Day 22 - Favorite series finale

This is a toughie.  A lot of my favorite shows are older and don't have finales.  They just end with an ordinary episode.  That really leaves me about five shows to choose from:  Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Five Mile Creek, Lost, and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.  Hmm.

I do love the finales for Angel and Buffy.  They sum up the shows, provide closure for a lot of characters, pull together a lot of plot strings... all things finales should do.  I know a lot of people didn't like the open ending of Angel, since it didn't tell you if the last few characters left standing would survive the seemingly insurmountable odds facing them or not.  But Angel on a whole was about fighting the good fight, not about winning.  So whether they survived or not is kind of moot.  (An added plus of the ambiguous ending is that it leaves lots of room for fanfic!  The only fully Angel-verse story I've written so far, "Searching," deals with the aftermath of the finale.)

I barely remember the finale for Dr. Quinn.  I think it had something to do with Colleen deciding not to go to medical school, but marry Andrew instead.  Clearly, as a finale, it didn't impact me enough to be a favorite.

Then there's Lost.  I liked the finale.  It brought a lot of character-arc closure, my Sawyer ended up happy, and it made the Sideways world make sense.  To me, anyway.  But I'm not sure I loved it.  (Though I do adore that one scene I blogged about earlier.)

So I guess that means that the series finale of Five Mile Creek is my favorite.  It's called "America," and in it, Con and Kate finally get married, and they set off for America, promising to send for Sam as soon as they're settled.  It's a neat ending, bringing some characters full circle and leaving everyone with a new adventure before them.  It's full of joy and hope, but also a little sadness as the happy Five Mile family splits apart somewhat.

Day 21 - Favorite ship

I didn't realize there were enough shows that involve ships for this to be a category, but hey.  My favorite ship on a TV show is definitely the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701.  The original ship from the original series.  She's sleek, elegant, roomy, and iconic.  I've spent more hours imagining myself aboard her than any other vessel.  I even put together a model of her back in high school, which I still have.  My paint job didn't turn out quite as nicely as this one, but you get the idea.

Oh, and if anyone wanted to buy me one of these as a gift, I would not complain!  Who knew the Enterprise could be beautiful AND tasty?

Day 20 - Favorite kiss

Well, I'm not sure this is my favorite kiss ever, but it's eclipsed pretty much all other kisses when it comes to sheer hotness factor.  I'm not a Skate fan anymore -- in the last couple seasons of Lost I became a definite Sawliet girl.  But this kiss?  Holy cow.  I'm amazed they actually showed it on network television.  In fact, you might not want to watch it -- it might cause your monitor to melt.  



That's from the season 1 ep "Confidence Man."  Hmm.  Maybe I should rewatch season 1 now that I've seen the whole series.  Oooooh, tempting!

Day 19 - Best TV show cast

Oh dear.  I'm not sure I can answer this.  I'm so very fond of the casts of so many shows.  Because I'm so character-oriented, I tend to like or dislike a show based on its characters and casting.  If I find the characters miscast, I don't like the show much.  And how do I decide which cast is best?  Best actors?  Best-looking?  Best mix of different types?  I don't know.

Hmm.

Maybe I'll just go with one of the biggest TV show casts ever:  Lost.  They're all excellently cast -- I can't think of a single character I'd rather see a different actor play.  They're an incredible mix of talented people, and while they may not be my favorite cast, they're definitely awesome.

Day 18 - Favorite title sequence

I love the opening credits for A Nero Wolfe Mystery (2001-02).  They're different every episode, with snazzy animation and music to fit that ep's theme.  Here are a couple examples:





They set the tone so nicely for the feel of the whole series, as well as cluing you in to what the particular ep will involve.  While the Nero Wolfe books by Rex Stout span several decades, the series is set solidly in the 1950s, which is brilliant because it lets them give the series a distinctive, retro feel with fun costumes, cars, and furnishings.  And opening credits.

I love this series -- Cowboy has given me both seasons, and they're completely awesome.  Maury Chaykin makes a superb Nero Wolfe, and Timothy Hutton seems to have been born to play Archie Goodwin.  Hutton also directed and produced several eps.  And the rest of the cast rocks too, including the ensemble players.  Regular characters like Inspector Cramer, Fritz Brenner, and Saul Panzer are always played by the same actors, but the only-in-this-story characters get played by a pretty consistent set of actors, rather like a local playhouse's acting troupe.  Seeing the same faces in different roles felt a bit disconcerting to me at first, but once I got into the groove of the idea, it was fun to see who would pop up in what role next.

Day 17 - Favorite mini series

The Blue and the Gray (1982).  This is another one I grew up with -- my parents rented it several times when I was a kid, and for years, whenever I thought or read about the American Civil War, images from this series were the first to come to my mind.  Although it's pretty long and would take my family a couple days to get through, I always wanted to watch just a little more.

The Blue and the Gray centers around a young artist named John Geyser (John Hammond), who grows up on a Virginia farm along with three brothers and one sister.  John leaves home to work as an artistic correspondent for his uncle's newspaper in the North, where he gets to attend the trial and execution of John Brown (Sterling Hayden).  While he's home on a visit, one of his friends, a former slave named Jonathan Henry (Paul Winfield), is lynched for harboring runaway slaves.  John Geyser renounces his Southern ties, breaks with his parents (Lloyd Bridges and Colleen Dewhurst), and leaves home for good.

John Geyser and Jonas Steele

John keeps doing dispatch art for his uncle, and keeps meeting up with my favorite character, a mysterious man named Jonas Steele (Stacy Keach).  Jonas is in the Secret Service, sorta.  As the Civil War erupts, John's brothers enlist in the Confederate Army, while the cousins he now lives with enlist in the Union Army.  John falls in love with a lovely nurse named Kathy (Kathleen Beller), whom he rescues during the first battle of Manassas.  Kathy's dad is a senator (Robert Vaughn) who doesn't think John's a suitable match for his daughter, but of course that doesn't really bother John and Kathy, being very modern young people.  Meanwhile, Jonas Steele falls in love with John's cousin Mary (Julia Duffy).

Gregory Peck as Abraham Lincoln

The war rages on around John and Jonas, various other characters die, and before the war ends, both John and Jonas go a little crazy in their own ways, but survive.  And John gets to draw the portrait of President Lincoln (Gregory Peck, to me the best Lincoln ever).  The war ends, and John eventually reconciles with what's left of his family.

Andrew V. McLaglen directed the whole miniseries.  According to imdb.com, it was originally more than 6 hours long, but all you can get on DVD is a recut version that's about 5 hours long.  I saw it many times on VHS, and I honestly can't tell what they cut out, and, so either it was recut for VHS also, or what they cut out was entirely unmemorable.  If you like Civil War movies, family dramas, and epics that follow around a couple characters and watch them change (what Deb Koren calls my Rambley Movies), you'll dig it.  I like it better than North & South -- it's less soap-opera-esque, for one thing .  And Stacy Keach more than makes up for the absence of Patrick Swayze, in my opinion.

Day 16 - Your guilty pleasure show

 

Definitely Friends.  It makes me laugh, I enjoy it, but whenever I watch it, I feel like I'm sneaking candy on the sly.  Maybe it's because it does get into some naughty subject matter at times, or because there's no "nutritional value" to it -- it's pretty much fluff.  But Joey and Phoebe tickle me to no end, and I enjoy the reruns whenever I stumble across them.

Day 15 - Favorite female character

This is even tougher than yesterday's subject.  Because while I'm fond of many female characters, I don't get as attached to them as I do to male characters.  Plus, a lot of the shows I love don't even have regular female characters.  So I could blog about Kaylee Frye, or Willow Rosenberg, or Kate Austin, or Abby Sciuto, or Angela Montenegro, or Kate Wallace, or Yeoman Janice Rand... but I think I'll blog about the one female character that I want to be more like.  And that would be Victoria Barkley (Barbara Stanwyck) from The Big Valley.

Barbara Stanwyck as Victoria Barkley

Victoria is one classy lady.  Whether she's making a shrewd business deal, being kidnapped by outlaws, or reminding one of her children of what it means to be a Barkley, she never loses her dignity and integrity.  She's gutsy, determined, and intelligent.  And she rules the Barkley universe with a suede-gloved fist.

Heath (Lee Majors) and Victoria (Barbara Stanwyck)

But I love her most for her treatment of Heath, her husband Tom's illegitimate son and my favorite character on the show.  When Heath showed up in the pilot episode, claiming he's got a right to the Barkley fortune, she doesn't ignore him, she doesn't order him off the property, and most importantly, she never blames him for her husband's indiscretion.  Once she establishes the validity of his claims, she welcomes him into the family, treats him as one of her own children, and insists everyone else do the same. And she doesn't try to mother Heath -- after all, he had his own mother, even if he never knew his father.  Instead, she befriends him, which is precisely what he needs.

The Barkleys

Plus, Victoria can ride and shoot with the best of them, she helped her husband Tom carve an empire out of the wilderness, and she never lets anyone ramrod her (or anyone else while she's around, either).  Now that's my kind of heroine.

Day 14 - Favorite male character

How am I supposed to choose one favorite male character?  I love so many!  Saunders, Angel, Sawyer, Captain Kirk, Mal Reynolds, Heath Barkley, Josh Randall, Archie Goodwin, Matthew Cooper, Cheyenne Bodie, Con Madigan, Leroy Jethro Gibbs... I have to choose one?

All right, fine.  If I had to choose one male character to spend the rest of my life watching, thinking about, and writing about, I expect it'd be Sgt. Saunders (Vic Morrow) from Combat!  No surprise there, I'm sure.  And since I've already blogged about him quite a bit here and here, I'll just post some of my favorite photos of him today.  They're worth several thousand words anyway.

  

  

 

Day 13 - Favorite childhood show

As a kid, there was only one show we watched on a routine basis, and it was already done airing and out on VHS.  In fact, it's the first show I saw every episode of.  That show is Five Mile Creek.  It's a little-known show that ran for three seasons on the Disney Channel from 1983 to 1985.  When I was a kid growing up in MI, we would watch two episodes every week, rented from the local video store.  I think we made it through all 39 episodes three or four times.

Five Mile Creek is loosely adapted from a Louis L'Amour book, The Cherokee Trail.  Only it's set in the Australian outback, not the American west.  It begins when an American named Maggie Scott (Louise Caire Clark) and her young daughter Hannah (Priscilla Weems) arrive in Australia in search of their husband/father, Adam Scott (Jonathan Frakes), who's already there hunting for gold.  He's supposed to meet up with them at the port, but he never does, so Maggie and Hannah find a temporary haven with Kate Wallace (Liz Burch).  Kate's just starting up a way station for the fledgling coach line, the Australian Express.  Kate asks Maggie to stay and help out until Adam comes to get her, as Kate's only help at the way station is a somewhat disreputable Irishman, Paddy Malone (Michael Caton).

Con and Jack driving a coach.

 The Australian Express is run by an Aussie named Jack Taylor (Rod Mullinar) and another Yank who came on the same ship as Maggie and Hannah.  His name is Conway Madigan (Jay Kerr), and he's an honest-to-goodness Texas cowboy and one of my earliest crushes.  These are the main characters, along with an orphan named Sam (Martin Lewis) and an old muleskinner pal of Con's named Ben Jones (Gus Mercurio) who join us later.  Eventually, in the later episodes, we also meet up with a former Pony Express rider named Matt Buckland (Shannon Presby) and a spunky sheepherder named Annie (a young and gorgeous Nicole Kidman).  And I can't forget Charlie Withers (Peter Carroll), the banker who grudgingly loans the Australian Express its start-up money.

Jay Kerr as Con Madigan

They encounter bush rangers, they fall in and out of love, they deal with all kinds of trials and tribulations, and they form a make-shift family in the process.  All that, with horses, a bit of gun play now and then (generally involving Con Madigan), and completely gorgeous scenery.  Because my favorite movie since I was 2 has been The Man from Snowy River, which is also set and filmed in Australia, I was primed to love this show, and love it I do.  I own the first season on DVD, and fervently wish Disney would release the other two seasons.  Meanwhile, I'm acquiring the VHS tapes of the remaining eps.

Nicole Kidman as Annie

Cowboy asked me why it's called Five Mile Creek.  It's because the way station is situated next to a creek called Five Mile Creek.  One can assume it is five miles long, or five miles from somewhere.  They never really explain, at least not that I can recall.

Day 12 - An episode you've watched more than 5 times

It's a good thing I'm not supposed to list every episode I've watched more than 5 times, or we'd be here all winter.  But instead of writing about just one ep, I'm going to write about three:  the first three episodes of The Lone Ranger.

When we were kids, The Lone Ranger movie was one of our favorites to get from the library when we had a cold or some other reason to rent videos.  We watched it a lot.  I still have most of the dialog memorized.  So for Christmas one year, Mom and Dad gave Johnnycake a VHS tape containing the first three episodes of the TV show.  We watched that tape over and over too, especially after we moved from MI to NC and no longer had access to the movie.  Those three eps -- "Enter the Lone Ranger," "The Lone Ranger Fights On," and "The Lone Ranger Triumphs" -- are deeply ingrained in my imagination.  The Lone Ranger's determination, honesty, fair play, and loneliness are all things that pop up in characters I write today.  What's not to love about a guy who befriends intelligent American Indians and gorgeous horses?  He was one of my earliest heroes, and one I still enjoy watching or listening to (I love the original radio show too).  While I have all 3 of those eps on DVD now, you can watch them here if you've a mind to.

"A fiery horse with the speed of light... a cloud of dust... and the hearty, 'Hi-yo, Silver!  Away!"

Day 11 - A show that disappointed you

 When I was a kid, my dad would tell us about two shows from his childhood that had been absolutely hilarious:  Hogan's Heroes and F-Troop.  He'd describe what bits and pieces he could remember, long-standing jokes, funny character foibles, whatever.  Johnnycake and I wanted so badly to see those two shows, because they sounded amazing.

When I was in high school, some cable channel at my grandparents' started showing Hogan's Heroes and we got to watch some over the summer.  And sure enough, they were awesome!  Funny, smart, and silly -- what's not to love?

So I had high hopes for F-Troop.  When it came to DVD and our library in WI got the first season, I eagerly checked out the first couple discs.  And was bitterly disappointed.  Maybe it gets better after those initial eps, but I found it silly, pointless drivel.  Maybe it's because I'm acquainted with good Western comedies like Support Your Local Sheriff and Texas Across the River and Cat Ballou.  Or maybe it's just not as great as my imagination and my dad's memory had built it up to be.  Whatever the case is, it disappointed me.

Day 10 - A show you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving

Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  And, by extension, Angel, although I didn't know Angel existed until it debuted.

I'd heard of Buffy in a general way before I went to college in 1998.  Clearly, based on the title, it involved vampires, which were something I wanted nothing to do with.  Anything involving the horror genre whatsoever was just not my cup of tea. I assumed the show was scary, probably involved black magic and other un-Christian things, and there was no way I would ever watch it.

David Boreanaz and Sarah Michele Gellar

My freshman year of college, I gradually became friends with three girls I'll call Pebbles, Z, and Bon-Bon.  Z and Bon-Bon were high school besties who became college roomies.  I recall one lunch with them where Bon-Bon tried to interest me in Buffy by describing how hot one of the characters was, a vampire named Angel who was sometimes good and sometimes bad, but always sexy.  I was polite, but declined their invitation to join them on Tuesday nights in the lounge to watch the show.

Sophomore year, I shared an on-campus apartment with Pebbles, Z, and my dear friend ED (Bon-Bon didn't continue at our college, though she did stop by for a visit now and then).  And one fateful Tuesday night, I had a cold and didn't attend the evening Self Defense course I was taking for PE.  It happened to be the night of the season 4 premiere of Buffy and the series premiere of Angel.  Pebbles and Z persuaded me to watch with them since I was too sick to do homework, so I huddled in our living room, wrapped in a blanket, and grudgingly watched the shows.

David Boreanaz as Angel

I was not an instant fan, though I acknowledged the hotness of David Boreanaz as Angel.  (Completely unnecessary aside:  Josh Holloway, who went on to play Sawyer on Lost, has a tiny role in the premiere ep of Angel, "City Of.")  But I realized that they'd been telling the truth when they said the shows weren't scary or horrific, and I was intrigued enough to watch subsequent episodes that Pebbles or Z brought back from home every weekend (as our college's cable company dropped the WB network the week after the premieres).  It was the third episode of Angel, "In the Dark," that hooked me.  Like I mentioned a few days ago, it was one bit of dialog that captured my still-reluctant attention.  When asked repeatedly what it was he really wanted (while being tortured for information), Angel finally admitted, "Forgiveness."  That got me to sit up, take notice, and actually get interested in Angel, which eventually became my second-favorite show ever.  Weeks later, around the time the episode "Something Blue" aired, I became a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer too, mostly because of Spike and his unutterable coolness.  And the show's fabulous dialog.

James Marsters as Spike

And now, a decade later, I own every season of both shows.  Because Joss Whedon and the other writers of these shows are amazing, the stars are solid actors, and these are two of the few shows that actually generally line up with my own world view.  Um, yes.  Because unlike most TV shows (and movies and books) today, Buffy and Angel do not subscribe to the humanistic view that all people are basically good.  They say, instead, that all people are basically evil and need to rise above their inner badness.  Which lines up so perfectly with the Christian (particularly Lutheran) belief that we are all born spiritually blind, dead enemies of God, sinful in every way.

Yes, there are things about Buffy I don't agree with. But it's one of the few modern shows that says actions have consequences.  If you disobey your parents, you will get in trouble.  If you have premarital sex, there can be unpleasant repercussions.  If you kill someone, you will pay for your actions.  In the morals-are-irrelevant morass that is much of today's programming, Buffy and Angel take a stand against evil, whether it's the evil of a demon out to destroy the world or the evil of lying to your parents.

Plus, did I mention David Boreanaz?  Mmm.  Enough said.

Day 09 - Best scene ever

I was planning a completely different post for this day.  I even had it mostly typed up ahead of time, on Friday morning.  But then, I finished watching Lost's series finale, "The End," on Friday afternoon.

I was going to say that I was having trouble finding one single scene that rocks my world, that this is a silly theme, and so forth.  I'd named off several scenes in several shows and described how you can't compare them and I can't pick a favorite.

But Friday, I saw the best scene ever.  For me, anyway. 

It came a little over an hour into the finale, a scene that I'd been hoping for, but fearing I wouldn't get.  The scene where Sawyer meets up with Juliet and they finally "remember" each other and their island life together.  I'd try to describe it, but here, you can watch it for yourself:



That scene fulfills my dearest wish for James "Sawyer" Ford:  that he find happiness.  And it hits every note I could ever have hoped for.  Their easy, teasy relationship, the deeper things that they communicate without words, the remembrance of things lost and the realization that they've found each other again -- it's all there.  The only scene in that finale that came close, for me, was Sun and Jin "remembering" each other.  Which also had Juliet in it, interestingly.

If you're not a Lostie, I'll explain a bit:  season 6 has two time lines going on, seemingly parallel universes, basically.  The island time line, where everyone's running around still on The Island, trying to save the universe, business as usual.  And the "sideways world" time line where not only did their airplane never crash on the island, but our merry band of not-castaways are actually pretty merry.  They're not outcasts and loners and reprobates.  Through the course of the season, in the sideways world, they bump into other not-castaways and gradually remember each other and the life they lived on the island in what basically turns out was a former lifetime.  Or their life on earth, and the sideways world is a sort of pleasant purgatory.  This being Lost, things are left fairly ambiguous there.

Anyway, Sawyer has been my fave Lost character since pretty much the first ep or two I watched, back on Memorial Day weekend in 2009 when Johnnycake and Dimples introduced me to the show.  He is, of course, broody, moody, rugged, broad-shouldered, and sarcastic.  He's also a conman, except in the sideways world, where he's a police detective.  (Ohhhhh yeah.)  While he has an on-again-off-again romance with Kate for quite some time, when he falls for Juliet in season 5, he falls for her for keeps.  And although Kate is my 2nd-fave character, I liked Sawyer better with Juliet.  She suited him.  She had a quiet honesty that forced him to abandon his bluster and be a better person -- how could I not like her?  Kate was great, but she lacked the stability that Sawyer needed to balance him out.

So.  There's what I consider the best scene ever.  Mmmmm.  How I love it.  Must now watch it again a time or two after I post this :-)

Day 08 - A show everyone should watch

What kind of topic is this?  Everyone likes different things.  I like Seinfeld (not my fave show, but I like it better than most modern sitcoms), but two of my best friends hate it.  Dad, Johnnycake, and I loved The Beverly Hillbillies, but my mom found it inane and annoying.  Likes and dislikes are so subjective.

So instead, I will say that everyone should turn off their silly TVs and read a book.  If we all did that -- say, if we cut out one hour a week of TV and read a book during that time, think how much richer our lives could be!

Day 07 - Least favorite episode of your favorite TV show

 True confessions time:  I haven't seen all the eps of my favorite TV show.  There are fifty eps I haven't seen yet.  So it's entirely possible I'll someday like a different ep less.  But right now, my least-fave ep of Combat! is "Conflict."

Pierre Jalbert as Caje in "Conflict"

"Conflict" is in the fifth season, and involves two of our squad, Caje and Littlejohn, angry with each other.  Throat-slitting angry.  Their conflict is never explained to my satisfaction, they spend most of the episode glaring at each other and growling like angry dogs, and I really think the idea of a huge rift between two main characters could have been handled better and taken to more interesting places.  Plus, all that anger makes me edgy.  Blech.

Dick Peabody as Littlejohn in "Conflict"

Day 06 - Favorite episode of your favorite TV show

My favorite episode of Combat! is also the first one I ever saw:  "The Walking Wounded."  Oh, how I love this ep!  Of course, it's Saunders-centric, with a weighty moral dilemma that could topple lesser men.  Should he risk the lives of four people -- himself included -- to save one critically wounded stranger?  It's that old "good of the many vs. good of the few" problem that can make for such good episodes.  Plus, it's written by Burt Kennedy, one of my fave writers for this series.

Saunders is the literal walking wounded, with a leg wound that doesn't keep him from walking, but has him out of action for a bit and on his way to an aid station.  But the aid station gets bombed right when he arrives.  He finds an unconscious, wounded man in the back of a deserted ambulance.  The ambulance is a bit banged up, but still runs, so Saunders takes off in it to find the nearest medical help.  Along the way, he picks up a trio of less-literally wounded soldiers:  the ambulance's driver, who ran away when the bombing started, a doctor who has seen too many bleeding bodies and thinks anything he does now is pointless in the long run, and a nurse who steadfastly sticks with the doctor because she believes in him.  And loves him, so much so that she never gives Saunders so much as a flirty glance, but there's no accounting for taste.

Guest stars Gary Merrill, Geraldine Brooks, and Steven Joyce

Everyone but Saunders thinks the wounded man is past all hope, but Saunders is determined to get him to medical help.  Only problem is, they have to go right past the German lines to get him there, it's a long way to travel and the wounded man might not live that long anyway, and they could rejoin their own lines much closer and be safe, though there would be no medical aid.  But Saunders insists that if he were the wounded man, he wouldn't want to be abandoned (even though I'm pretty sure if he were the wounded guy, he'd be insisting the others leave him and save themselves -- oooh!  Fanfic story idea!).

Vic Morrow as a wounded and weary Sergeant Saunders

Why do I love this episode?  I put it down to the central theme of Playing God.  One of my favorite lines from the entire series is in this ep:  the doctor says he thinks he knows whether the wounded guy can be saved or not, and Saunders says, "I always thought that was up to Somebody Else."  That line struck such a chord with me the first time I heard it that I instantly loved Saunders and the series and the episode, all rolled into one.  (Five years later, I would fall in love with a vampire named Angel, the show Angel, and one specific episode all because of one bit of dialog.  I have a weakness for good, revealing writing, cantcha tell?)  I think what particularly resonated with me was the idea that this strong-willed, brave, seemingly self-sufficient sergeant trusted God to make the really important decisions about life and death.  I was fourteen when I first saw this episode, and struggling with reconciling my own strong will with trusting God.  Saunders, especially in this ep, was precisely the role model I was hungering for.

Can I be the puppy's stunt double?  Pleeeeeeeease?

Also, Saunders just looks darned good in this episode.  And it has a puppy!  Gotta love the puppy.

Day 05 - A show you hate

This was a toughie, as I don't generally slander any moment's leisure watching things I won't like.  If I think I'll hate it, I won't watch it.

But I came up with one show that I have seen bits of and definitely hate:  South Park.  It's vulgar, obscene, profane, and I regret seeing what little I have seen of it.

Day 04 - Your favorite show ever

If you've read this blog at all, you know what I'll be writing about today:  Combat!

Mmmm.  Combat!  What a show.  From the first time I watched an ep, at the tender age of 14, I have loved and adored Combat!  I even co-maintain a fansite for it, Fruit Salad, where Deborah Koren and I share our fanfiction, screencaps, my humorous ep reviews, and various other (often "hidden") goodies.  I wouldn't pour that kind of time and effort into just any show, so what makes Combat! so special?

The Squad

Partly, it came into my life at the perfect time.  I was 14, just beginning to grow up, and starting to recognize good writing and acting from bad.  It was 1994, the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day, and all kinds of classic war movies were being released on video.  My dad loves war movies, so we watched quite a few of them that year.  And then, Combat! came into my life, one of many old shows on a brand new channel starting up, TV-55.  My dad remembered it from his childhood, we recorded some episodes, and from then on, it's been an important part of my life.  A year or so later, I started writing seriously, and one of the first stories I wrote was, technically, Combat! fanfiction, though I didn't yet know such a thing as fanfic existed.

Partly, it's the setting.  I'm a history buff -- I love learning about WWII and the 1940s, and that makes this show right up my alley.  I also love heroes.  Combat! is about heroes, the real, dirt and grime and daily grind kind of heroes.

Littlejohn (Dick Peabody) and Billy Nelson (Tom Lowell)

Then there's the writing.  This show has some of the best doggone episodes I've ever seen in any show.  It grapples with serious, deep, sensitive subjects.  Betrayal, revenge, justice, mercy, fear, courage, love, hate, kindness, cruelty, good, evil -- it's all here.  Combat! introduces us to cowards, murderers, musicians, artists, grocery clerks, shoe salesmen, writers, every kind of character you can imagine.  And it does all this in just 152 episodes.

Lt. Hanley (Rick Jason)

There's also the acting.  The main cast members are all superb:  Vic Morrow, Rick Jason, Pierre Jalbert, Jack Hogan, Dick Peabody, Conlan Carter, and Tom Lowell.  They're supported with a truly impressive list of talented guest stars.  Actors and actresses like James Coburn, Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Eddie Albert, Mickey Rooney, Nina Foch, Leonard Nimoy, James Caan, Beau Bridges, Roddy McDowell, Sal Mineo, Frankie Avalon, Robert Duvall, James MacArthur, Joan Hackett -- I could keep going, but you get my point.  Some of these pros even requested to be on Combat! because they knew it was such a swell show.

Kirby (Jack Hogan), Doc (Conlan Carter), and Caje (Pierre Jalbert)

But most important for me are the characters.  The main ones are all great, but from my first episode, my heart has belonged to Sgt. Saunders.  He's played by Vic Morrow with a depth of feeling and understanding I have never seen equaled in a mere TV show.  He transcends the stereotype of Hero.  He's brave, but also fearful.  He's noble, but also human.  He's intelligent, but also fallible. He's compassionate, but also uncompromising.  In other words, he's the kind of complex character I'm still trying to learn to write.  He's so multifaceted, he feels real to me, and I sometimes forget he's fictional.

Sgt. Saunders (Vic Morrow)

So.  I love the setting, the writing, the acting, the characters. For sixteen years, my pulse has quickened every time I hear the familiar duh duh-duh-duh duh-duh rhythm.  I don't expect to lose interest any time soon.

Day 03 - Your favorite new show (aired this TV season)

I'm only watching one new show this season:  the reboot of Hawaii Five-O.  So far, it's been quite fun :-)  I dig Daniel Dae Kim as Chin Ho Kelly and Scott Caan as Danny Williams.  Alex Laughlin and Grace Parks are nice scenery.  The eps have been solid enough, and James Marsters played their first Bad Guy, so can't complain about their guest casting.  I doubt this will ever be one of my Favorite Shows Ever, but oh well.  Like the original, it's watchable, exciting, and a good cop show.  And so far, it doesn't seem to be trying to be one of the forensic crime solving shows, but it's sticking to being a show about cops catching criminals.  Kind of refreshing.

 

Though, for me, Scott Caan doesn't hold a candle to the original Danno, James MacArthur.  He's the whole reason I watch the original.  I've had a thing for James MacArthur since the first time I saw The Swiss Family Robinson, and he never fails to delight me. I always get the feeling he's really nice in real life.

I guess Daniel Dae Kim is probably the reason I'm watching this one so far, which feels pretty weird, because not so long ago, I just knew him as the evil Wolfram and Hart lawyer, Gavin Park, on Angel.  I especially detested Gavin because he replaced Lindsey.  But after Lost, I quite dig Dae Kim, and decided to see what he has to offer in a detective show.

(We don't get any channels on our actual TV, so I watch shows online at either cbs.com or hulu.com.  I love the internet!)


Super Exciting News!  According to his official website, James MacArthur has agreed to be in an ep of the new series!  Ooooooooooo!

And yes, I got Dano's nickname from the original Hawaii Five-O.  I'm a dork.

Day 02 - A show that you wish more people were watching

I'm interpreting today's topic to mean a current TV show that I wish had a bigger audience. 

I wish  NCIS:  Los Angeles had more viewers.  Including me.  I wish I'd watched the first season, and I'm glad it got a second season because I'm hoping I'll be able to watch some of it.  Because I love love love Chris O'Donnell.  I love Linda Hunt.  And I dig some of the music in this show a whole bunch.  (Is that odd?  To like a show for its music?)  So I wish more fans of NCIS would give the spin-off a chance and keep it on the air.  I know I'm going to try.

Day 01 - A show that should never have been canceled

Easy. Firefly.  They canceled it before it really got started. 

Sure, I'd love to have had another season of Angel -- it had just refound its stride when it was canceled.  And sure, I'd love more Nero Wolfe adventures.  But Firefly didn't even get to finish its first season, and that is a crying shame.

 This is such a shiny show, what there is of it.  I didn't watch it in its initial run, so I myself am partly to blame for its cancellation.  Firefly aired the first year Cowboy and I were married.  He was finishing college, I was working my first full-time job, and I was already addicted to Joss's other two shows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.  I didn't think I had time for another show, didn't really know what Firefly was about, didn't give it even one chance.

Then the Firefly 'verse came to the big screen in 2005 with the movie Serenity.  My brother-in-law, Noumenon, asked if I wanted to go see it with him.  I love going to the movies, and it's rare I get to see one with another person, so I said sure, anything to support Joss Whedon.  I loved the concept, the characters, the writing -- instant fan.  (You can read about my initial impressions here.)  But, clearly, a show that is literally about cowboys in space was just too oddball for the network execs, and they pulled the plug.  Evil, silly, annoying execs.  Grr.  Arrgh.

(I really want this shirt!)