06.30 It Takes A Thief
07.30 The Avengers
08.30 Due South
11.00 Kolchak: The Night Stalker
It Takes A Thief. Episode 4. "A Very Warm Reception" Since some elements don't quite work, this is the least enjoyable of the first four episodes. But there's still a lot that does work, and it's still an enjoyable spy yarn for all it's 'flaws'.
Since the tone of the show is deadly serious (we open with the brutal gunning down of a SIA agent) it doesn't quite gel when Al is able to enter the embassy at the centre of this week's story using three separate comedy disguises. Also the first third of the episode (where Al uses a cardboard cutout of himself to fool the bad guys) is too silly for this show. Much better is the last two thirds as Al and his team pull out all the stops to derail an embassy function and steal some important microfilm.
Previous episodes have highlighted Al as very much a lone wolf. Working with a team, yes, but still the only one who can get the job done (on his own) at the very end. This story is different. Al relies on others very much in this one. And it feels in many ways like a Mission Impossible story.
Katherine Crawford (who would go on to work side by side with the Gemini Man) makes a great guest star in this story. And another great female partner for Al. She's clever and funny and - in the episode's thrilling final moments - she saves Al's life when a bad guy has a gun on him. Refreshing and very enjoyable.
The Avengers. Episode 133. "Get-A-Way" DELIGHTFUL. This one is pure Avengers: the good guys have a high-security prison, for spies, which is a monastery patrolled by monks (!) and the bad guys are escaping from said prison by dousing themselves in a liquid which gives them the properties of a chameleon (so they can hide in plain sight!). I love it.
The opening is unusual in that is goes to great lengths to give Steed an emotional connection to the first two murder victims. Usually, on The Avengers, people are being murdered left, right and center and the script never dwells on the loss of life. It's not how The Avengers works. This one is a tad different. These were Steed's two best friends (we are told) and this personal loss is referenced once or twice later in the episode. Not sure that it works and not sure why the writers bothered. This isn't suitable for The Avengers and including it in the story does nothing for the story. As, by the mid-point, they two dead men, might as well have been any two agents. The friendship angle is never mentioned again. Maybe it had more to do with the fact that Steed was 'showing off' Tara to his oldest friends. Maybe it was about her, not them. I don't know.
Peter Bowles gives a great performance in this one as the lead Bad Guy and all of his scenes with Patrick Macnee are pure heaven to watch. Bowles is superb as the master spy/killer tauting Steed over civilised glasses of vodka.
Linda Thorson is especially beautiful and elegant in this episode. Tara (once again) doesn't work side by side with Steed but she is given plenty of screentime on her own. She makes a lot of the deductive leaps that solves the mystery and the bad guy is very enamoured of her brains in the closing moments of the story.
Due South. Season 3, Episode 2. "Eclipse" is one of my favourite episodes of Due South. It's devoted to the show's new character (Stanley Ray Kowalski) and it's a hoot from start to finish, largely due to the performance of Callum Keith Rennie. Some elements of the story don't work but the ones that do work are so good that they overshadow everything that fails.
Ray is needed back at the precinct to cover for "The Real Ray" in an Internal Affairs Investigation, but he's more concerned with taking the day off to track down a bank robber who affected him deeply when he was a child.
The Internal Affairs Investigation angle of the story doesn't work and seems to be there to create false tension (some place that Ray ought to be). However, everything that happens in the graveyard is great fun. Ray is staking out a funeral waiting for the bank robber to show up to say good-bye to his mother. Fraser tracks him down fairly easily and the two of them have some healthy debates. It's a busy day at the graveyard and - before long - the duo have two crooks, a drunken caretaker and a very odd widow locked up in the crypt with them, on the stakeout, and all six characters are hilarious together, with conversations running the gamut from how attractive Ray is/isn't to the writings of Francis Bacon.
We learn about a lot about Ray in this one, and his love for his ex-wife Stella. We also get to see (again) what a good person Fraser is (and how good a friend he is willing to be). So, in many ways, this episode makes me fall in love with the two men and their friendship/bond and accomplishes everything the convoluted season premier failed to do. After seeing this I was a fan of the show for the first time ever and I was excited about seeing what happened next.
Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Episode 4. "The Vampire" After the misfire of the previous episode, KTNS returns to form with this superb episode. The story is strong (a sequel to the first movie), the bad guy is great and William Daniels makes the first superb Police foe for Kolchak to spar with in the weekly series. Their scenes together are terrific. Each one (the press conference, alone at the crime scene, and after the football players are killed) is capable of being rewatched many times over. I know. I've done it.
As good as the two male leads are, Kathleen Nolan pretty much steals the episode out from under them as the real estate agent that Carl cons into being a journalist to fool Tony. Her scenes with Darren McGavin are hilarious. And the episode has many truly hilarious moments. At one stage Kolchak and Faye pull up at his hotel, he fires her out of the car, yells out the room number and instructs her to "start without me" before he speeds off to the next crime scene. The face of the Doorman is priceless.
This episode is the one where Carl is on assignment in Los Angeles. The way he conned his way onto the assignment is genius/hilarious and all of the phone conversations between Tony (the editor back in Chicago) and Carl (out in LA) are wonderful. My favourite occurs after Carl has submitted the story (written by Faye). Tony (very angry) gets on the phone to Carl and reads back portions of the story that are rubbish. Carl, meanwhile, reading the story for the first time ever at the other end, tries to process what he is reading and - incredibly - justify it to Tony.
As well as being funny, this is a violent episode. Suzanne Charney (who guested with Kathleen Nolan on an episode of The Incredible Hulk) makes a great evil Vampire. Beautiful but scary, her various killing sprees are gripping to watch and the final chase scene (where she tracks Kolchak at high speed through the Hollywood Hills) is a classic. Again, the viewer is reminded that Carl Kolchak is terrified and in a lot of danger. He makes a great Hero. He does what he does to get the story out and defeat the people in power, but he is ill-equipped to the task of Vampire Hunter.
The episode ends with the Iconic image of the cross blazing over LA and the police - of course - charging Kolchak with first-degree murder, as a means of running him out of the city. A classic Kolchak ending.
Highlight? Kolchak (very funny and very violent)
Yet Another TV Review Podcast
Yet Another TV Review Book
Yet Another Film Review Blog
Fri, Nov 14, 08 - It Takes A Thief, Avengers, Due South, Kolchak
