As we consider Father’s Day, it is obvious the role that fathers have played in a staple of television comedy: Father Knows Best, The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, Parenthood, Modern Family. But they are also integral to many a plot twist and emotional conflict driving drama as well, particularly in the crime and spy genre.
Who could be more perfect than Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly to play the iconic leads forever etched in our minds as Cagney & Lacey, which aired for seven seasons on CBS from March 1982 to May 1988.
What are they thinking those television execs? What flights of fantasy run through the minds of the would-be producers of future shows? Where do they get their ideas?
Well, here it is – pilot season – an eclectic mix of new, old, out-there, and you’ve-got-to-be-kidding. Watch for diversity and big screen faces.
There are still new shows coming up for the Spring Season – or whatever we call the perpetual new season that is now television. And by television, I mean everything from Network, to Cable, to Netflix, and those other streamers. Here’s a preview of new shows coming up in the next month, plus a peek at some of the pilots vying to be future series.
Ah, January – the disappointments of the fall season are behind us and once again new series are on the offing. Here are a few that have piqued anticipation.
Raymond Burr was Perry Mason (and vice versa) for most of my life, and more than half of his. In the series and the later movies, he made the role his own from 1957 to his death in 1993. He once said that the downside of the Perry Mason role was that it put everything else he had done in shadow.
The scene fades up on a simple line-drawing* of Alfred Hitchcock's rotund profile (the word rotund seems to have been invented to describe Hitchcock, imagine finding this caricature next to the word in the dictionary); The "Funeral March of a Marionette" plays, and Hitchcock emerges in silhouette from the right side of the screen. Walking to the center of the frame his bulk fills in the caricature. He turns to the camera and says – “Good Eeevening.”
Fluff up your pillows, lay in some snacks—here are some tempting new shows kicking off and spinning off next week.
Even if you saw the show only once, you would remember him: Lieutenant Theo Kojak, tough, bald, well dressed, smoker of small cigars, fan of Tootsie Roll Pops, famous for the signature line, “Who loves ya, baby?” It was an unforgettable character, brought to the screen by Telly Savalas in October 1973, and he was larger than life for five seasons and five TV movies. Thirty-five years after the show ended, and 19 years after the death of Savalas, Kojak was still listed by TV Guide as number 22 on its “50 Greatest TV Characters of All Time” list.
Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope is variously described as cranky, driven, overweight and middle-aged, and that’s from the people who love her. Vera is based on the books created by author, Ann Cleeves, and is brought to small screen life by actress Brenda Blethyn.
