“TV Tip Sheet” Archive
Irv Slifkin | Coming Attractions, TV Tip Sheet
Medicine Men: The doctor drama series got controversial with Medical Center, the CBS show that ran from 1969 to 1976. James Daley was the head doc and Chad Everett the handsome young surgeon at L.A. University’s medical center. Race, homosexuality and violence were among the dicey subjects touched on by this hour-long show, presented here in the six-disc set Medical Center: The Complete First Season. And if you want to see the pilot for the series that gave Marcus Welby, MD a run for its money, check out Operation Heartbeat with Edward G. Robinson, Richard Bradford and Daley.
Destry Rides Once Again: Destry: The Complete Series, which presents all 13 episodes of the short-lived 1964 ABC series on four discs, offers John Gavin as the son of Max Brand’s pistol-shunning sheriff popularized on the big screen by James Stewart and Audie Murphy. The series found the younger Destry, an ex-lawman and ex-con, trying to clear his name by finding the desperados who framed him, and applying his pop’s pacifistic approach to fixing folks’ problems along the way.
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Irv Slifkin | Coming Attractions, TV Tip Sheet
Sommers Time: Fans have long been clamoring for the DVD release of the adventures of Jamie Sommers, and now they will get it withThe Bionic Woman: Season One. In this successful spin-off from The Six Million Dollar Man, Linsday Wagner plays the title role, a tennis pro and former fiancée of cyborg hero Steve Austin (Lee Majors) , who gets her own artificial parts after a crippling skydiving accident. Now endowed with super strength, super hearing and super speed, Jamie poses as a schoolteacher but takes on secret government assignments on the side. Richard Anderson and Martin E. Brooks also star in the series which ran on ABC from 1976, then on NBC until 1978. Audio commentary and other goodies are promised.
Dysfunction Junction: One of the most acclaimed network shows of recent years, Modern Family: The Complete First Season is a laugh-filled junket through contemporary parenting and family relations. The focus is on three different (though interlocked) family units and the crises they face, which range from multi-cultural romance, gay relationship issues, adoption and more. The terrific ensemble cast includes Ed O’Neill, Sofia Vergara, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Eric Stonestreet, Ty Burrell and Julie Bowen. All 24 episodes from the series’ 2009 bow on ABC are here, along with lots of extra goodies.
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Irv Slifkin | TV Tip Sheet
Bo Knows Horror: Boris Karloff hosts Thriller: The Complete Series, an impressive 14-DVD set of the classic horror anthology from the 1960s. Image Entertainment has snagged the rights to the much-requested series, in which Boris introduced (and was also featured in an episode). Some of the creepiest moments in TV history ever abound in this 67-episode marathon, where performers such as Mary Tyler Moore, Elizabeth Montgomery, Rip Torn and John Carradine enact atmospheric stories penned by such greats as Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Bloch and Cornell Woolrich. The cult fave, which ran on NBC from 1960-1962, will have some interesting extras on it as well.
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Irv Slifkin | Coming Attractions, TV Tip Sheet
Soapy Sales
A favorite for its 1981-1990 run on CBS, Falcon Crest was a nighttime sudser bubbling with colorful characters, duplicitous behavior and big-time movie and TV stars. Jane Wyman is the nasty owner of a Northern California winery and matriarch of a family that includes affable nephew Robert Foxworth and lazy playboy grandson Lorenzo Lamas. Abby Dalton, William R. Moses, and Susan Sullivan also star in this series created by Earl Hamner, Jr. of The Waltons fame; guest appearances during the show’s first season include Lana Turner and Dana Andrews. All 18 episodes from the debut season can be found on Falcon Crest: The Complete First Season.
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Irv Slifkin | Coming Attractions, TV Tip Sheet
You can have your Douglas Fairbanks, your Alain Delon, and your George Hamilton, too. For my money, Zorro, the masked swashbuckler, will always be Guy Williams.
That’s because he’s also the Zorro I grew up with. Yes, whenever TV showed Tyrone Power “making the sign of the Z” in the 1940 film The Mark of Zorro, I tuned in. Years later, Antonio Banderas’ turn as the legendary do-gooder in the Steven Spielberg-produced The Mask of Zorro and The Legend of Zorro were stylish and entertaining.
But Guy Williams in the Disney TV show was the Zorro that I came to know and love first.
The series ran for only two years, from 1957 to 1959. It was broadcast on ABC in prime time, but syndication and later airings on The Wonderful World of Disney made its run seem a lot longer.
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Irv Slifkin | TV Tip Sheet
TV Debuts Sure To Amuse: The TV train keeps chugging along, bringing shows of recent and older vintage to all good couch potatoes...
Good Knight: In 2008, NBC went in for a reboot of the 1980s’ most popular action shows, and the resulting Knight Rider: Season 1 starred Justin Bruening as Mike Traceur, the estranged son of Michael Knight, who now uses a second-generation version of the talking supercar KITT (here voiced by Val Kilmer) to fight crime. The series co-starred Bruce Davison as the scientist who created both iterations of KITT, and Deanna Russo as Davison’s daughter / Breuning’s romantic interest. The show’s entire run of 18 episodes are presented on four discs in this souped-up set loaded with extras.
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