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JAG: Ghosts of Christmas Past (1999)
BOY, WAS I WRONG!!
When the show opens with Harm paying tribute to his father (on the latter's birthday) at the Vietnam War memorial, a mysterious-looking woman behind him with whom he enters into conversation, informs him that she is there to pay tribute to Harm's father also, whom she had met 30 years earlier as USO performer Jenny Lake (both are played by Catherine Bell, usually seen as Sarah Mackenzie).
I don't know why but for some reason I was certain the older Lake was played by a female impersonator. However, as the younger Jenny Lake, the very pretty Bell engenders no such misperception. (Also, Karri Turner, although well-meaning, is a pretty bad Phyllis Diller impersonator.)
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: Memo from Purgatory (1964)
Naked City-style Hitchcock
This episode, featuring an incredibly handsome and appealing 24 year old James Caan and a lovely and appealing 20-year old Lynn Loring, between whom one can feel and almost see the pheromones flying, is so jarringly outside the normal Hitchcock canon that it would have been a more appropriate episode on the 1959-63 naturalistic NY-based and filmed series, The Naked City. Well-done overall.
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: Triumph (1964)
Boring
On two separate occasions, I couldn't watch this episode to the end as it was just too boring, although it has an interestingly off-kilter non-Hitchcock feel. Jeanette Nolan is initially compelling, especially when talking through an elaborate bug proof covering obscuring her face, causing the viewer to concentrate even more on her compellingly incisive, commanding, vaguely malevolent voice. I almost thought she would be deformed or scarred, but when her face is revealed she is neither. Nolan was an amazing chameleon of an actress. She seemed to look and sound different in everything in which she ever appeared. But she can't make it as interesting an episode as it needs to be.
Miami Vice: Definitely Miami (1986)
Bleak. spare, stunning
A sparsely populated episode, set in a hellishly hot Miami (you actually see Tubbs sweat) with Crockett and Tubbs in a Samuel Beckett-like existential wait for someone who never shows. To fill the void, the luscious Arielle Dombasle appears as the endlessly sunbathing femme fatale, Callie Basset, oblivious to the heat, whose husband Charlie (played surprisingly well by non-actor musician Ted Nugent, in incredibly handsome form here) robs and kills her marks. One such killing (in a landscape as bleak as the one occupied by Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner in another universe) opens the episode.
Miami Vice: The Home Invaders (1985)
WELL DONE
A vicious, gratuitously violent, very well-armed group of home invaders targets wealthy homes in Miami which meet their criteria. They have already successfully carried out five break-ins in eight weeks. Once inside, the first thing they ask is "Who else is in the house?" and no one is spared, from the youngest to the oldest. Two such scenes pull few punches. One of the trio, doing outdoor watch duty, merrily kills an approaching suspicious policeman by shooting him three times with a silencer-fitted gun.
But Castillo works his magic and manages to tie the five cases to a hair salon patronized by all five female victims. Sylvia Miles appears as an affluent matron who assists Crockett and Castillo who contact her because she is believed to be the next target, but there is a last minute unforeseen hitch.
Miles' presence is so amusing that one cannot but realize how almost no older women appear in MV episodes and relatively few older men. (The only exceptions, aside from Miles and in other episodes, were the exotic and youthful Eartha Kitt, who may as well have been from a different generation, and Judith Malina, who appeared in a pivotal but uncredited role, and was killed off by a psychotic perp.)
Series should have been named "No Series for Old(er) Women". I guess everyone on the team were orphans and, of course, there is that notable dearth of older ladies in Miami.
The Rockford Files: Irving the Explainer (1977)
Disappointing at first and horrible in retrospect
Very disappointing, overly convoluted (intentionally) and vaguely offensive (probably due to the Nazi subplot), I get that some viewers believe it is a clever, self-deprecating noirish homage but it really is a dud.
The lovely Barbara Babcock, who, given her propensity for playing manipulative and complicated women, would seem perfect as a femme fatale, somehow falls short, as does the directing by actor James Coburn (why do actors always want to become directors?). Byron Morrow's last minute appearance -- as a character mentioned earlier but forgotten about -- speaking for some bizarre reason with an Irish accent -- is just irritating.
The writers and editors evidently hoped for an ironic coda about the pointlessness of trying to solve certain old puzzles and reaping ill-gotten gains while pointing fun at the episode's overly convoluted story-line. They did not succeed. But I still generally love the series.
Miami Vice: Glades (1984)
Good, but ....
So many people popping up and flashing across the screen, it is hard to tell which of the good ole boys are the baddies, since they all mistrust Crockett and Tubbs. Also, yet another irritating example of Zito and Switek's complete incompetence -- they're in a bathroom together, don't ask -- which lets the witness escape. Tubbs is also to blame for a bizarre lack of judgment in delivering a letter to the sequestered witness, the devastating results of which Tubbs witnesses (but does nothing even afterward) as the witness read the letter.
Since when do sequestered material witnesses receive uncensored mail? (This is pre-Internet, cell phone, social media, remember.) All of this, doubtless, is to create the deus ex machina which fuels the episode but such gross incompetence, especially from Tubbs, is hard to swallow.
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: Final Vow (1962)
JUST SAW IT ON COZI TV
Just saw this on COZI TV. Really enjoyed it. Lynley, like a young Sylvia Sidney is both delicately exquisite and tough as Sister Pamela. Clu Gulager as Jimmy is convincingly vile and only gets worse, and the late Carmen Phillips is abrasive and pitiful as Jimmy's moll. The rest of the cast is also fine. I just wish that the story had been a tad better written so Sister Pamela could have rescued herself and not had to rely on a very unlikely source of assistance. Still, well done, with nary a trace of treacle or bathos.
Kojak: A Grave Too Soon (1976)
VERY GOOD
Missed part of the episode but what I saw was enthralling. The aptly-titled episode could equally refer to the tragedy of beautiful actress Diana Hyland, who died the following year (1977), aged 41, from cancer. A fine actress, she does her best, but she clearly is weak and delicate, notwithstanding the character she is playing. The character wears a wig when up to nefarious activity but I suspect the blonde locks the actress is wearing were also a wig.
In the last scene with Kojak the actress dispenses with all the wigs and her head is covered by a long fashionable looking wrap, in a party scene no less, clearly an indication something is wrong. One of Hyland's swan songs (she was the original mother on "Eight is Enough" before being forced to abandon the role due to her health), it is a reminder of what a fine actress she was and what a great life and career were cut horrendously and unforgivably short.