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Better Then or Better Now: Make the call on classic favorites (1 Viewer)

Hollywoodaholic

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Sorry about posting the Voyage review, but I just happened to read it and thought it related to the ongoing debate on the shelf life of Irwin Allen products. I may be sorry about this post, too, but it's been on my mind.

BETTER THEN:

Alias Smith and Jones. A great show, even considering it's a thinly-veiled rip-off of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I loved this show so much in my early teens that I wrote an entire spec episode of it and sent it to ABC. Of course I didn't know anything about release forms back then, so I was very disappointed when I got a letter back saying they couldn't even read it. But I continued to love the show. And then Pete Duel (or Peter Deuel) went and shot himself.

This brings up an entire topic that probably deserves its own thread, but thematically, it still belongs under this one about how a view of a show can change. Sometimes, what changes that view is when real life intrudes on the illusion. Sometimes we can ignore it, sometimes we can't.

If you prefer to ignore it and preserve the illusion, skip the rest of this post. But if real life occurrences have affected your enjoyment of a show, feel free to read on.

Pete Duel played Hannibal Heyes, loosely modeled on Paul Newman's wise-cracking Butch Cassidy. His smile and energy were really the life of the show. So, when he took his own life, I could never quite watch the show the same way again. No matter how much I tried to preserve the illusion of the show within its own world, at some point I'm thinking .... dude must have been in a tremendous amount of pain ... Kurt Cobain level pain. I can't help thinking about it. If you are in any way an empathetic personality, it's hard to laugh with the character when you know the actor playing him was so self tortured. I can suspend reality with the best of them for a good 49 minutes, but not always 50.

Here are some other shows that were BETTER THEN for me before I knew too much:

Chico and the Man. Freddie Prinz. Same deal as Pete Duel.
Baretta. Robert Blake. If a dime from the reruns of the show goes into his pocket, how could I ever watch?
Hogan's Heroes. Bob Crane. Not only what happened to him, but what he was deeply involved in. Stop cracking a smile, Hogan. It's not so funny. See Auto-Focus for elaboration.
Perry Mason. It's a great show. Raymond Burr's a brilliant actor. I even own the 50th anniversary set. But again, I can't watch without, at some point, getting creeped out. Let's just say the Fiji Islands make Michael Jackson's Neverland look like amateur hour.

And the saddest one of all for me ...
Combat! Vic Morrow as Sergeant Saunders was my personal hero when I was 10 years old. He and his squad single-handedly won World War II. The episodes are so great to watch again as an adult and appreciate the writing, acting and drama. But an episode does not go by where, at some point, I don't think about his tragic death under a certain director's complete irresponsibility on the theatrical movie The Twilight Zone. (I have not watched that movie or another of this director's movies to this day for that reason). Morrow (and those kids) did not deserve that. His work lives on, of course, but a part of my own innocence in watching Combat! died with his own tragic and unnatural end.

And I haven't even touched on the family shows, where the cute little kids grew up to be crack addicts, thieves, whores, or worse.

I realize this is just a personal issue, perhaps my own hang-up. Actors are human beings, and if we really judged any piece of work by the actions, or fate of the human artist behind it, and turned away from it for those reasons, we'd soon have no art to appreciate whatsoever.

But I'm simply relating this in terms of the theme of this thread: Namely, that some shows I watched when they originally aired, were better for my innocence then and ignorance of what happened later.
 

Joe Tor1

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Gary, you state my position exactly! That’s why I find this so-called “review” to be utterly unprofessional!

Judge the show to some degree, if you must, but your primary responsibility as a reviewer is to review the SET! And do not introduce random, unrelated elements into your review (such as other series treated less kindly by FOX) into your review, no matter how strongly you may feel about the perceived injustice.

Imagine reading a bad TV review of LOST Season Five, and going on to read in said review a diatribe over ABC canceling LIFE ON MARS! One has nothing to do with the other – and should not be an explicit part of the review.

If we need further proof of the reviewer’s bias and agenda, please read the following quote, pulled from the review.

“Season Four - Volume One highlights? A rampaging white gorilla, a rascally leprechaun, fish-men and, this being an Irwin Allen show, the usual assortment of silver-skinned humanoid aliens in aluminum-colored jumpsuits.”

Um… rascally leprechaun?! In “Season Four - Volume One”?!

“Terrible Leprechaun” may very well have been the most ill-advised episode of the entire series, and deserving of any negatives a reviewer may wish to throw at it… BUT IT WAS NOT INCLUDED IN SEASON FOUR, VOLUME ONE!!!

WHAT SET WAS HE REVIEWING? The one with “Terrible Leprechaun” in it? I didn’t know it was out yet!

Was he reviewing VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA: SEASON FOUR VOLUME ONE… or just working from some biased memories?

It sure tells ME, that he didn’t even fully view the set he purports to review – but is content to rely on faulty recollections and prejudices to make his point.

And if such unfair and now proven factually inaccurate reviews turn potential buyers off, it works AGAINST ALL OF US who want sales high enough to warrant S4 V2!

Is there anyone at DVD Talk we can contact, to discuss this abominable situation? It can only make THEM look bad, and hurt the possibility of S4 V2 in the process.
 

Hollywoodaholic

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BETTER THEN and PRETTY DAMN GOOD NOW:

Night Gallery. Okay, I just finished revisiting Season 2 of Night Gallery and am bumping its 'now' evaluation up on the strength of stories in the last few episodes of the second season (as several on the Night Gallery 2 thread predicted). "Sins of the Father," and "Caterpillar" were spot on little masterpieces of writing, acting and atmosphere. If only the bulk of the stories had garnered this much care and attention to detail (and a lack of those godawful mood-killer Jack Laird shorts). Perhaps they had some more money and time at the end of the season, but the contrast of the production values, cast, lighting and direction on these stories was stark. They didn't rely on any monsters or special effects (which might not have held up), but purely on careful build up of a horrific twist, and then left the worst to your imagination. Way to end big, Rod.
 

Neil Brock

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Agree on Man From UNCLE being better then and I Spy better now. The MGM back lot on UNCLE is so repetitious and boring while the I Spys were shot all over the world on location. Loved the Irwin Allen shows as a kid but they are hard to watch now. They are great shows when you are 8 years old, not so much when you are an adult. Any Irwin Allen show is good when you are that age as well (Gilligan's Island, It's About Time) but by Junior High School I was too old to take the Brady Bunch. There are very few things which are made to simultaneously appeal to kids and adults (Bugs Bunny, any Jay Ward show) and that's why we find some shows we loved unwatchable now and why shows we never looked at as kids we enjoy as adults.
 

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