Mon 27 May 2019
TV Quiz Time: CAN YOU NAME THIS SERIES? by Michael Shonk.
Posted by Steve under TV Drama , TV mysteries , TV Science Fiction & Fantasy , TV Westerns[16] Comments
by Michael Shonk
Officially, broadcast network TV began in 1946, meaning we are in the seventy-third year of network TV. That is a lot of TV shows.
Below I pick one series from each decade of TV starting with the 1950s. I will describe it and you can try to guess what TV series I am describing or just skip to the YouTube clip, theme or episode from the mystery series. Since YouTube videos are rarely immortal I will add the answers to the comments.
We begin in the 1950s. A famous movie actor played a Town Marshal in this Western that aired on NBC during the 1959-60 season. One more clue – one of the Marshal’s Deputies was played by the movie star’s son.
Answer: Click here.
In 1967 CBS aired this hour-long series starring John Mills. Mills played a traveling lawyer in the Old West. Sean Garrison played his younger partner and protector. The series lasted thirteen episodes.
Answer: Click here.
This ABC TV series from 1970s was part of all three networks run to create TV shows for young viewers. Set during the American Revolution, it featured five young people attempting to aid the patriots against the British. The series lasted fifteen episodes.
Answer: Click here.
This series was the first TV adaptation of a story that has been a best-selling book, an iconic film, failed film sequel, and is now a critically acclaimed TV version currently in production for its third season. This 1980 CBS series starred Jim McMullan, James Wainwright and Connie Sellecca.
Answer: Click here.
Angie Harmon has starred in several TV series but she played a PI in only one TV series, can you name it? The series aired in 1995- 97 with the style noticeably different in each season. Our YouTube answer is the complete opening episode of the series with one of TV’s oddest introductions to a TV series I have ever seen.
Answer: Click here.
This fall Fox will have a new TV series about the son of a serial killer solving murders. The idea is not original, even Fox has done it before. In 2005, this series also aired on Fox and starred Johnny Messner as Detective Jack Hale, a member of the Deviant Crime Unit. No one would work with Jack because he did not get along with others and had a Daddy who was a serial killer.
Answer: Click here.
Name this NBC techno-thriller series that aired ten episodes last year (May 2018 – August 2018). In this era of nearly five hundred original scripted TV series a year, you no longer have to be old to be forgotten or never seen.
The low rated series was set at a high-tech business that had invented a virtual reality machine that offered people a chance to relive their happiest memory. A problem develops when the people refuse to return to reality. Sarah Shahi played an ex-hostage negotiator hired to enter the virtual reality and convince the people to return to their depressing real lives.
Answer: Click here.
May 27th, 2019 at 7:20 pm
ANSWER SHEET
1950s – WICHITA TOWN. (NBC)
The star was Joel McCrea, who played Marshal Mike Dunbar. His son Jody played one of the Marshal’s deputies, Ben Matheson. It lasted twenty-six episodes. The clip is the limit of what I have seen of the series. Reportedly it was an above average Western that’s death was due more to the falling interest in Westerns than the quality of the show.
1960s – DUNDEE & THE CULHANE (CBS)
Created and produced by one of my favorites, Sam Rolfe, the series was one of those shows that deserved a better chance to survive. Star John Mills would go on to win an Oscar (Best Supporting Actor for RYAN’S DAUGHTER (1970)) and knighthood. Sean Garrison, who was The Culhane, left acting in the 1980s. The clip is not a good one and loses sound near the end.
1970s – YOUNG REBELS (ABC)
There is an in-depth look at this series at the website TV OBSCURITIES but I have been unable to get the link to work.
The story took place in 1777 and centered on the teenage members of the Pennsylvania Yankee Doddle Society and their attempts to help the patriots and frustrate the British. The series starred Richard Ely, Louis Gossett Jr., Alex Henteloff, and Hilarie Thompson. Many episodes had French General Lafayette (Philippe Forquet) who would use the young people for various missions against the British. Two paperback tie-ins for the series was written by William Johnston, and there was one comic book.
1980s – BEYOND WESTWORLD (CBS)
Only three of the five episodes aired on CBS, but all five are available on its DVD. The clip shows how the series suffered from all the typical flaws of that era’s television – overly simplified plot and motive, lack of character depth and inane dialog.
1990s – BAYWATCH NIGHTS (SYNDICATION)
Harmon’s other series include INCONCEIVABLE (Doctor), LAW AND ORDER and LAW AND ORDER SVU (lawyer), C-16 (special agent for FBI), WOMAN’S MURDER CLUB (cop) and RIZZOLI AND ISLES (cop).
The series premise shifted from average PI series to an X-FILE wannabe in season two. The blues laden soundtrack remains the highlight of the series.
2000s – KILLER INSTINCT (FOX)
Only nine of the thirteen episodes aired on Fox.
Comparing this series from 2005 with next season’s PRODIGAL SON illustrates how much TV story telling has changed. KILLER INSTINCT was an average police procedural focused on the crime – with a socially challenged cop who worries he might follow in his serial killer dad’s footsteps. Episode six did have Jack having to deal with his Dad (who was in prison) and his father’s desire for his son to follow him in his serial killer career.
PRODIGAL SON coming this fall is a police procedural that seems more interested in the characters than the crime – but also has the son worried about becoming a serial killer. From the trailer below, PRODIGAL SON will certainly have more humor than humorless KILLER INSTINCT.
2010s – REVERIE (NBC)
TV does love its flawed but “the best at what they do†characters. Her old boss hires the now ex-hostage negotiator Mara despite that there was a reason for her leaving her job – a reason that would obviously endanger the project. Most of the focus was on Mara dealing with her own mental trauma from her failing her last hostage negotiation. Perhaps REVERIE would have attracted a larger audience of network viewers if it had used the victim of the week format or had Mara being the first tester exploring the universal of the virtual world.
May 27th, 2019 at 7:30 pm
These were tough, Michael. Thanks for a good workout with them. I have to admit that I didn’t know any of them, and only had a chance at the first (earliest) one. The closer to the present they came, the chances that I’ve even heard of them got less and less.
May 27th, 2019 at 10:13 pm
You bring up a good question. Are these too hard? Since I created the question around the answer I had no sense if the questions were too easy or too hard.
I also was picking the forgotten so I tried to add a review or a sense of the show in the answers here in the comments. I am interested to see how many got REVERIE, a series on NBC last year.
I had fun finding these.
May 28th, 2019 at 12:30 am
I got two, the one with John Mills “Dundee and the …” and “Baywatch Nights…
May 28th, 2019 at 2:09 am
DUNDEE is one of those shows difficult to find but I recently found some episodes available on the collectors market. It was a nice series.
People forget or try to that BAYWATCH had spin-offs. Not as bad as one might expect but that opening when The Hoff introduced the series in character was just weird.
Two out of seven may turn out very good.
May 28th, 2019 at 6:49 am
The one I remember is DUNDEE AND THE CULHANE.
May 28th, 2019 at 8:15 am
I did get THE YOUNG REBELS.
For my sins, I had a whatthef*** moment watching BATWATCH NIGHTS — just one episode from the second series; my eyeballs burned.
Thinking back, I’m sure I had much greater priorities when each of these series aired. I think I was folding laundry.
May 28th, 2019 at 10:21 am
I got the first two.
And remembered #3 – but not its title.
I’ve never seen YOUNG REBELS. Or most of the Age of Relevance left-wing film and TV of the late 1960’s to early 1970’s. Have been meaning to go back and catch up with these.
Two I have seen recently were startlingly good. They were pilots for THE BOLD ONES TV series:
Deadlock (Lamont Johnson, 1969)
A Clear and Present Danger (James Goldstone, 1970)
Both were creative on both levels of film technique and social commentary.
By contrast, I didn’t like EASY RIDER when I saw it in the 1970’s.
May 28th, 2019 at 11:04 am
I am surprised by how many remember DUNDEE. Reportedly, CBS loved the pilot but hated the series. The series debut in Sept 1967 and was cancelled by October. It aired opposite of RUN FOR YOUR LIFE and ABC WEDNESDAY MOVIE and a rating disaster.
It did air all thirteen of the series episodes.
May 28th, 2019 at 11:06 am
7. Jerry, if you thought BAYWATCH NIGHTS Season One was something, check out the trailer for season two (and yes, all of Season Two episodes are complete and available to watch on YouTube).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmdJTYNRDSw
May 28th, 2019 at 11:42 am
8. Mike Grost. The 1960s, when TV production was still in New York, was when some TV was all so serious and leftist. Shows such as EAST SIDE WEST SIDE, BREAKING POINT, ELEVENTH HOUR and THE BOLD ONES bleed compassion. THE BOLD ONES – THE SENATOR was my favorite, it lasted eight episodes and won the Emmy for Best Drama.
Last night I watched an episode of DELVECCHIO (The Avenger) about drugs. Lots of social problems talk with naive answers.
YOUNG REBELS strike me more about teenagers outsmarting adults, and after all the years of TV adults talking down to teens (I’m talking to you Perry Mason), it had to feel great to find someone who said you are smarter than the adults.
YOUNG LAWYERS is what you are talking about. Lee J. Cobb guides young lawyers out to save the world lead by Zalman King. But I found a trailer for the series that left out Cobb (second season?). It is a perfect example of what you mean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmYTIB7EZSY
May 28th, 2019 at 6:44 pm
The Young Lawyers:
What you’ve got here is the opening credits for the pilot film, a Movie Of The Week from the previous season.
When ABC bought the series, they “suggested” that a name star ought to be out front as “wise old mentor” to the title characters – hence, Lee J. Cobb got that part, and the series was “go”.
Only one season, though.
By contrast, CBS’s highly similar Storefront Lawyers started out with a “wise old mentor” character played by Barry Morse (in a really lavish toupee), who vanished after the premiere.
Them’s the breaks, I guess …
Dundee And The Culhane:
In the pilot film, CBS liked John Mills, but didn’t like the guy who played The Culhane, and requested a replacement – hence, Sean Garrison.
That clip from the opening moments – that was the pilot, or what was left of it.
It ran several weeks into the run; see, that “Sundance Kid” was Ricks Falk, who was the original Culhane.
That scene, along with a couple of others in the episode, had to be reshot to explain Sean Garrison’s absence from the rest of the show (that week, anyway).
The reason I know this: this was the only episode of Dundee And The Culhane that I ever got to see in first run (Run For Your Life was pre-empted that week).
Note to whoever may have the Dundee films: a market awaits you …
May 28th, 2019 at 8:32 pm
Thanks for all that information, Mike. Here is the theme opening for YOUNG LAWYERS series.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KZ7TTfnUP8
Westerns are a hard sell then and even more now, but I wish someone would remaster the episodes and put DUNDEE & THE CULHANE out. Of all the series mentioned in the quiz DUNDEE is my favorite.
May 28th, 2019 at 10:02 pm
I knew about the McCrea and Mills series, but never saw episodes of either. A few of the others I vaguely recall, but never saw and certainly didn’t remember.
May 28th, 2019 at 10:29 pm
David, you continue the theme here, as more people remember the shows from over 50 years ago than remember an NBC series shown last year.
That must mean something.
May 28th, 2019 at 10:41 pm
What it means is that everyone should get off our lawns. Especially kids.