gavmaster

An incredible exercise in formulaic writing. It could be used as a textbook for TV drama writing. The show follows the standard QM production formula of prologue, multiple acts, and epilogue.

Here's a summary of almost every show.

Prologue: You see Richard Kimble walking along the road.

Act one: Kimble gets some kind of menial job (stable hand, factory worker). Suspicion about the quiet drifter, the new guy. Act two: Kimble falls in love with a woman, tells her his whole story, dramatically ("They said I killed my wife, but I didn't do it! It was... a ONE ARMED MAN!")

Act three: Kimble casts further suspicion on himself by using his medical skills ("The way he cured that horse... there's something about that guy... The way he set Bill's broken arm... there's something about that guy...") The suspicious party/ies from the first act call the authorities.

Act four: The chase is on! Lots of dramatic orchestral brass music, punctuated by shots of David Janssen running, then stopping and turning towards the camera and giving his patented panicked look.

Epilogue: Kimble eludes his pursuers, gets away for another week. We see him walking backwards down the road, thumbing a ride with a sack over his shoulder. A car passes him, he turns around, keeps walking and we hear Robert Conrad's deep yet somehow stuck-in-the-throat voiceover something like, "Richard Kimble: Fugitive. Still searching for the one-armed-man". Swell of music. FTB

This show has been revived SO many times, notably as "The Incredible Hulk", "The Pretender" and recently as "The Fugitive". Truly an enduring formula: The Pythagorean Theorem of TV writing!

'The McMasters' is yet another film that stands as a testament to the changing values of North American society: another case of "There's no way that could have been made today".

Brock Peters plays Benji, a former slave and Civil War veteran who is adopted by kindly-old-white-man Burl Ives ('Mcmasters'), and given title to the old man's farm. Conflict with the racist locals, led by the chilling Jack Palance as Kolby, ensues, leading to a violent conclusion.

To me the film was almost painfully riveting, and frank in its depictions of violence and racism.The violence in today's action films is highly stylized, and almost glamorous by comparison: today's post-Star-Wars escapist fare has no place for the smallest depiction or frank discussion of racism. I found myself getting involved with the characters, cheering them on and yelling advice to the screen. I also loved the western/blacksploitation angle of the film, even though the "showdown" plot is pretty standard western fare.

The film seems old-fashioned when viewed today: does that mean that society has progressed, or regressed since 1969? You be the judge.

Expertly directed by R. William Neill, who was responsible for the film noir classic "Black Angel", "The Pearl Of Death" is based on the Arthur Conan Doyle story "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons". This film has it all: mystery, action, comedy, horror, even a half-assed patriotic message tacked on to the end (it was made as WWII was coming to a close). I was impressed by Basil Rathbone's characterization of Holmes: he consistently utters lines that, coming from an inferior actor, would probably sound ridiculous, yet he manages (probably because this was his sixth turn at the character) to impress me with his believability and sheer presence on the screen. Until I saw this film I was always irritated by Nigel Bruce's bumbling Dr. Watson, whose character is miles away from the Watson portrayed in the books, but I now realize that he was the perfect foil for Rathbone's Holmes. The updating of Holmes into the modern era also troubles me, but the film manages to maintain a kind of 'timeless' quality by avoiding too many 'modern' references. Virgil Miller's cinematography is beautiful: I would hate to see it "Colorized" by Turner and his evil band. Miller, who shot another one of my favorite films, "Mr. Moto Takes A Chance" is the perfect compliment for Neill's great direction: together they make every shot interesting, and provide many unforgettable images.

TV 101 stood out from many of its contemporaries as an intelligent, culturally aware, and hip document of teenage life in the 80's. Sam Robards played Kevin Keegan, a journalist who returns to his Californian alma mater to teach an unusual journalism class: a class based around a weekly student-produced TV show. The students are what made the show: instead of the usual "cookie-cutter" thirty-year-olds playing Middle American high-school types of say "Saved By The Bell" or "90210", this show's characters were smart, stylish, ethnically diverse, and intellectually, technologically, and morally aware; not afraid to "face the issues" in their reporting, sort of a teenaged "Lou Grant", with cutting edge home video equipment. Especially interesting to me was "Holden Heinz" (Alex Désert, lately of the show "Becker"), the scooter-riding 'mod' African American student: he was an archetype of myself and my friends at the time: we liked him even though he wasn't quite as cutting-edge as we were. Also notable was Matt LeBlanc of "Friends" as "Bender". The only other kid from the series I've seen lately was Stacey Dash doing the old Thirty-Year-Old-Playing-A-Teenager thing in "Clueless".To top it all of the show's theme was written by composer Stewart Copeland, best known as the drummer for 80's #1 hitmakers "The Police. Alas, the show lasted only one season: I guess the masses couldn't relate to a cast that ethnically varied and cool. Hell, they still can't.

"A Fortunate Life" is based on the bestselling biography of A.B. "Bert" Facey (1894-1982). This moving four-part television mini series covers the first part of the book. The mini-series stays true to the form of the book: it is somewhat unsophisticated and perhaps overly direct in its storytelling. The series ends with the year 1915, (the book finishes in 1976) after having shown a great deal of Mr. Facey's struggle to survive during hard times.

I would have liked to have seen a bit more of Mr. Facey's return to the life of Western Australia after enduring the punishingly realistic scenes of the Battle of Gallipoli: I thought that the "we lived happily ever after" voice-over at the end was a bit of a cop-out; after all the appeal of the show is the characterization of Bert as a tough, yet moral and easygoing man. The show paints an excellent picture of a typical tough "cobber", and it gives insight into the Australian people of the time.