& TV III

TV I'd Watch


The Larry Sanders Show
Only the best show on TV. A huge spoof of late night talkshows and Hollywood in general. Garry Shandling, Rip Torn, Jeffrey Tambor, Janeane Garafalo (she's only going to be in a couple of episodes this year), Penny Johnson, & Scott Thompson. Unfortunately, CBC didn't pick up the HBO produced show this year, but it is on Superchannel.
Here's HBO's own site for The Larry Sanders Show.

The Outer Limits
The Twilight Zone
The old Outer Limits was great and the new show is one of the only good things on. They both have really strong stories and the new ones have a very high production value to match.
You can go to MGM's Outer Limits - The Official Site or
The SciFi Site - The Outer Limits.
Rod Serling's original Twilight Zone is one of my favourites. A lot of the time the most ordinary seeming stories turned out to be the most eerie and provocative. The newer series was also very good.
Anthology series of these kind seem to have especially strong stories.
Other similar series that are good are Tales from the Crypt, both the old & new
Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and Ray Bradbury Theatre.

The X-Files
Intelligent science fiction and intelligent debunking of seemingly unexplainable happenings. You just don't know where Mulder and Scully are going to end up next.
Starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson .
For more try The Official X-Files Page , Terminal X , or Serious Look at the X-Files.

Twin Peaks
I really got hooked by this show. Something completely unexpected or off-the-wall always happened. The huge cast (led by Kyle MacLachlan) played a bunch of really quirky people. Even had David Duchovny playing a transvestite DEA agent for a few episodes. They got into some really wierd sci-fi / horror themes. Cool music. It might not have been as big of a question as "who shot J.R.?" or even "who shot Mr. Burns?", but a lot of people really wanted to know "who killed Laura Palmer?". Can be seen on Bravo!.
Enter The Black Lodge.
For more on creator David Lynch go to Lynchnet.

Earth 2
I really liked this show from the '94 / '95 season a lot. I think it was too intelligent and that's why it's gone. The living planet where everything is interconnected was one of the coolest of any planets I've encountered in my science fiction reading. The fans of this show fought like mad to get the show back but it didn't happen.
See the


M*A*S*H
A show that combined serious drama, slapstick and a very likable (or unlikable if that's what they were supposed to be) cast. One of the only shows to stay enjoyable to the end of its run. You can find it showing at least a couple of times a day.
All in the Family
Who'd have thought that an unpleasant bigot like Archie Bunker could be so funny. His family made us laugh and maybe face some unpleasant truths about ourselves too. Starring Carroll O' Connor, Jean Stapleton, Rob Reiner, and Sally Struthers.

The Nanny
Fran Drescher has always been great in everything she's done and she is really funny in The Nanny even if it does suffer from that silly sitcom thing. Daniel Davis as Niles is fantastic as the wisecracking butler.
Go to The Nanny Home Page or The Nanny (Unofficial) Home Page.

Cybill
This is a lot funnier than most sitcoms. Cybill Shepard plays a twice-divorced actress named Cybill who is very stubborn, opinionated, and carries a grudge. She is very open about everything in life, more open than some people might wish. Her best friend MaryAnn is a rich, bitter lush who spent a long time stalking her ex-husband. She carries a grudge longer than Cybill does. Christine Baranski as MaryAnn is fantastic. She plays the high-class drunk with tons of attitude with just the right amount of nastiness and humour. She is one of the best characters that has been on TV in a long time. These two are a lot like an American version of the characters from the BBC series Absolutely Fabulous. The teenage daughter from her second husband is a dark, brooding, troubled kid who can come up with great dry gags. The second husband is a neurotic writer and he comes up with some very funny views on the world. One of his memorable lines was in a bookstore, "I'll just be over at the bestseller table seeing if Stephen King has put anything out since we arrived". Any other characters are just typical fare.

The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.
Set at the end of the 1800s when the West was almost tame. A bounty hunter deals with bad guys, sexy women, wacky inventions, and even a time travelling orb. Bruce Campbell as Brisco was always coming up with ideas for things that we have now before their time. He had a very smart horse named Comet. This was a very funny show. John Astin was great as a wacky inventor.
Check out The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.

Legend
Almost the same as Brisco, but not as funny. Richard Dean Anderson is a drunken writer who is rooked into becoming his dime-novel hero alter ego "Nickodemus Legend" and the little West townspeople really believe that's who he is. No matter how hard he tries to tell them different, these people expect a hero and that's what they're gonna get, guldurnit! With the help of a Hungarian inventor whose science is mistrusted by the townsfolk (and who just happens to live nearby) Ernest Pratt manages to pull off some of the wild stunts and use some of the gadgets (wonderful toys that Jack Nicholson's The Joker would have loved) he had written about a la James Bond or dare we say MacGyver. Pratt's technical expert a la Q from Bond is played by John de Lancie who has played the omnipotent being Q on all the modern Star Trek series and a wacky inventor / scientist on the soap Days of Our Lives. How's that for a trail of trivial references? This one didn't even last as long as Brisco.

The Avengers
Either you like it or you don't. At times very confusing, this bizarre spy show was very tongue-in-cheek. The years with Diana Rigg (#2) as Mrs. Emma Peel were the best. A Seattle band called The Allies did a song in 19? called I'm in Love With Emma Peel. Also starred Patrick MacNee, Honor Blackman (#1), and Linda Thorson (#3). Can be seen on Bravo!.
For more, see The Avengers Unofficial Home Page

Babylon 5
This show has a lot of gorgeous graphics, very cool aliens, and an on-going storyline that is epic in scope. The cast is great except the second season additions. I dreaded the arrival of Bruce Boxleitner as the new captain and as expected he's not very good. On top of that they also added the untalents of Jeff Conaway as a security officer. Still a show I don't want to miss. The show managed to run its planned 5 seasons. There have been quite a few 2 hour movies as well. The last one of these introduced some new characters and a storyline that spun right off into the new series Crusade that started June 1999. Here's some of the many Babylon 5 sites out there.


Max Headroom
Set in a cyberpunk world 20 minutes into the future. Max is a computer generated personality based on a reporter. They both have a strong sense of integrity which works against their own evil Network XXIII. Both of these characters are played by Matt Frewer whose work I really enjoy. Also starred Amanda Pays and Jeffrey Tambor. Can be seen on Bravo!. Frewer also had a comedy series that I loved called Doctor, Doctor that only lasted 1 season. They poked fun at a lot of politically incorrect topics, I was actually surprised at a lot of the things they got away with saying.
Go to The Max Headroom Homepage.

Seinfeld
A funny show about nothing. Starring Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, and Michael Richards.
For more, go to The Fab Four - "Jerry, Elaine, George & Kramer".



Star Trek
Star Trek cartoon series
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Voyager


What hasn't already been said about Star Trek? What I like the most is the normally strong stories (at least from the original and NG) even if sometimes the actors couldn't quite pull it off. All the newer series have great special effects and the old series did pretty well considering they didn't really have a special effects budget to speak of. I prefer the laughs you can still get out of the swashbuckling Kirk, Spock, and McCoy series. My favourite movie is Wrath of Khan in its classic confrontation mode (as usual somebody just has to get revenge on Kirk). Ricardo Montalban was excellent as Khan. When asked by a crewmember why he doesn't just give up on a hopeless chase (to get Kirk) and escape to a new life, he answers "because he tasks me, ...he tasks me!" I love it, just like Shakespeare in space. They actually used a lot of Shakespeare quotes in The Undiscovered Country, mostly quoted by the crazy Klingon general played by Christopher Plummer; "...let slip the dogs of war" and my favourite, "Cry Havoc!"

The Movies

 

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1980)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Star Trek Generations (1994)
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

A lot of Trek links, but only a portion
of the ones I looked at. Yikes!


More TV


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