September 30, 1966

ABC

Writer: Ellis St. Joseph

Director: William Hale

THE TIME TUNNEL was the third of four science fiction series Irwin Allen produced for network television in the 1960s. After exploring beneath the ocean’s surface in VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA and beyond the Earth’s solar system in LOST IN SPACE, Allen decided his next show should traverse the flow of time. Allen, who became a household name in the 1970s as the “Master of Disaster” producer of blockbuster “disaster movies” like THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, THE TOWERING INFERNO, and THE SWARM, was never accused of thinking small.

James Darren, a handsome young actor and pop singer who had been seen on the big screen in THE GUNS OF NAVARONE and GIDGET, and former Warner Brothers contract player Robert Colbert, who briefly replaced James Garner on MAVERICK, were signed to play the leading roles in Allen’s THE TIME TUNNEL. Scientists Tony Newman (Darren) and Doug Phillips (Colbert) were the two men in charge of Operation Tic-Toc, a major government experiment in time travel taking place at a top-secret underground facility.

Rushed to show results by an impatient senator or have their funds cut off, Tony jumped into the untested Time Tunnel in the pilot episode and became trapped aboard the U.S.S. Titanic on its fateful voyage. Donning period clothing and carrying a newspaper with the next day’s headline, Doug leaped into the tunnel to save his friend’s life, just as the massive ship smashed into the iceberg that would sink it later that evening.

Working feverishly back at the laboratory, Time Tunnel technicians Ann MacGregor (Lee Meriwether), Ray Swain (John Zaremba), and General Haywood Kirk (Whit Bissell) managed to tune in to Doug and Tony, but instead of pulling them back to the present of 1968, only sent them spinning through time to land in a different place and period every week. It could be Little Big Horn during the time of General Custer or a rocketship on a mission to Mars. Neither the time travelers nor the harried staff back at the Time Tunnel knew where Tony and Doug would end up next.

The fourth episode telecast, “The Day the Sky Fell In,” was certainly one of the series’ finest, if not the best. It certainly offered more dramatic chops than Allen’s shows were known for, as VOYAGE and LOST IN SPACE were generally more concerned with colorful monsters, blinking lights, and over-the-top spectacle than characterization. Tony and Doug drop into Honolulu on the evening of December 6, 1941, where an eight-year-old Tony lived with his father, Tony Sr. (Linden Chiles), a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy. Lt. Comm. Newman was declared missing in action and assumed killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and Tony and Doug rush to warn his father of the attack in hopes of saving his life.

Primarily an action show, Ellis St. Joseph’s script gives equal weight to the pursuit of Tony and Doug by Japanese spies, who are flummoxed by their knowledge of the sneak attack and try to kill them before they can make anyone believe their warnings. But the best parts of the episode are Tony’s scenes with his father, who, of course, refuses to believe the strangers’ paranoid warnings of an attack that could never happen on American soil without the Navy knowing about it.

The first time they meet, it’s at a dinner party Tony remembers attending with his father. As the time travelers attempt to convince Tony Sr. of their story, the young Tony Jr. enters the room, and the tickled look on Colbert’s face as he watches his friend confront himself as a boy may be the most human moment in the entire TIME TUNNEL series.

After being captured and interrogated by Japanese spies, culminating in an exciting fistfight and escape deftly staged by director William Hale, Tony and Doug fail to prevent the attack, of course, but they do manage to get to Tony’s dad on the base and help him use the radio to warn the U.S.S. Enterprise away from Pearl. Chiles and particularly Darren turn in stellar work, as Tony Sr. dies in his son’s arms, content that his son will survive to become an adult.

Great TV Episodes: Tempest In A Texas Town

This post introduces a new feature to this blog: reviews of outstanding episodes of classic television series.


JUDD FOR THE DEFENSE
“Tempest in a Texas Town”
September 8, 1967
ABC
Story: Paul Monash
Teleplay: Harold Gast and Leon Tokatyan
Director: Harvey Hart

JUDD FOR THE DEFENSE ran only two seasons on ABC from 1967 to 1969. Why wasn’t it more popular?

Its timeslot wasn’t bad—Fridays at 9:00pm Central facing THE CBS FRIDAY NIGHT MOVIES both seasons and NBC’s THE BELL TELEPHONE HOUR/NBC News Specials the first season and the weakly rated STAR TREK in its third and last season during JUDD’s second season. It received a decent amount of acclaim, earning an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Dramatic Series and star Carl Betz an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Dramatic Series in its second year. And it opened each week with an exciting animated main title anchored by Alexander Courage’s theme, one of only two he wrote for a TV drama (STAR TREK being the other).



Judging just from JUDD’s first episode, it wasn’t the quality of the drama that kept viewers away. “Tempest in a Texas Town” takes flamboyant defense attorney Clinton Judd (Betz) back to his hometown to defend a young man on charges of murdering two teenage girls. The script by producer Harold Gast and Leon Tokatyan (LOU GRANT) from a story by JUDD creator Paul Monash (PEYTON PLACE) won the 1968 Edgar Award for Best Episode on a TV Series. Chock-a-block with strong characterizations and a twisty plot, “Tempest” was a fine choice.

Judd, a slick-talking combination of Texas-bred Percy Foreman and F. Lee Bailey, is not roundly welcomed back in little Amos, Texas, where his sheriff father was murdered on the town square by a man who was acquitted of an earlier killing. The man’s attorney was Clinton Judd.

Judd’s client is Brandon Hill, played by the enigmatic and charismatic Christopher Jones, who had recently essayed the title role in ABC’s single-season THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JESSE JAMES. Jones, whose brief Hollywood career included a starring turn in WILD IN THE STREETS and a brief marriage to actress Susan Strasberg, vanished from the public eye after co-starring in David Lean’s RYAN’S DAUGHTER. Hill has a beef against Amos because of his late father, an inventor who was laughed at by the town for being a crackpot. He’s insolent and brash, and Jones plays him on the edge so that it’s not clear whether or not he’s also a killer.

Hill’s crime is the murder of two teenagers, which allegedly occurred by beating them with a shovel and then burying the bodies with it. However, the girls were never found, which doesn’t deter District Attorney Ed Tanner (Pat Hingle, burdened by a foot cast and cane that may be from a real injury) from putting the young Hill on trial for their deaths. And it seems as though Tanner may have a strong case after an eyewitness, an elderly ranch hand named Aldo Reese (Russell Thorson), testifies that he saw the entire crime take place.

Judd, whose sense of fair play dictates he must give his client, guilty or innocent (“I’m a lawyer, not a judge.”), his best, tears apart Reese during cross-examination—an action that scars Judd, because Reese was the only man in town who came to his father’s aid after he was shot down. Even better for Judd’s case is the mid-trial appearance of one of the alleged victims, Terry Ann Brendler, played by Fox contract player Patti Petersen, who later changed her name to Heather Young and became a regular on ABC’s LAND OF THE GIANTS.

Gast and Tokatyan have more twists up their sleeves, but I won’t give them away except to say “Tempest in a Texas Town” ends on an uncharacteristically bleak note for 1967 episodic television. Harvey Hart (BUS RILEY’S BACK IN TOWN) directs with strength, pushing in tight on Betz during the star’s juicy monologues. Betz, fresh off eight years as Donna Reed’s husband on her eponymous sitcom, obviously relished the chance to sink into dramatic material.

“Tempest” was the first JUDD FOR THE DEFENSE filmed and aired. Stephen Young (PATTON) joined the series as Judd’s young legman, Ben Caldwell, and the two men tackled cases involving racism, draft dodging, parental rights, heart transplants, snake pits, witchcraft, mental retardation, and other hot-button issues of the late 1960s. None of these helped the ratings, and it’s possible asking viewers to immerse themselves in controversial subjects contributed to the series’ low ratings.

Nonetheless, JUDD FOR THE DEFENSE was a triumph for Carl Betz and executive producer Paul Monash. And “Tempest in a Texas Town” is an hour of television both could be proud of.

Great TV Episodes: Knife In The Darkness

A television western may seem like the last place a horror fan would go for spooky thrills, but producers of the 1960s TV series CIMARRON STRIP were certainly thinking outside the box when they mounted the episode "Knife in the Darkness," which aired on CBS the night of January 25, 1968.

First, some background. CIMARRON STRIP was a co-production of CBS Television and actor Stuart Whitman, who landed the leading role of Marshal Jim Crown, who was based in bustling Cimarron City, Oklahoma and patrolled a strip of country that stretched all the way to Kansas. CIMARRON STRIP was unusual in that it was, like NBC's hit western THE VIRGINIAN, a weekly 90-minute dramatic series, which allowed the writers to explore more complex stories, provided talented guest stars (such as Joseph Cotten, Robert Duvall, Warren Oates and Tuesday Weld) with a larger canvas on which to express themselves, and lavished extra money and time upon the crew to provide uncommonly fulsome production values. In fact, it has been reported that the series' excessive budget helped lead to its cancellation after one season and 23 episodes. Perhaps airing against hits like DANIEL BOONE on NBC and BATMAN, THE FLYING NUN and BEWITCHED on ABC didn't help either.

Emphatically declaring CIMARRON STRIP's status as a small-screen epic was its opening titles. As Whitman galloped across a calico California desert, the camera swooped past him horse-high and up high into the clouds, while Maurice Jarre's sweeping theme heralded a production of some prestige. It's one of the finest credit sequences in television.

Back to "Knife in the Darkness," which is an unusually horror-themed episode for a TV western. Harlan Ellison, who has since become a renowned author of fantasy-oriented books and stories, wrote it, and journeyman Charles Rondeau directed it. Rondeau, although he did direct shows of no little style, such as MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE and THE WILD WILD WEST in his career, was not suited for Ellison's dark, moody story, and it is said that the writer deplored the flat, clumsy look that Rondeau brought to the episode.

Whereas producer Douglas Benton (THRILLER) and executive producer Philip Leacock (HAWAII FIVE-0) erred in using Rondeau, they positively shone in their selection of the great Bernard Herrmann to compose and conduct the "Knife" score. Herrmann had a glorious history with CBS on shows like TWILIGHT ZONE and RAWHIDE, but the favorite composer of Alfred Hitchcock's last television turn was this episode of CIMARRON STRIP. Evocative and atmospheric as hell, Herrmann helps provide "Knife" with a chill factor sadly lacking in Rondeau's direction.

Ellison's central conceit was a tried-and-true one, even in 1967 (when the episode was produced), and it had, oddly enough, been presented on an episode of STAR TREK ("Wolf in the Fold") that aired one month prior to "Knife." The idea was to take Jack the Ripper out of England and transport him to the United States, and a series set in 1888 was in the perfect position to run with Ellison's story.

Taking place over a single night, "Knife in the Darkness" opens with the bloody murder of a prostitute named Josie (Jennifer Billingsley), who had just instigated a slight brawl between a couple of cowboys at a dance. Shortly after Marshal Crown (Whitman) begins running down his long list of suspects, another prostitute is slashed to death: Maddie (Victoria Shaw), an old friend of Crown's.

Tensions run high in Cimarron, as people are either afraid to go out, causing the saloons to close early, or anxious to impulsively suspect their neighbors, which leads to the tragic lynching of an Indian (Ron Soble) at the hands of some drunken cowboys. Although "Knife" is structured as a mystery, Ellison introduces too many suspects who are underdeveloped, and Crown doesn't think much like a detective. Rondeau tries to soup up his setbound show with light and fog effects that don't compensate for the bloodless tone (of the three victims, only one is killed on-camera).

One of Crown's interviewees is a Brit named Tipton (Patrick Horgan), who believes the Cimarron slasher to be a serial killer nicknamed Jack the Ripper, who killed seven women in London before apparently leaving town the month before. Tipton believes he has followed Jack to America—from New York to Philadelphia, Kansas City and now Cimarron City. Crown finds Tipton's theory too bizarre to believe, and he has no shortage of native-born suspects, including gambler Kallman (Philip Carey), knife salesman (!) Pettigrew (Don Hamner) and soft-spoken intellectual Shelton (Tom Skerritt).

Ellison's touch is pronouncedly felt at the climax, which preserves some mystery as to the Ripper's identity and mixes in elements of Native American mysticism. Yeah, it plays somewhat like a cheat, considering the previously straightforward storytelling common to episodic television, but I think it's an effective way to end the show.

Although lacking in the location shooting CIMARRON STRIP was known for, "Knife" doesn't lack for star power. In addition to familiar TV faces then (Carey) and now (Skerritt), the show boasts a fine turn by Jeanne Cooper (THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS) as a worried madam, David Canary (later on BONANZA and currently still on ALL MY CHILDREN), George Murdock, Joe E. Tata and STAR TREK yeoman Grace Lee Whitney. Outside of the busy Whitman, the series featured a small cast of supporting regulars, including the lovely Jill Townsend as a naïve innkeeper and Percy Herbert as an outspoken Scotsman, but they consistently paled alongside the more impressive guests.

CIMARRON STRIP has been airing weekly on Encore Western for some time now, so if your cable or satellite provider offers the channel, keep an eye out for "Knife in the Darkness," which is flawed, to be sure, but still an unusual and effective way to pass 74 minutes.