Television Flashback

Hey, remember this, you were settling into your easy chair or maybe looking up from you Hot Wheels on the floor when on the television screen you saw it. THE helicopter coming up out of a extinct volcano crater with that awesome sound. Airwolf

The television series was on from 1984-1987 and starred Jan-Michael Vincent as Stringfellow Hawke and Oscar winner, Ernest Borgnine, as Dominic Santini. Hawke, a former test pilot, stole the high-tech helicopter from the FIRM, a CIA under-organization, and uses it on secret missions of national significance. The series was created by Donald P. Bellisario who also created Magnum, P.I., Quantum Leap, Tales of the Gold Monkey, Black Sheep Squadron, JAG, and NCIS. There are quite a few similarities in these examples of episodic television. The helicopter depicting Airwolf was a Bell 222 helicopter with added pods, gun mounts, etc. to create the high-tech look of the helicopter. Airwolf had the top speed of Mach 3 but, in reality, the top speed of helicopters is about .5 Mach. Mach 1 is the speed of sound. The last season of Airwolf was on the USA tlelvision network, filmed in Canada, and at one-third the CBS budget with only Jan-Michael Vincent of the original cast. I really enjoyed the first three seasons on the show. The ABC television network's Blue Thunder, a series about a high-tech helicopter,  was no match for Airwolf. Unfortunately, Airwolf left the small screen and the main human star drifted into alcoholism.

See:

• Airwolf
• Blue Thunder
• Bell-222 Helicopter

It is interesting to note that many of the features of the Airwolf  helicopter which were considered fiction in 1984 are considered the norm today.

The Adjustment Bureau

This science fiction thriller stars Matt Damon and Emily Blunt in a film based on a short-story by Philip K. Dick. The characters live in a time when lives are pre-planned.  When an individual deviates from their prescribed life plan, agents of the Adjustment Bureau are sent to make corrections.  It's a good story of  a programed life versus free-will in the life of a politician (Damon) whose life is going smooth until he meets a dancer (Blunt) who is not a part of his life plan.  This is an action movie but Matt Damon is no Jason Bourne in this film. The plot was very simple once you understand the basic primace.  I liked it.  In some ways it was like the other films based on Dick's novels or short stories which include Blade Runner, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkley to name a few. Dick was a good friend of Timothy Leary, the college professor and LSD advocate.

More information at:

• Philip K. Dick
• The Adjustment Bureau
• Matt Damon

The Best of the Best

Should we be considered anglophiles because we like British television crime dramas? Perhaps not. Although my mate and I do seem to have in insatiable appetite for crime dramas with a British accent. We first became acquainted with them through that government subsidized entertainment source, the Public Broadcasting Service. MYSTERY from WGBH, the Boston PBS station would bring us these impeccable British mystery dramas. There were quite a few, Morse, Lynley, Dalgliesh and others. We loved them all but especially Morse.  Inspector Morse is author Colin Dexter's best character and John Thaw brings him to life.

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An excerpt taken from the book, MYSTERY!: A Celebration, by Ron Miller (published by KQED Books) from the PBS website. 

For anyone raised on a steady diet of American prime-time detective shows, the arrival of Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse on Mystery! was certain to be a shock. "I'm a quite different kettle of fish," Morse (John Thaw) tells his new aide, Sergeant Lewis (Kevin Whately), in that first program.

It is a fair warning. Morse is often morose and cranky and, when he is, he'd rather stare at the bubbles in his beer than engage in casual conversation. His lack of normal social graces is so profound that Lewis looks positively dumbfounded when Morse asks him, in the Twilight of the Gods episode, how the wife and kids are doing. It is the first time in seven seasons that Morse has shown any interest whatever in Lewis' family.

Morse is definitely not a demographically correct sort of television detective. He's middle-aged with white hair, not the macho young stud favored by American advertisers. But then Barnaby Jones was an older guy with white hair, too, and he had a pretty long run. There's a big difference, though: you'd never catch Barnaby rushing off to choir practice right after cuffing a criminal, as Morse does in his very first television case, The Dead of Jericho.

Like Columbo and Spenser, Morse refuses to acknowledge his first name because it's so awful. If his nickname is any indication -- in the Deceived by Flight episode, we learn the boys at school used to call him "Pagan" -- one can hardly blame him.

The clip below is from the episode Deadly Slumber.



I don't think we are anglophiles, although there is nothing wrong with it.

Britcoms

We've become fond of British television comedies. We call them: "Britcoms". Our favorite is Doc Martin staring Martin Clunes. I think he may have been the forerunner ofHouse. Martin Clunes stars as Dr. Martin Ellingham, a London surgeon who develops a reaction to blood. He leaves the city to become the general practitioner in a tiny village in Cornwall. Not only does Doc Martin has to deal with culture shock, he is totally lacking in people skills. Whereas House is aware of his lack of people skills and doesn't care, Doc Martin is childishly unaware and surprised at others reaction.

Below is a brief clip. The compleat series is available from Netflix and some episodes are on YouTube.

Just another puzzle