Entries Tagged 'USA' ↓

I just heard a real blast from the past on my local oldies radio station: the theme from The Rockford Files. If you were around in the mid-1970s, you likely know it, even if you never saw the show. I still recognize Peter Gunn’s theme from even earlier, but I’ve never seen the show. If you actually watched Rockford, you may still get a mental flash of James Garner going through a supermarket. Regrettably, the networks have largely dispensed with theme songs. You can’t hum a “Previously on …” segment, and they don’t have much relevance beyond the show’s regular viewers. Yeah, I know a few shows still have ‘em, but they aren’t exactly making the charts. If you’re not a Psych viewer, can you hum its theme?

Tonight, I watched the 100th episode of Monk. At the end, when homicide detective Adrian Monk wanted to give up on a nice round number, Natalie did some math to show him the error of his ways. While she was doing that, I remembered Monk had a pair of two-parters, so he’s only cracked ninety-eight cases on-air. And Disher got the credit for at least one, taking it down to ninety-seven. And weren’t there two episodes without homicides, taking it down to ninety-five? (Actually, I remember that Monk solved cases incidentally in “Mr. Monk and the Paperboy,” so the writers could call that whatever number of cases they needed to come up with an even hundred.) More puzzling given Monk’s obsession with round numbers, USA Network didn’t think to hold next week’s episode till December or January to round the summer season to an even number.

Seriously, though, it had a nice twist and a good running gag about neither Monk nor Stottlemeyer wanting to watch the profile of Adrian Monk on TV (Monk because he’s embarrassed, Stottlemeyer because there’s a good basketball game on).

Chief Justice Michael Stailey had the pleasure of sitting down with producer/director John Badham to discuss the relevance of Wargames in today’s technologically advanced world, the joys and pains of working on two current hit television series — Psych and Heroes, and how television directing has evolved from the late ’60s when he first got into the business.

TV Verdict: Two of your films have recently been given the Special Edition DVD treatment — Wargames to coincide with the release of the follow-up WarGames: Dead Code and Short Circuit to capitalize on WALL-E…

John Badham: We think WALL-E is capitalizing on Short Circuit. (He laughs)

TVV: Do you look at these films differently now, twenty years later, than you did when you were making them?

JB: Gosh, no. I love both of these movies and you hope that every movie you work on you’re going to be that excited about; that thrill, because you know it’s such a great script. In the course of your life, you’re gonna have to work on some stuff that maybe is not the greatest — for one reason or another — and reading both of these scripts, I’ll always remember my reaction to them, which was so positive and strong. “Whoa man, this is great!” Feeling that they both turned out really well even early on, that’s the strength of the script being decently done by the actors and the director. But if you don’t have a good script, you’re never gonna have something you’re happy with. All you can do with a bad script is dress it up and try and dance around it; do what Bob Fosse called “all that jazz,” to try and conceal the weaknesses of it. But when you get down to the heart of it, it’s still a piece of crap. But that’s not the case with these movies. You know, these movies stand because the characters are strong. Number 5 is a strong character. David Lightman is a character you just go “Aw man, I care about this kid. He’s in a lot of trouble. How’s he gonna get out of this shit?”

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Watched what’s going to be the last Doctor Who for a while tonight. In a word: weird. It looks like the end for the Daleks–again (until the writers really, really need a Dalek fix). The episode played up some of the show’s plot quirks: the mortals around him sacrifice their lives and happiness, while the immortal Doctor “never looks back,” and the irony that he’s a loner with so many friends. The latter became my favorite TV irony when it reached its illogical extreme in Burn Notice: If you were dumped in sunny Miami with as many friends as Michael Westen has there (not just Sam, Fiona, and his mom, but a contact for every occasion), wouldn’t you just hit the beach and chill?

I just saw the obit for Stanley Kamel, who played Adrian Monk’s psychiatrist. I’m not sure how they’re going to handle it on Monk, but I’m hoping they leave the character of Dr. Charles Kroger alive. Having just watched a Magnum, P.I. set and seen how Robin Masters lived on for years after the death of Orson Welles, I think it’s probably the best way to honor a deceased actor in a light mystery series.

On Friday night, as I was watching the last moments of the Monk season finale, I noticed something. The last scene apparently was set up so it would be easy to film an extra bit or reloop some dialogue and, if the episode turned out to be the show’s finale, name the person behind Trudy’s murder. Although there’s always a mystery, Monk has always been as much about the widowed detective’s inability to solve the murder of his wife, so anyone who’s been watching regularly would have wanted that bit of closure.With the writers’ strike ruling the 2007-08 season, the networks have learned to let shows run their full orders, answering one favorite viewer gripe. Maybe closure should be the next lesson that the networks–and show production teams–should work on.