Cult TV Blog

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...

Strangely, one of the things which gives me most pleasure on this blog is blogging about episodes of shows which no longer exist, such as the posts I've done on series 1 episodes of The Avengers. There is something spectacularly contrary about the cult TV world. The TV stations wipe all their shows (for Reasons) thinking that we won't ever want to watch them again and we spend decades on the internet locating reel to reel off-air recordings and wipe-shaming the BBC into remaking the shows that they made in the first place. We damn well WILL see those shows again even if it's on an odd reel that somehow made its way to Cape Town - it's almost as if the cult TV world *prefers* TV which has been wiped. So we have reconstructed Who, and we have original scripts of The Avengers recorded by Big Finish. Hancock's Half Hour is another show which suffered from junking and has been reconsctructed. If you like the radio shows I cannot recommend The Missing Hancocks highly enou...

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...

This blog post spoils an essential plot point of this show. Remaining on the other side of the Atlantic (with a distinct absence of tea) for only my first ever post here about Kojak. I can't begin to think what's wrong with me, and I can only say that the fact Theo's never appeared here yet just illustrates that shows which are good haven't all appeared here yet, but shows I think are rubbish never will. One of these days I'm going to do a blog post about rubbish TV and have you all stop reading because you're so offended. Kojak needs no introduction to the readers of this blog. The Chinatown Murders is a two-part adventure over two episodes. That's pushing 100 minutes of television, which broadcast on TV would presumably have had adverts and been even longer. This is a genuinely prodigious adventure for Kojak. My only question would be why it apparently isn't a film. The plot doesn't match any of the Kojak TV movies, and I'm not aware that any o...

Sit down if you're reading this and are a fan of The X-Files, because I'm going to utter a heresy. I love series 8 of The X-Files, although to be frank I'm the only person I know who does. What I love most about it is the way it returns to some of the core X-Files themes after the off-the-wall episodes of the past couple of seasons, and also that Mulder is mostly absent, which gives Scully a chance to shine in her own right. This is what The X-Files would have looked like if the FBI had fired Mulder and put Scully in charge, complete with flat objective description and being clear when she can't explain stuff, and it's glorious. I know, right? You're all looking at me the way we look at Americans when they have a go at making tea. Roadrunners also incorporates a number of my favourite things: a cult, isolation, and links ot a number of urban legends. It's also an episode where Scully gets implanted with something, yet again. I suspect that probably in 2023 U...

This is a blog post which almost never saw the light of day. I suspect that not that many readers of this blog will have come across the mini-series Dead Head from 1986, and yet strangely it is commercially available. It is summarised as a crime drama about a petty criminal who is given a box which turns out to contain a disembodied head and this is part of a conspiracy to frame him for the crimes of a sadistic serial murderer of prostitutes. It is filmed with much of the sensibility of a 1940s film noir. Sounds good, doesn't it? As soon as I read about it I started salivating and then when I found it was comemrcially available looked it out. It is expensive for a four-episode show. For the region two release on two DVDs you're looking at about £30 upwards from most sellers (the cheapest is CEX at £12 but it rarely comes up there), which means each episode is £7.50. As it happens I don't have money to throw around any more but would have been too cheap to pay that anyway. I...

Caution: this blog post contains plot spoilers. Who am I kidding, it basically blabs the whole plot, but I couldn't think of a way to blog about this show without doing so. For some reason not entirely clear to myself I have never written about The Protectors here (I mean the ITC series, not the 1964 ABC series) before and that is an omission which should be corrected at once. I see that I have been a little sniffy about it before, and commented that it is a bit of a generic ITC international sophistication-type series. Take out Harry Rule and put in Jason King, and you would have much of the same thing, was really what I meant. I still think that is basically true - but then I think that any show of the ITC formula *without* Jason King is automatically going to be a very different, and much more sensible, proposition. In fact The Protectors does seem to have a real following online, but for the rather extraneous details, such as 1970s fashions, shop fronts, even signage. You can l...