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HBO premiered a new version of 'Grey Gardens' this week, starring Jessica Lange as Edith Bouvier Beale and Drew Barrymore as her daughter, "Litlle Edie". 
The real-life story of these two women who were kin to Jackie Kennedy, and of the decaying old mansion in which they lived with nearly feral cats and even raccoons, was first chronicled in a documentary by the Maysles brothers. Much later, it became a Broadway musical with Christine Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson.
BCnU!
Toby O'B
This post is going to discuss MAJOR events in Series 3, Episode 3 of 'Primeval', which has not yet aired in the USA. If you don't want to be spoiled, come back later for more toobfoolery and toobish delight.
But leave now.
Due to pleading, cajoling, much wheedling on my part, I got to see the first three episodes of 'Primeval' S3, thanks to Mark & Michael.
Wow.
My online reading about British shows must have been BBC-oriented lately, because I had no clue that this turn of events was even a possibility.
I'm not sure hwo much this will affect the series' basic dyanmic, but I think they did a good job with early introductions for three new cast members and (last chance to jump ship if you don't want to be spoiled!) with the gradual weaning of Nick Cutter from the central action . And even then they provided nice showcases for Douglas Henshall, literally from birth to death (plus a chance to act with himself!) 
Still, I'm not sure they've adequately filled the void left by the death of Nick Cutter; nobody has the skill or knowledge he had about those prehistoric time periods. That type of information is being left in the hands of a couple of kids, basically - with Connor and Abby.
The one new scientist is an Egyptologist who'll be focused on the origins of mythological creatures to better understand what they might have been and where best to find them. Soldier boy Captain Becker is a combination of the late Stephen Hart and the late Captain Ryan. (Including the fact that all three are/were supposed to be male eye-candy.) And I'm not sure what former DI Danny Quinn will bring to the table when he finally joins the team in Episode 4.
But looking beyond that dynamic in the present day, the ramifications from Helen's murder of her husband is the bigger picture. It opens up new areas of discussion with regard to the Toobworld timeline.
In fact, it could lead to several shows being brought back into the main TV Universe!
Helen used an anomaly into the Future to see Mankind wiped out by genetically engineered creatures. And somehow it could all be traced back to Nick Cutter being responsible for those creatures being created in the Anomaly Research Centre. So Helen decided to save Mankind by blowing up the ARC and shooting Nick dead square in the chest in order to negate that future.
Let's say Helen was right. If so, then her actions have wiped out that potential timeline and hopefully set the Toobworld Future on the path that leads to 'Star Trek', 'Babylon Five', perhaps even 'Firefly'.
But now we can say any shows set in the Future which had something of a post-apocalyptic feel to them did exist in the timeline for Earth Prime-Time - before Helen wiped them out. It's much the same theory Toobworld is using to keep 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' (with its President McNeil) and 'Monk' (with its California Governor Wechsler) in the main TV Universe.
With those shows, they originally played out as is. But then - either by intervention by a temporal 'Journeyman', a 'Quantum Leaper', or during the wholesale make-over by Helen and Nick Cutter's earlier journey into the past - everything in the world changed from prehistoric times onward.
So now, even though we didn't get to see it, 'Monk' saved the life of Governor Schwarzenegger at that parade, and it was Presidents Nixon and Ford who were involved in those early 70's adventures of the Seaview.
The same thing happens now, but in the opposite direction of the timeline, and with much more drastic alterations. The events from those shows wouldn't just be changed; the entire series would be eliminated, to be replaced by something more akin to the timeline we're now living through.
One alternate future that I'm removing from this consideration is that of the TV version of 'The Planet Of The Apes'. It's now the Toobworld contention that the series takes place in an alternate dimension in which apes have always been the dominant species - thanks to other TV shows like 'Lancelot Link' and 'The Chimp Channel'. 
But we can place on this destroyed timeline other shows that owe their apocalypse to more than just genetically engineered monsters. 
Those one-eyed bat thingies may have eaten what was left of Humanity, but most of the world's landscape could still have been destroyed by good old-fashioned nuclear Armageddon. If so, we can throw in a show like 'Whoops!' (like it or not) and that episode of 'The Twilight Zone' with Burgess Meredith, "Time Enough At Last". Farther down the line, we can add in 'Logan's Run', which had Rem, its own T-888 in the "Terminator" line.
I think the "Terminator" timeline established in 'The Sarah Connor Chronicles' could be added in, with nothing changed until after John makes the jump into the Future with Catherine Weaver. (I'm just waiting for official word from FOX as to the fate of the show before I publish my analysis of its effect on the timeline, the creation of an alternate dimension, and John's self-contained temporal loop. Hopefully I can disable all of the major Zonks - like the mention of Terminators in other series and even the appearance of Summer Glau as herself on 'The Big Bang Theory'.) 
Most of the post-apocalyptic scenarios that can be dealt with in this fashion will come from single episodes in anthology series. However, if I understand the mechanics of the Many Worlds theory correctly, even if this timeline is wiped out from the main Toobworld, they would still exist as an alternate timeline. But at least this way, they would have their moment in the sun as part of Earth Prime-Time.
BCnU!
Toby O'B
On this date in 1934, Shirley Temple made her motion picture debut in "Stand Up And Cheer!", which also starred Warner Baxter, James Dunn, Nigel Bruce, and Stepin Fetchit. The movie was escapist fluff for the Depression, in which President Roosevelt created the Department of Amusement to lift the spirits of the American public. And little Shirley Dugan was one of its secret weapons of mass distraction. 
Shirley Temple was portrayed on television several times, but this is a picture of "her" (played by Emily Hart) in "Child Star: The Shirley Temple Story". That TV movie was broadcast in 2001, a year in which America once again would need its spirits lifted....
BCnU!
Toby O'B
My thumb was ready to either click "Play" or "Erase" on my DVR for the first episode of 'Harper's Island' today. It had been over a week since it aired and I had not yet seen it, and didn't know whether I really wanted to.
Well, I ended up watching it and I have to say, I admire the cujones for that fake-out at the end of the episode. Very Hitchcockian in style, so far as catching me off-guard due to star power.
So now I'm thinking I'm in it for the next eleven weeks, just to see them all go - as the little girl says in the blipvert: "One by one, one by one....."
I checked epguides.com for the upcoming episodes and, much to my delight, there's a theme to the titles of each episode. I LOVE title themes! "First", "Affair", "Steele", "Brief", "Red", "The So-And-So Story", The Case Of...." and "The Night Of...."
But these had to be the most unusual yet:
"Whap"
"Crackle""Ka-Blam"
"Bang"
"Fwhoopt"
It's almost as if they've been lifted from the Don Martin Glossary of Sound Effects!
I'm hoping before the run is over, there'll be a "Thwapt" and an "El Kabong".....
BCnU!
Toby O'B
In connection with our tip of the hat to the late Marilyn Chambers a few days ago, today's "As Seen On TV" turns its spotlight on the men responsible for launching her adult film career: Artie and Jim Mitchell. 
Emilio Estevez directed "Rated X", which he also starred in with his brother Charlie Sheen. As the Mitchell Brothers, they portrayed the world of porn and drugs in the early 70's and the fall from "grace" which eventually led one brother to kill the other.
Biblical, ain't it?
BCnU!
Toby O'B
I went to the Paley Center for Media Thursday in midtown NYC and watched nearly half a dozen oldies.
1] First up was a special request - Woody Allen's "Men Of Crisis". I've been trying to see this for months there, but it kept coming up as being in use. Glitch in the system, I guess, because they were able to manually load it for me.
"Men Of Crisis" is a 1971 mockumentary about Harvey Wallinger, one of Richard Nixon's close advisors, with Woody as Harvey. His co-stars are Diane Keaton, Louise Lasser, Conrad Bain, Dan Frazer (of 'Kojak'), and Richard M. Dixon. (I'm pretty sure I saw Vincent Gardenia sitting to Harvey Wallinger's right on a McCarthyesque panel.)
2] 'Sam Benedict'
I've always wanted to check out at least one episode of this series - hey, I'd like to see at least one episode of all the old shows! But 'Sam Benedict' stars Edmond O'Brien, and ya gotta support family - no matter how distantly related. (O'Briens - the Smiths of Ireland!)
This was standard courtroom drama, apparently based on the career of a real-life lawyer, J.W. Ehrlich. It took place in San Francisco and the guest cast in this episode included Eddie Albert, Brock Peters, and Roger Perry.
3] 'Martin Kane, Private Eye' 
This private detective drama had to be one of the earliest examples of quantum leaping in Toobworld: four different actors played the role of Martin Kane over the course of its NBC run. William Gargan, Lee Tracy, Lloyd Nolan, and Mark Stephens were the four Kanes, but it was an episode with Nolan which I saw today.
Man, was this creaky! It's a kinescope of a live production, with clumsy camerawork and some flubbed lines. But the most intriguing part - and which seemed to be the main focus of the reviews I read at the IMDb.com - was the supporting role played by Old Briar pipe tobacco and the other products by the US Tobacco company: Dill's Best, Sano cigarettes, and Encore cigarettes. A lot of the scenes took place at Happy McMann/McMahon's tobacco shop - where only US Tobacco products were on display of course - and several of those scenes should have taken place down at the police station. At the very end, a key piece of evidence, and a very fragile one at that, was brought in to the tobacco shop when it should have been under lock and key in the station-house!
At least these scenes served as the actual commercials, with the characters extolling the pleasures of the various tobacco products. But it was weird to see the camera cut away from Kane and the police lieutenant to focus on Happy selling cigarettes to a woman for a couple of minutes.
4] 'Rocky King, Detective'
Another creaker, and even worse than 'Martin Kane'! Roscoe Karns was a New York police inspector in this kinescope from the early fifties. (The city was never identified, only that it was a big metropolitan city, but you could see the Chrysler Building out his office window.) This was taped live and it really showed in the way that Karns flubbed lines left and right, even if they had to be somewhere in the scene where he could check them. But at least he was able to cover up well so that it seemed almost like the real conversational slip-ups we have every day.
The weirdest part of this show seems to be that Rocky King carried on conversations with his wife Mabel, who never appeared on camera. You'd hear her and see him looking at her, but she may as well have been invisible. (Mabel King was the Vera Peterson of her day.)
5] 'Ford Theatre' - "The Ming Lama" 
This was pretty decent so far as it goes. It served as an unsold pilot for a series that I imagine would have been called "Johnny Nighthawk". Howard Duff was John Stevens, who owned a struggling airline of one plane and he'd do the odd job to keep the company solvent. The co-stars were Francis L. Sullivan (great literal heavy), Freberg sidekick Dave Willock, Horace McMahon playing a San Francisco version of his 'Naked City' police lieutenant, Willis Bouchey (better known as a judge on 'Perry Mason'), Leo Gordon in his traditional role as Sullivan's muscle (He was always put to much better use on 'Maverick'.), and Angela Lansbury as a very hot femme fatale. (So weird to see her in this just a few weeks after seeing her, now 83, in "Blithe Spirit" on Broadway.)
While in San Francisco, Johnny stayed at the Carlton Plaza Hotel. I think there is an actual Carlton Plaza in Frisco, but I'd like to think this one was somehow connected to the Carlton Hotel of 'Have Gun, Will Travel' fame.....
So that was my Thursday in the Paley Center library, when it was such a beautiful day I should have been outdoors!
BCnU!
Toby O'B
Speaking of 'Ugly Betty'.....
O'Bviously I'm of the wrong demographic, but I've never heard the song "Chasing Pavements" or of its singer Adele before this story:
Adele will join the League of Themselves by making an appearance on an episode of 'Ugly Betty' in May. According to ABC, "Betty, her 'frenemy' Marc, and her boyfriend Matt must complete a YETI assignment in which they oversee a photo shoot. Somehow, everything turns into an impromptu wedding" (but the network won't reveal whose). The news article I read this in says that Adele is a soul singer, and they also mention that there's no indication whether or not she'll be doing any singing in the episode at all.
I'm wondering if the lyrics of "Chasing Pavements" played a role either in the casting of Adele, or in the plotline for that episode?
Should I give up,
Or should I just keep chasing pavements?
Even if it leads nowhere,
Or would it be a waste?
Even if I knew my place should I leave it there?
Should I give up,
Or should I just keep chasing pavements?
Even if it leads nowhere
BCnU!
Toby O'B
Generally, international remakes of American TV shows avoid being banished to the remake TV dimension because the most vital element has been changed - they take place in other countries, duh. There are international versions of 'Desperate Housewives', 'Married... With Children', and 'Law &Order' and its spin-offs. There were several versions of 'Ugly Betty' before the United States got one. And 'The Office' has clones all over the world, but like them, ours came from Great Britain first - as did 'All In The Family', 'Sanford and Son', and 'Three's Company'.And they can all share the same Earth Prime-Time.Turkey is now getting into the game as well. One of their TV satelllite networks (ATV) has licensed the rights to remake 'The Golden Girls' for their audience. A cast has already been lined up to create new versions of the girls: Fatma Girik will play Dorothy's mother, Sophia; Hulya Kocyigit will play Dorothy; Nevra Serezlie will be Blanche; and Turkan Soray will be the addled Rose. (Pictured below, clockwise from top left.)
Look at the picture of the four women. For alls I know, Sophia and Dorothy (top row) are a good match. But don't you think that Turkan Soray (bottom right) would be a better choice for playing Blanche? Not that Nevra Serezlie doesn't look like she could take on the blousy and blouse-open Blanche.......
I'm not sure if the names of the characters will be changed. But even if they are not, four older women living together can't be that uncommon a situation, and besides - they'll be in Istanbul! So this version of the show can stay in the main Toobworld with the original 'Golden Girls' of Miami.BCnU!Toby O'B
Maybe it's because Bart Simpson was inducted into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame this week, but I'm in a Springfield frame of mind today. And quite frankly, I'm a little too lazy to really do anything special for today's "As Seen On TV". (Most of the other pictures I have ready to go on my hard drive would all be part of themes.)
So here's Stephen Hawking, who "played" himself on two episodes of 'The Simpsons':
BCnU!
Toby O'B
Most famously, the 12th was the home of 'Barney Miller' and his squad of detectives, but that original building is now home to the Theodore Roosevelt Police Commissioner Museum. So they had to move to new digs, which is where we now find Rick Castle getting his inspirations. 
The 12th Precinct has also shown up in the "Monster" episode of 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent'. Robert Goren and Alexandra Eames dropped by there while they were investigating the death of Laura Dietrich. (Hopefully no relation to Detective Arthur Dietrich of 'Barney Miller', but then again - it is a small world.) 
I don't know which 'CSI: NY' episode it was for, but last November this building in Los Angeles was dressed up to look like the exterior of the 12th Precinct.
