2012 Fall Season

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

So, I adopted a few new shows onto the DVR queue. One of which, Animal Practice, has already been cancelled. Probably for very good reason. My favorite cancellation story so far is about the new Dane Cook show. They filmed four episodes and cancelled the show without airing any of them.

But this post is about the new show 'Vegas' It stars Dennis Quaid who has been practicing is constipated face and not Robert Urich.

The show is set in the 1960's Vegas and is about a rancher who is made sheriff in order to get the flight path changed from right over his ranch. It also has Michael Chiklis as Quaid's gangster nemesis. So period piece gangster show, right? Actually, it hews closer to CBS's stock in trade, the police procedural. You could call it CSI: 1960's Vegas or NCIS:Vegas or Criminal MInds:Vegas. Basically, there are crimes to be solved and CBS will solve them. I amazed there is any crime left with all the work CBS is doing to solve them.

It's a very comforting formula. Something goes badly wrong and the lawmen of Vegas solve it. They ride horses. They carry rifles. They dress as ranchers. But it is still detective solving crime. I wouldn't be surprised if they took some old NCIS scripts and just changed the names and places around.

[cranefly]

Lady Cranefly and I have been watching some Italian programming on KCSMDT2 (60.2). It's actually quite good. But I finally lamented to LC, "Why does it all have to be murder mysteries?" Because that's what it all is. And you're right, Greg. Murder mysteries have become the climax carnivore of TV programming.

Though I suppose we should have seen it coming....

I remember back when I was a kid, watching that one episode of Leave It to Beaver where Wally and Beaver find that headless corpse in the backyard. It was such a change of pace from the usual, "Oh dear, I forgot my school locker combo" script, or "I can't figure out how to carry the one when I multiply," or "Eddie wants to copy my homework, but I'm not sure that's ethical." So, yeah, the headless corpse episode was a bit of a shock, with all those interrogations of Wally and Beaver because, well, they were the one's who'd found the body. And I was so relieved in the end when it turned out to be old Zeke Winston down the street who had done it, and I still remember that final shot when he jumped off the roof and smashed his head on the concrete sidewalk in a spray of blood rather than go to jail.

I also remember that My Three Sons episode where that young woman is raped and murdered, and Robbie is the prime suspect because he'd taken her to a dance earlier in the evening. It was a very dark episode, with Steve (Fred McMurray) having one of the frankest talks with Robbie I can ever recall, bordering on raising his voice. And once more I was greatly relieved when the police discovered that it was some homeless guy passing through town who had done the bad deed, and the only reason Robbie's blood was found on her was because they'd had a fight after the dance and he'd beaten her up.

And yes, how could I ever forget that one episode of Soupy Sales when a guest star starts throwing acid pies. Maybe it was for Holloween. I don't recall for sure. But it scared the heck out of me, seeing Soupy and all his pals screaming in anguish, with their faces disintegrating and eyes falling out. And it goes on until the very end of the show, even with the credits rolling, wails of misery and sobbing and gruesome close-ups...

Granted, these episodes didn't do very well at the time. They were aberrations to the norm. But they left their mark on so many kids at an impressionable age, and those kids grew up to be screenwriters, and now we're paying bigtime for it.

It was bound to happen. We should have seen it coming.

[Drunk Monk]

your alien village has much better television than my alien village. all i get is telenovelas (decisiones extremas which is actually pretty entertaining) and late nite horror film hosts (but no elvira).