Doris Roberts, of Everybody Loves Raymond fame was extolling veteran actor Warren Stevens for a long overdue award at this year’s Cinecon banquet and dropped in this one-liner concerning the Paleolithic era of early television in which Stevens and other pioneers toiled:
“Back in those days (late 1940’s-early 50’s) there were three channels, and not much to look at. Now there are over 2000 channels…and not much to look at.”
Doris’ quip got a gargantuan guffaw because it was so true. As far as I am concerned there isn’t really too much to look at on contemporary network television that is worth a damn. The Law and Order brand is finally starting to play out, Seinfeld and Everybody Loves Raymond have run their course. So there is Grey’s Anatomy and Boston Legal and how many more episodes can be written about who is sleeping with whom?
The dearth of quality episodic television can be attributed to a number of factors that I am not going to get into analyzing here; it seems that there is such a lack of talent on contemporary shows: especially story development, scripts and above all, the actors. By my way of estimation, this endemic mediocrity doesn’t appear to be due to a numerical lack of participants.
I ‘ve always wondered about modern shows with a credit crawl that cites an endless array of, “executive producers”, “producers”, “supervising producers”, etc. Although some of these titular bestowments are a sliding pay scale for writers, one can’t help wondering if too many cooks are spoiling some pretty thin gruel. It didn’t used to be this way.
The Dick Van Dyke Show – one of the most originally funny shows of all time – had Ronald Jacobs assisting Carl Reiner who reported to executive producer Sheldon Leonard and that was about it.
Quinn Martin, one of the most successful producers in television (he had at least one program running in prime-time for 21 consecutive years) had a coterie of trusted producers, including Adrian Samish and Arthur Fellows, who ran his hit shows: The Untouchables, The Fugitive, The F.B.I., Cannon, The Invaders, and The Streets of San Francisco.
Quality always trumps quantity. The shows of the 60’s and 70’s just seemed to be leaner, well-thought out, sharply written and stocked with better actors. According to a friend of mine, there was always a creative, individual behind the old hit shows like John Rich helming nearly every episode of All in the Family during its most fertile period. Seems like this singular creativity with the power to recognize, elevate and manage talent might be a missing link nowadays on television.
Speaking of Quinn Martin, it was gratifying to see the entire first season of The Invaders, one of my favorite programs from my early teens, released on DVD recently. The transfers are sharp, clear and within reasonable bounds, the program still holds up. The theme about aliens from another galaxy taking over the Earth by impersonating humans with a lone pine crusader (“…starring Roy Thinnes as architect David Vincent.”) trying to thwart them made for far-fetched, but exciting television.
The Invaders was kind of a hybrid Invasion of the Body Snatchers vs. The Fugitive. The memorable Hank Simms/William Woodson voice overs were accompanied by an eerie Dominic Frontiere theme set the appropriate paranormal background. The guest stars were stunningly excellent: Ralph Bellamy, Ed Begley, James Whitmore, Diana Hyland, Susan Oliver, Jack Warden, and William Talman… need I go on? One particular episode had a gorgeous Suzanne Pleshette playing a mutant alien who saves Thinnes from her fellow extra-terrestrials and becomes emotionally involved with him. Suzanne wanted to do more, much more, but Thinnes seemed grossed out by the whole notion and she ends up getting killed. I suppose an intergalactic “Island of Lost Souls” romantic encounter was too much to hope for in 1967!
Even better is The Fugitive originated by the one and only Roy Huggins. Everyone knows the basic premise of the series, but what struck me after watching some of the first year episodes on a recently released DVD set was how the whole Les Miserables situation between David Janssen and Barry Morse was designed into the program by Huggins from the very beginning. Janssen was an unusual actor whose taciturn approach to Dr. Richard Kimble’s angst was reflected by a furrowed brow, a shrug or a woeful, downwards glance. Janssen’s work in The Fugitive underscores the fact that less is frequently more.
Barry Morse’s cerebral Inspector Gerard (re: Javert) was a much more interesting character. Obsessive, but admittedly so, Morse regretfully casts aside fishing trips with his son, his wife’s anxiety, etc. to track down a man that he believes might be innocent. Gerard is the acme of post World War II liberal Republicanism. Non-malevolent, but relentless. He “lost” Kimball, so he is personally responsible for getting him back. He can’t allow himself to care, because his job is to uphold and enforce the law, not make the rules. The fact that Gerard’s superior (Paul Birch) permits a municipal police lieutenant like Gerard to serially wander around the country on unlimited per diem in order to hunt down Kimble was not an aspect of the plot that was ever addressed in the original series. Audiences bought the premise then and, as the hit movie version of The Fugitive starring Harrison Ford proved even though Gerard was promoted to a U.S. Marshal with unlimited jurisdiction, they still do.
Speaking about crime drama on television, Cain’s Hundred starring Peter Mark Richman as a rich mob lawyer who offers his services to the Feds when his girl friend comes up murdered is overdue for release on DVD.
According to Richman, his show had the misfortune to be contrasted with The Untouchables from a violence perspective and it never took off. I’ve seen a couple of episodes on bootleg DVDs – including one with Charles McGraw – and I thought it was dynamite. Hopefully MGM or whomever owns the rights for Cain’s Hundred will release this forgotten, but memorable series soon.
