User Reviews

Channing was apparently a fascinating, if erratic, Television series, and one of two serious TV dramas with a college setting. ( The other was The Paper Chase.) Channing was one of the first TV shows for such performers as Suzanne Pleshette, Tim Conway, James Caan, Peter Fonda, Bob Crane, Michael Parks,Keir Dullea, Joey Heatherton, and Dawn Wells, all of whom played students at fictional Channing College. Jason Evers, the guy with the fascinating eyes, played Joseph Howe, Korean War Vet, English professor, and would-be Great American Novelist. Henry Jones, the guy with he unforgettable voice, played his mentor, the college dean. In this episode, the great Robert Stephens played an old buddy of Howe, Irish celebrity poet Paddy Riordan, brilliant writer and self-destructive alcoholic and womanizer, ( Sounds like Brendan Behan- and Stephens himself)who visits Channing to lecture and read some poems. While visiting, he attracts a "groupie" ( Yes, Poets used to have groupie like Rock Stars today.), a star-struck young student played by Susan ( Imitation of Life), Kohner. Jones and Howe do their best to keep the young woman fe away from the doomed poet, but in the end, it is Stephens himself who must break the young idolater's balloon, and, in the process, discover the sad truth about himself. Why, or why isn't there a TV equivalent of TCM, to show gems like this?