Cult TV Blog

It's a strange world of mirrors, the cult TV blogosphere. We all plant ideas in each other's heads and bounce ideas off each other. This blog post was inspired by two coincidences, for example. The first was that Mitchell Hadley commented how much he likes early Steed. Well, so do I. I love that early Steed is a much more mutable character than the later bowler-hatted agent employed by the ministry: we never really know who he is, he comes across as louche and could even be a criminal. Particularly he treats Venus Smith like dirt and she hates it but he carries on. In fact I think this is one of the reasons the Venus Smith episodes are unpopular. Then I came across something else which reminded me of this episode (more anon). I see that I last opined about this episode nearly a decade ago (you can see the post in a series I did about Venus Smith by clicking the relevant tag in the menu). It's a pretty good blog post, even if I do say so myself, and reflects when I was young...

This is a pause in my series of posts about the American dream and The X-Files, not an ending, and is at least partly inspired by the way I have got rather side-tracked from the American dream as such, onto the particularly contrary ways the CIA attempted to defend the American dream, particularly Project MK-Ultra. The idea was that they couldn't believe that Americans could ever possibly want to defect to enemy states, such as Korea, and when they did, thought they must have been brain-washed by the enemy. So of course the only thing they could do was launch into a secret, decade-long programme of torture to find out why people would possibly want to leave the country. The complete absence of self-awareness is striking in retrospect, but it was driven by a genuine fear at the time. If nothing else comes out of my reading for the posts on the American dream, I have gained a renewed understanding of the background of the Cold War era TV I watch: the fear of the enemy; the fantasies ...

Continuing a series of posts about TV episodes relating to the circus. Warning: this post contains a plot spoiler. Not a favourite of the fans by any stretch of the imagination, this one. Multiple reviews comment that it just doesn't get it right and so all those reviews spend most of their time trying to work out why. I am surprised at that, because this has always been one of my personal favourite Avengers episodes. I note that many reviews also compare it negatively to Girl on the Trapeze, which I am not sure is a very fair comparison. I think the reason this episode causes such dissatisfaction is that they are expecting something which the episode may not be trying to deliver. This is not an objective assessment - I have no idea the impression that was intended but this is just an idea that's come to me as I've read the reviews. What people are expecting (very reasonably) is an action-filled spy drama utilising the setting of a circus. What the episode actually delivers...

Welcome to the first in another series of themed posts, this time about TV episodes relating in some way to the circus. I don't particularly have a thing about circuses, but I suddenly had a couple of shows on the subject so looked out some more. This first post is also about a show which, for no good reason, has never appeared here before. Actually I think the reason it's never appeared here is that it was one of my favourites on repeats in the UK in the early 80s, and it's always a bit difficult to look back on your past heroes. Of course there is also the reality that when I first saw it the Monkees' stage of life was ahead of me and I'm now looking back on it so it's slightly painful in all sorts of ways! Another reason the show hasn't appeared here is that it really isn't at all as I remember it. It is very obvious that my memory is faulty in some ways because I don't remember them singing, wihch obviously isn't right, but nonetheless I do w...

I had probably better apologise in advance because this post is bound to be even less focussed than usual. I had several posts in mind but none of them has happened because I concluded that it was high time to do something about my laptop. It was an excellent machine, running with no hitches at all, user-friendly, and as fast as lightning, just with the slight problem that the case kept coming apart. This wasn't covered by the warranty from the large (VERY large, and familiar to anyone in the UK because of its red signs) second-hand dealer I bought it from, so I got a man in town to mend it and when it looked like it was coming apart again, sold it back to them before it actually came apart again. And this is how, despite having been very happy with them for years, I'm slightly shocked that they bought that load of rubbish off me. I bought another off them because the credit they gave me couldn't be refused and even though the Dell one I bought wasn't advertised as such...

Regular readers will notice that I've commented a few times recently that this blog isn't always representative of what I'm actually watching. This is mainly because I like to do one blog post for one episode of a show, but of course doing it that way is much slower than we ever view TV, requiring as it does at least a little reading round, etc. This post is therefore an experiment to try to do a blog post which represents the TV which is going in through my eyes and ears and running around in my head, to see whether I like this format of post. I will simply write about what I have been viewing, and in this case comment on some episodes which have been in my mind as possible blog posts but probably won't hatch. I have watched my way through Series 9 of The X-Files again. There are two episodes which I was comsidering making blog posts but probably now won't. The first was Improbable, which is an absolute joy because it introduces the subject of numerology to the wor...

This is an unusual episode of Get Smart because it doesn't have the chief or 99, so it's just 86 and Hymie - according to IMDB the only episode where this is the case. The basic plot is that KAOS, because the robot Hymie is the only thing which gives CONTROL the edge over them, has invented another robot to destroy Hymie. We have all the usual CONTROL chaos going on. However the main, er, human interest in this episode for me personally is that Hymie isn't actually as robotic as you would think. He has emotions and at one point goes to kiss Max, which Max has to explain men don't do. So how is Hymie a man??? He feels rather resentful that max never invites him to his club, saying that they are unwelcoming to his sort. Max makes the excuse that he'd just never thought he'd play golf. This reflects exactly the sort of situation where we assume something about someone else or just don't think they would 'fit in' in a particular setting. Hymie is also a ...

High time we had some more Get Smart and this one's wonderful. The plot is quite simple: the head CONTROL scientist is murdered on Smart's watch, and it turns out he wasn't really responsible for his discoveries at all. The rest of the show is working out who The Mysterious Dr T is. What makes this one so excellent is that you get the distinct impression that the sciptwriter and cast approached it as fun and it absolutely sparkles. I have no way of knowing that this was actually their perception but it actually seems to come across when viewing the show - I know this is completely subjective, but if you watch it with this in mind you can see what I mean. In fact perhaps this is how TV should always be made! There is the additional aspect that CONTROL compete with KAOS for Dr T and so there is a bigger role than usual for Siegfried. He and Smart spark off each other in a way they don't usually. Again, this is a completely subjective view but this one just feels very diff...

The introduction to this series of posts can be found  here. This is the conclusion of my series of posts about the paired episodes of The Prisoner released edited together as films by Precision Video in the 1980s, and David Fakrikian's ideas about them (article and video linked below). The fact that these pairs of episodes were released in the way they were (rather than being released as pairs of episodes on one video cassette) raises the curiosity of Prisoner fans because of Andrew Pixley's statement that The Prisoner was intended to be a series of full length TV movies rather than the series of individual episodes it was actually broadcast as. To the best of ny knowledge there is no evidence of which episodes Patrick McGoohan would have paired together and the only statement we have about this from him was that the show could have been done in seven single episodes.  My personal conclusion about this is that while this is a fascinating possibility, having now watched the ep...

The introduction to this series of posts can be found  here. This post is about the two Prisoner episodes The Chimes of Big Ben and The General as they were released as one single film called The General in October 1983 by Precision Video. David Fakrikian, whose work I am hugely indebted to for these posts, makes the point that naturally there is an obvious connection between these two episodes because they both reference the general, in Chimes as a character in the Village and in The General as a computer. There is a further connection because bothe episodes make reference to the arts or education. He makes the fascinating point that when you go from the end of Chimes to the beginning of The General (without the 'Where am I' dialogue) it looks as if Number 2 is watching Nadia leave the Village by helicopter, which indeed it does. Although this is only apparent because it soon becomes clear in The General that the helicopter is looking for the runaway professor. A Chess game wi...

The introduction to this series of posts can be found  here. This post is a continuation of the discussion I started in my last post about the episodes Checkmate and Free for All, as they were released joined together to make a film. In my last post I talked about the theme of these episodes and the whole film, and this post is about the structure of the two episodes put together. A Chess game B Talk about black/white and escaping C Psychiatric assessment D1 Given Number 8 as his monitor, who is also tricked E Rejects her, takes her pendant and gets ready an escape attempt with others Attempts escape F Brought back to the village A Introduces the theme of the election which is just as Alice in Wonderland as the chess game B Number 2 says he wants to distinguish the guards from the prisoners D2 Given Number 58 for the election period, but she is in on the deception Dissolution of outgoing council Spins round and goes down through the floor into a corridor C Tested in the labour exch...

The introduction to this series of posts can be found  here. This post is about the joined together episodes Checkmate and Free for All, released as one video called Checkmate by Precision Video in October 1983. David Fakrikian (see web page and video linked at the bottom of the page), whose work inspired these posts, says that they are joined together by going straight from the scene in Checkmate where the butler places a pawn on the chessboard to the scene in Free for All where the phone rings in Number 6's cottage and he answers it with 'What do you want?' This post has proved surprisingly complex so I'm going to have to split it over two, or even three blog posts. This one is about the theme which links the two episodes. Fakrikian feels the linking theme used to make the two episodes a single film with a unifying theme is that of telling the difference between the black and the white (Checkmate) and between prisoners and warders (Free for All). He identifies as othe...

The introduction to this series of posts can be found  here. This post is about the episodes Many Happy Returns (MHR) and A, B and C, released edited together into a film by Precision Video in July 1982 as Many Happy Returns. It is based on an online paper and video by David Fakrikian (link at the bottom of the page) with further padding by me. Fakrikian feels (in the video linked below) that the theme which joins the two episodes together is of returning to dreamland repeatedly, and the question of what is real and what isn't. For example is the village really empty, and is my real house real. Ultimately in this view the Village becomes the only reality and the outside world becomes the dream. He identifies some points of similarity: he compares Number 6 walking around the empty village as if in a dream in MHR and saying 'This is a dreamy party' in A, B and C; he also identifies Mrs Butterworth as a point of connection between the two. However I was delighted to find, when...

The introduction to this series of posts can be found  here. This post is about the two Prisoner episodes Arrival and The Schizoid Man, considered together as joined together to make a film, which is as they were released on the first UK video release in the 1980s. I briefly considered the structure of Arrival alone in my previous post, to compare it to Koroshi and Shinda Shima, but I would like you to forget what I said there for the purposes of this post. That is because David Fakrikian's article which prompted this series of posts suggests a slightly different structure for the double episodes of The Prisoner and Dangerman (link below) so they must be considered slightly differently. Instead of the straightforward two related plots of the doubled up Danger Man episodes, of course The Prisoner structure as suggested by Fakrikian, requires a change of Number 2 rather than a change of baddie. Edit: Because my brain is like a sieve I managed to publish this blog post without stating...

The introduction to this series of posts can be found  here. As I stated in the introduction the purpose of these posts is to examine several episodes of Danger Man and The Prisoner in pairs to see how they work and particularly to identify any structure. So I have identified the following repeat structure in Koroshi and Shinda Shima, the final episodes of Danger Man, which were also joined together as a film. Koroshi : A Japanese female spy is pursued and killed. B Drake arrives in Tokyo as Edwards. C Potter gives him a record. D The record includes a picture of an emblem. E Drake seeks an explanation of the emblem from an old wise man. Drake meets Rosemary F Rosemary takes Drake to see Nigel Saunders. (Inversion of the going to the wise wo/man motif at E) G Drake is introduced to the death cult through the very heavy hint of a koroshi murder scene. H A man tries to kill Drake. I Drake saves Rosemary from a murder attempt. J The purpose of the death brotherhood is to end rule by t...

I have had it in mind for a long time to do a series of posts about the different suggested viewing orders for the episodes of The Prisoner. That I have not so far done so is purely because I can't work out how to and feel that a single blog post about a single viewing order for the seventeen episodes would be unwieldy, and if they were split up it would become confusing. However there's another issue on the periphery of this subject. Actually, as is always tha case with The Prisoner, there are several. We all have heard that McGoohan had his seven favoured episodes and felt the others were merely padding. You can see quite an extensive discussion of this  here but the usual list given is Arrival, Free for All, Dance of the Dead, Checkmate, The Chimes of Big Ben, Once Upon a Time, The Conclusion. That's one issue: that the show's creator didn't mean it to look like it does. But then it gets more interesting. On  this web page (by David Fakrikian) you will see seve...

I have promised myself that I will save the rest of Max Headroom to return to at my leisure in the future. You all understand that this isn't at all because my grasshopper mind has already moved on, don't you? In fact where it's moved to is my Christmas present to myself, which is the Network release of the 1970 anthology series Tales of Unease. This is a series I have long wanted to see in its entirety, even though I don't tend to get on very well with the rather changeable nature of anthology series, because I loved the orphaned episodes I have written about here in the past (click on the Tales of Unease label in the menu to see those posts) and also because I have been struck by the unconditional, yet intelligent, adulation I have seen this show receive in the cult TV blogosphere. Well done, Network for releasing it, First up we have The Old Banger, the final episode broadcast in the original run, and which I was particularly keen to see because I have never seen a r...