What I've Been Watching
23 Sep 2017 01:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thisbluespiritNow I've finally finished my Thriller (Part 1) review/picspam post, I am behind again. Let me talk about what I have been watching over the last couple of months (or more), other than the first 5 discs of Thriler.
1. I finished Secret Army. I did mostly enjoy it, although I got impatient with it again at the end. Terence Hardiman as Reinhardt (who doesn't give a damn about anything since they've lost the war and most of his friends have just been executed in the wake of the assassination attempt on Hitler) did liven things up, though. He was great, and not even actually evil, either. (Particularly his exit when Clifford Rose's Kessler finds time in the last few minutes of the war for one further despicable act and forces the rest of the German POWs to have a court martial and execute Major Reinhardt, and he is shot as the bells ring out for peace, just so that Kessler can hide his identity as head of the Gestapo in Belgium. Kessler is rightly both awful and complex, of course, and Clifford Rose was very good in the role.) Bernard Hepton spent most of the last series in prison, on film, but he did eventually escape and return to the studio, and I gave it a lot of plus points for what eventually happened with Monique, too. Anyway, I watched it! I now know where 'Allo 'Allo is coming from.
2. I skipped ahead briefly to watch Suzanne Neve's second Thriller, and while I'll cover it in its turn, I can report that she is better at terrorising innocent Americans than James Maxwell: she sticks them in her underground pottery kiln and bakes them, no angsting required. 1970s Suzanne Neve is so far a lot more evil than 1960s Suzanne Neve. (I would side-eye the ending of the 1968 Dracula here, but personally, I blame Ed Bishop for throwing her down the stairs in UFO.)
3. I finally got to the E-Space trilogy (DW), watching Full Circle and State of Decay (before an appropriate break for the BBC 1977 Dracula). Full Circle has a good SF idea at the heart, but nothing else much with which to pad it out. Except Adric, but, er, well...
I enjoyed State of Decay a lot, though, especially in comparison to Full Circle (it's good to see that future spaceships will go on with BBC Acorn computers on board!). Plus, the whole Time Lords and Vampires mythology backstory is potentially fun to play with and Romana gets two great costumes, while Adric spends at least an episode unconscious, and it has a great look, particularly for that era, especially the location scenes. What more could I ask for? (I'm sorry: Adric wasn't bad in this one! I'm mean, I know.)
4. And so, then, what more appropriate than that I pause to watch the TV show that caused State of Decay to be postponed for 3 years and gave us Horror of Fang Rock instead? (Accidentally; my viewing is not really that well planed!)
I'm not really sure why the BBC were so nervy about this version of Dracula that they thought DW doing vampires at the same time might make them look silly, but apparently they were. They had no need: this is lovely. It's unlike most of the old TV I've been watching - it was 1977 doing glossy event TV with a 2 1/2 hr feature-length version of the novel that's probably the most faithful adaptation still. (Although there are some changes, of course.) It was very good! I recommend it even if you're not usually into old TV, but are into Dracula. (I believe it is up on YouTube, and I got the DVD pretty cheap anyway.)
(Also it's now fairly proved that I will never be able to read or watch the scene in the crypt where they stake Lucy without laughing. That is the downside of starting with the 1968 version*: I read the book and sniggered because Dr Seward was going on about how he could cope better because of being a doctor, and then in this, Dr Seward asks, "What are we going to do?" and Van Helsing says, "Cut off her head!" 1968 Dr Seward would have been passed out on the floor already, let alone by the time there was spurting blood. Also, in other news I think I like Dracula a lot, even if I'm not into other horror very much. I am sorry I was too wimpish to read it when I was a teenager; I would have enjoyed it, especially once I ran out of Wilkie Collins.
5. So, then, of course I had to re-watch the 1968 version (<3), and now I see that when Mina describes Dracula to Dr Seward in terms that are amusingly nothing like Denholm Elliott, she has merely had a vision of the future and seen Louis Jourdain. (The 1977 is most obviously excellent and best, but the 1968 is much more fun to play with for writing purposes and also it stars a lot of my very favourite old telly actors at once and most of them get shipped with each other. Besides, if you start with a version that has Lucy seduce Mina, what can other versions do to beat that?)
6. I then decided that I should stop being wimpish and watch the rest of Mystery and Imagination. I'd already seen "Dracula", the Ian Holm "Frankenstein" and "The Suicide Club" (the one with David Collings and the cream tarts and the invisible hyenas and Major Geraldyne, because obv. that is the one that David Collings would be in). The Freddie Jones "Sweeney Todd" was out because I Do Not Do Sweeney Todd, which left me with "Uncle Silas" and "The Curse of the Mummy" out of the Thames adaptations, so I watched "The Curse of the Mummy." It was an adaptation of Bram Stoker's The Jewel of the Seven Stars, and I enjoyed it. It starred Isobel Black and Patrick Mower, while Graham Crowden was a mad archaeologist, which was inevitably entertaining. (He spent the first third of it lying unconscious on a bed while everyone else had to act around him. The other actors probably deserve a medal, because I bet he didn't lie still and quiet the whole time.) The booklet, though, quotes the same Times reviewer who'd decided that Dracula was as boring as a Party Political Broadcast, who thought this was dull and it was only a mystery as to how it got made, but I liked it anyway, despite, of course, inevitable Victorian/70s dodginess. (The Times reviewer seems to have had it in for M&I. Looking through the booklet shows he also savaged "The Lost Stradivarius" featuring Jeremy Brett, too. The TV Times viewers were much kinder and enjoyed them all regardless.)
I wimped out on "Uncle Silas" and thought I'd watch the two older 50 mins eps instead, with the additional Richard Beckett character (since the pictures of David Buck in the role looked kind of like Adam Adamant), as that sounded like a suitable safety net. The first of the two survivors was The Fall of the House of Usher starring Denholm Elliott (again) and Susannah York and directed by Kim Mills and that was definitely over my horror limit, but clearly very good (if you like b&w 1960s TV and that sort of thing) and started me off on my wondering sadly what happened to Kim Mills and why he vanished from TV. He really does have something, I'm not quite sure how to describe it, but probably I would have been less freaked out if he hadn't been directing this one.
In contrast, The Open Door was a Mrs Oliphant story that was a little on the dull side and very Victorian, or at least it was until act 3 when they brought in John Laurie to be Very Scottish and exorcise the ghost, clearly a plan with no flaws. After that, I thought I'd had more than enough horror for a bit and left "Uncle Silas "unwatched and returned to Doctor Who and E-Space.
7. Warrior's Gate was very weird and also had Clifford Rose being excellent again. It was definitely the good weird, though, in that way only Classic Who is every once in a while. I mean, it looks like the stranger kind of 80s pop video (one that would definitely get nominated for Yuletide), so it wouldn't be for everyone, but still: the good weird/meta, I think, with bonus believably mundane, petty villains and random lion people. (It must be Doctor Who. <3)
8. I recorded Mrs Miniver off the telly, and the main thing I have taken from this is that Julian Fellowes stole the flower show plot for Downton Abbey. And given that I already know that he stole two plotlines/backstories and a minor incident from Duchess of Duke Street (as well as acting in it), I am now wondering with some interest and amusement, where exactly he swiped everything else from. (Anything from Upstairs Downstairs, maybe?) It's kind of engagingly blatant swiping, though. And gives us May Whitty vs Maggie Smith! Oh my. (I did like it, but it was made mid-WWII and so is very patriotic etc. But well done! There were some really good scenes, and Dame May Whitty as well as Greer Garson, and it was very watchable still.)
9. I also recorded the next old series Drama was offering as well, which is When the Boat Comes In. It stars Jack and Esther from New Tricks (James Bolam and Susan Jameson, who are married in rl, and going out in this). It is early 20th C Tyneside and the first episode was grim about shellshocked returning soldiers, the second had a poor orphan shipped off to Australia alone, and then the continuity announcer went, "And next, things get even harder..." It is, as they say, grim oop north. It seems good so far, though. And maybe one day the boat will come in; there are at least 40 eps on my DVR already and they may not all be equally depressing...
* I don't know if this is really a downside, though. It is very funny.
1. I finished Secret Army. I did mostly enjoy it, although I got impatient with it again at the end. Terence Hardiman as Reinhardt (who doesn't give a damn about anything since they've lost the war and most of his friends have just been executed in the wake of the assassination attempt on Hitler) did liven things up, though. He was great, and not even actually evil, either. (Particularly his exit when Clifford Rose's Kessler finds time in the last few minutes of the war for one further despicable act and forces the rest of the German POWs to have a court martial and execute Major Reinhardt, and he is shot as the bells ring out for peace, just so that Kessler can hide his identity as head of the Gestapo in Belgium. Kessler is rightly both awful and complex, of course, and Clifford Rose was very good in the role.) Bernard Hepton spent most of the last series in prison, on film, but he did eventually escape and return to the studio, and I gave it a lot of plus points for what eventually happened with Monique, too. Anyway, I watched it! I now know where 'Allo 'Allo is coming from.
2. I skipped ahead briefly to watch Suzanne Neve's second Thriller, and while I'll cover it in its turn, I can report that she is better at terrorising innocent Americans than James Maxwell: she sticks them in her underground pottery kiln and bakes them, no angsting required. 1970s Suzanne Neve is so far a lot more evil than 1960s Suzanne Neve. (I would side-eye the ending of the 1968 Dracula here, but personally, I blame Ed Bishop for throwing her down the stairs in UFO.)
3. I finally got to the E-Space trilogy (DW), watching Full Circle and State of Decay (before an appropriate break for the BBC 1977 Dracula). Full Circle has a good SF idea at the heart, but nothing else much with which to pad it out. Except Adric, but, er, well...
I enjoyed State of Decay a lot, though, especially in comparison to Full Circle (it's good to see that future spaceships will go on with BBC Acorn computers on board!). Plus, the whole Time Lords and Vampires mythology backstory is potentially fun to play with and Romana gets two great costumes, while Adric spends at least an episode unconscious, and it has a great look, particularly for that era, especially the location scenes. What more could I ask for? (I'm sorry: Adric wasn't bad in this one! I'm mean, I know.)
4. And so, then, what more appropriate than that I pause to watch the TV show that caused State of Decay to be postponed for 3 years and gave us Horror of Fang Rock instead? (Accidentally; my viewing is not really that well planed!)
I'm not really sure why the BBC were so nervy about this version of Dracula that they thought DW doing vampires at the same time might make them look silly, but apparently they were. They had no need: this is lovely. It's unlike most of the old TV I've been watching - it was 1977 doing glossy event TV with a 2 1/2 hr feature-length version of the novel that's probably the most faithful adaptation still. (Although there are some changes, of course.) It was very good! I recommend it even if you're not usually into old TV, but are into Dracula. (I believe it is up on YouTube, and I got the DVD pretty cheap anyway.)
(Also it's now fairly proved that I will never be able to read or watch the scene in the crypt where they stake Lucy without laughing. That is the downside of starting with the 1968 version*: I read the book and sniggered because Dr Seward was going on about how he could cope better because of being a doctor, and then in this, Dr Seward asks, "What are we going to do?" and Van Helsing says, "Cut off her head!" 1968 Dr Seward would have been passed out on the floor already, let alone by the time there was spurting blood. Also, in other news I think I like Dracula a lot, even if I'm not into other horror very much. I am sorry I was too wimpish to read it when I was a teenager; I would have enjoyed it, especially once I ran out of Wilkie Collins.
5. So, then, of course I had to re-watch the 1968 version (<3), and now I see that when Mina describes Dracula to Dr Seward in terms that are amusingly nothing like Denholm Elliott, she has merely had a vision of the future and seen Louis Jourdain. (The 1977 is most obviously excellent and best, but the 1968 is much more fun to play with for writing purposes and also it stars a lot of my very favourite old telly actors at once and most of them get shipped with each other. Besides, if you start with a version that has Lucy seduce Mina, what can other versions do to beat that?)
6. I then decided that I should stop being wimpish and watch the rest of Mystery and Imagination. I'd already seen "Dracula", the Ian Holm "Frankenstein" and "The Suicide Club" (the one with David Collings and the cream tarts and the invisible hyenas and Major Geraldyne, because obv. that is the one that David Collings would be in). The Freddie Jones "Sweeney Todd" was out because I Do Not Do Sweeney Todd, which left me with "Uncle Silas" and "The Curse of the Mummy" out of the Thames adaptations, so I watched "The Curse of the Mummy." It was an adaptation of Bram Stoker's The Jewel of the Seven Stars, and I enjoyed it. It starred Isobel Black and Patrick Mower, while Graham Crowden was a mad archaeologist, which was inevitably entertaining. (He spent the first third of it lying unconscious on a bed while everyone else had to act around him. The other actors probably deserve a medal, because I bet he didn't lie still and quiet the whole time.) The booklet, though, quotes the same Times reviewer who'd decided that Dracula was as boring as a Party Political Broadcast, who thought this was dull and it was only a mystery as to how it got made, but I liked it anyway, despite, of course, inevitable Victorian/70s dodginess. (The Times reviewer seems to have had it in for M&I. Looking through the booklet shows he also savaged "The Lost Stradivarius" featuring Jeremy Brett, too. The TV Times viewers were much kinder and enjoyed them all regardless.)
I wimped out on "Uncle Silas" and thought I'd watch the two older 50 mins eps instead, with the additional Richard Beckett character (since the pictures of David Buck in the role looked kind of like Adam Adamant), as that sounded like a suitable safety net. The first of the two survivors was The Fall of the House of Usher starring Denholm Elliott (again) and Susannah York and directed by Kim Mills and that was definitely over my horror limit, but clearly very good (if you like b&w 1960s TV and that sort of thing) and started me off on my wondering sadly what happened to Kim Mills and why he vanished from TV. He really does have something, I'm not quite sure how to describe it, but probably I would have been less freaked out if he hadn't been directing this one.
In contrast, The Open Door was a Mrs Oliphant story that was a little on the dull side and very Victorian, or at least it was until act 3 when they brought in John Laurie to be Very Scottish and exorcise the ghost, clearly a plan with no flaws. After that, I thought I'd had more than enough horror for a bit and left "Uncle Silas "unwatched and returned to Doctor Who and E-Space.
7. Warrior's Gate was very weird and also had Clifford Rose being excellent again. It was definitely the good weird, though, in that way only Classic Who is every once in a while. I mean, it looks like the stranger kind of 80s pop video (one that would definitely get nominated for Yuletide), so it wouldn't be for everyone, but still: the good weird/meta, I think, with bonus believably mundane, petty villains and random lion people. (It must be Doctor Who. <3)
8. I recorded Mrs Miniver off the telly, and the main thing I have taken from this is that Julian Fellowes stole the flower show plot for Downton Abbey. And given that I already know that he stole two plotlines/backstories and a minor incident from Duchess of Duke Street (as well as acting in it), I am now wondering with some interest and amusement, where exactly he swiped everything else from. (Anything from Upstairs Downstairs, maybe?) It's kind of engagingly blatant swiping, though. And gives us May Whitty vs Maggie Smith! Oh my. (I did like it, but it was made mid-WWII and so is very patriotic etc. But well done! There were some really good scenes, and Dame May Whitty as well as Greer Garson, and it was very watchable still.)
9. I also recorded the next old series Drama was offering as well, which is When the Boat Comes In. It stars Jack and Esther from New Tricks (James Bolam and Susan Jameson, who are married in rl, and going out in this). It is early 20th C Tyneside and the first episode was grim about shellshocked returning soldiers, the second had a poor orphan shipped off to Australia alone, and then the continuity announcer went, "And next, things get even harder..." It is, as they say, grim oop north. It seems good so far, though. And maybe one day the boat will come in; there are at least 40 eps on my DVR already and they may not all be equally depressing...
* I don't know if this is really a downside, though. It is very funny.
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Date: 23 Sep 2017 01:55 pm (UTC)I dubbed Reinhart 'the Fonz':) Kessler was an interesting character, he loved his wife which was better than loving money for his life chances as the series drew to a close. Bernard Hepton was a more sympathetic character on the German side in 'Colditz'.
Is the 1977 Dracula the one with Trevor Eve in it? Been meaning to watch it for ages.
I have no particular feelings about 'Sweeny Todd' and I found the Freddie Jones one disturbing!
When the Boat comes in was written by the writer of 'Callan' if I recall correctly and I suspect Kim Mills went to Australia or did something else?
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Date: 23 Sep 2017 05:00 pm (UTC)The 1977 Dracula has Frank Finlay and Louis Jourdain, but no Trevor Eve. I don't know which one that would be. The 1977 one is very good, though!
When the Boat comes in was written by the writer of 'Callan' if I recall correctly and I suspect Kim Mills went to Australia or did something else?
Yes, but what why? I am sad. He should have stayed and made more TV! And then he would have had a proper obit and I would know something about him.
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Date: 24 Sep 2017 01:45 pm (UTC)Awww, it is sad the lack of info on old TV people and surprising too. Sometimes if they haven't got a more famous life partner there wouldn't be anything at all.
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Date: 23 Sep 2017 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 24 Sep 2017 01:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 24 Sep 2017 05:22 pm (UTC)And cheap!!
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Date: 25 Sep 2017 03:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 24 Sep 2017 11:05 pm (UTC)(And one vaguely amusing moment as Jonathan let himself into Carfax with a key he still had, and startled Dracula when he thought he was all alone.)
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Date: 25 Sep 2017 03:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 23 Sep 2017 07:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 23 Sep 2017 07:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 23 Sep 2017 07:19 pm (UTC)I loved it too. If I didn't leave everything to be a giant post made weeks later, i might even have managed to say more, because it was worth words.
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Date: 24 Sep 2017 02:32 am (UTC)It is definitely on YouTube and I love Jack Shepherd's Renfield.
I Do Not Do Sweeney Todd
This is curiosity, not a prelude to an attempt to convince you otherwise: may I ask why?
The first of the two survivors was The Fall of the House of Usher starring Denholm Elliott (again)
Okay, somehow I didn't know that existed.
In contrast, The Open Door was a Mrs Oliphant story that was a little on the dull side and very Victorian, or at least it was until act 3 when they brought in John Laurie to be Very Scottish and exorcise the ghost, clearly a plan with no flaws.
And I had no idea that had ever been adapted! I'm actually very fond of the original story. (Of course it has John Laurie off the page.)
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Date: 24 Sep 2017 07:37 am (UTC)He was excellent!
This is curiosity, not a prelude to an attempt to convince you otherwise: may I ask why?
I just have a large squick regarding cannibalism (and overeating - just stuffing yourself on and on, I mean), so I do not do anything like that! Also when I was 11, our class tutor read us a story of Sweeney Todd and I hated it so much. So, I don't think I'll be watching any version of it any time soon. Unless it ever turns out that someone recorded the Sweeney Todd musical comedy that James Maxwell was in once in 1959. (I found The Stage review of it on the BNA; it was wonderful. The reviewer felt pretty much like me about Sweeney Todd and was put out at having to go. And it had 24 songs!! But, also presumably like me, he found James Maxwell to be the one thing worth seeing in it, other than the set. And came out with this rather wonderful compliment that looks like an insult in any other context: "The evening drags along like Pope's wounded snake... and... it was only now and again, usually when James Maxwell was being limply and despairingly heroic - like whey claiming to be liqueur brandy - that I could summon any laughter.") But basically, that is the only circumstance in which I would choose to watch a Sweeney Todd thing!
Okay, somehow I didn't know that existed.
Mystery and Imagination effectively had two incarnations. The first, under ABC, was a series of 50 minute horror adaptations, with an additional regular, linking character, Richard Beckett (played by David Buck. Incidentally, he's very pretty!) He took on the role of the narrator in the House of Usher, but merely introduced and closed The Open Door, explaining that this had all happened to a friend of his. But then Thames TV took over ABC (this happened a lot with the small ITV regional companies), and whenever that happened, TV got trashed, because it had the old logo on, on top of all the usual reasons - there is a tragically small survival rate from ABC, who were also responsible for the early Avengers and Public Eye. M&I was among the stuff that got junked and only these two episodes survive, so they wouldn't be well known.
Thames kept the series on, though, but made instead only a further six feature length adapatations, all of which survive. (Thames TV last well into the 90s, so most of its stuff has been preserved). Those are: Uncle Silas, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Suicide Club, Sweeney Todd, and The Curse of the Mummy.
There is also a minute or two from a teaser trailer of Casting the Runes, but it is a shame about the earlier episodes - they adapted a lot of short stories, probably pretty faithfully, knowing the era, and judging by these two, they were probably mostly of a pretty good standard. (For 60s TV!)
Studio Canal have the ABC rights, though, and they seem to be total pains at pulling down YT content, unfortunately, so I doubt they're up there, but you never know.
ETA: Mystery and Imagination on wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_and_Imagination (If you want to be further annoyed at what you can't see unless somebody digs it up in an archive one day, that is.)
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Date: 24 Sep 2017 07:51 am (UTC)That would do it!
Unless it ever turns out that someone recorded the Sweeney Todd musical comedy that James Maxwell was in once in 1959.
Not that I see from cursory internet, I'm afraid. I assume you already found the Ronald Searle caricature.
Studio Canal have the ABC rights, though, and they seem to be total pains at pulling down YT content, unfortunately, so I doubt they're up there, but you never know.
Thanks for the history! I went looking over the summer—probably after you mentioned David Collings and the offscreen hyenas—and what I could find was the entirety of the 1968 Dracula and a bunch of clips from other adaptations, Casting the Runes and a Frankenstein with Ian Holm included. I might try other parts of the internet that have been less careful with copyrights in the past.
[edit] (If you want to be further annoyed at what you can't see unless somebody digs it up in an archive one day, that is.)
Thanks?
Yeah, I regret the loss of several of those, especially since the ABC episodes are not just the expected weird tales greatest hits. I would love to have seen their version of "The Tractate Middoth" to compare with Mark Gatiss' 2013 adaptation, and "Casting the Runes" for similar reasons, since I would expect it either to have been influenced by or working against Jacques Tourneur's Night of the Demon (1957). At least one of the other James stories was duplicated by the original run of A Ghost Story for Christmas. I would definitely have checked out "The Canterville Ghost" if only because I've never seen a straight version of the story (I am deeply fond of the wildly unfaithful, American 1944 film). And the cast lists on IMDb are great.
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Date: 24 Sep 2017 08:19 am (UTC)No, I hadn't! Oh, I see he has yet another fake moustache; I shouldn't be surprised. There is always a dreadful fake moustache. That's marvellous! I never even looked for anything about it; he'd had rather a long theatre career and the Stage review made that sound like a low point, plus it doesn't seem to have been broadcast by the BBC even at the time. (So, yes, I wasn't expecting any version of it to ever turn up anywhere.) But, aww, Ronald Searle drew JM! Even if he thought he was called James Macdonnell. Thanks!
Yeah, I regret the loss of several of those, especially since the ABC episodes are not just the expected weird tales greatest hits.
I'm sorry. In some ways it's better not to look, but it's hard to help it. And you never know - people are still searching for lost TV all the time and there are still some finds.
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Date: 24 Sep 2017 08:24 am (UTC)You're welcome! I'm glad to have found it for you.
If you look at the full-sized scan, actually, Searle got his name right. The transcriber got it wrong.
I'm sorry. In some ways it's better not to look, but it's hard to help it.
It's all right; I'd rather have the information. I will just have to hope for tapes turning up in broom closets.
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Date: 24 Sep 2017 05:23 pm (UTC)It's all right; I'd rather have the information. I will just have to hope for tapes turning up in broom closets.
In broom closets, attics, parish halls, car boot sales, and hidden away in Africa. Indeed. You never know!
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Date: 24 Sep 2017 06:13 am (UTC)Also, googling for Four's last words to Romana led me to this delightful thread from 2008. Do you remember when this was the hottest theory on Death by Aspirin. Because I sure do! https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/832534/you-were-the-noblest-romana-of-them-all
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Date: 24 Sep 2017 07:23 am (UTC)Interesting question! That didn't occur to me. I don't think Alzarius is E-Space Gallifrey, just sitting at the same co-ordinates in a pocket universe. But the Lion People are rather like that universe's Time Lords, it's true. And then there's that vampire that escaped in there, too. Definitely all v intriguing.
LOL, yes. Why did so many people think that Donna was going to be someone who wasn't Donna? It seems so random now!
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Date: 24 Sep 2017 01:42 pm (UTC)You're not alone in finding this funny. :oD
Kessler in Secret Army is horrible. I hated that Reinhardt was executed because of him.
**(I would side-eye the ending of the 1968 Dracula here, but personally, I blame Ed Bishop for throwing her down the stairs in UFO.)**
I don't remember that bit. Was he under the influence of aliens at the time?
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Date: 24 Sep 2017 05:29 pm (UTC):-D 1968 Dr Seward gets upset just because Van Helsing is careless with the flowers! It is the best thing. I'm glad it's not just me that's ridiculously amused by it.
Kessler in Secret Army is horrible. I hated that Reinhardt was executed because of him.
They both played it well, though, but I did want to see Kessler get his comeuppance, but apparently what he got was a sequel. I hope he gets his well-deserved come-uppance in that!
I don't remember that bit. Was he under the influence of aliens at the time?
No, SHADO was just stressing him out in the backstory. And I mean accidentally pushed, but still. She was pregnant! I was not impressed. But you know me and my inability to see SHADO as anything other than a xenophobic military organisation bent on killing aliens and putting out evil propaganda about them. The poor aliens naturally wind up trying to get rid of SHADO (and only SHADO!) but I doubt they succeed. ;-p
Anyway, in consequence 1970s Suzanne Neve has clearly set out for revenge and is swindling elderly men and baking Americans in pottery kilns. Let that be a lesson to Ed Bishop.
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Date: 24 Sep 2017 05:34 pm (UTC)Good grief! It's a shame he wasn't one of them, just to prove you 100% right!
*I hope he gets his well-deserved come-uppance in that!*
IIRC, he had to go live in South America. So it probably depends on your opinion of that.
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Date: 24 Sep 2017 07:33 pm (UTC)I suppose that's unfortunately true to life of many real Kesslers. :-(
Good grief! It's a shame he wasn't one of them, just to prove you 100% right!
If only! Maybe it would have made him pause before he shot David Collings on audio as well. ;-D
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Date: 25 Sep 2017 01:50 am (UTC)I can't take the staking of Lucy seriously any more thanks to Mel Brooks.
Louis Jordan's Dracula was good, except for the slurping noise as Dracula fed off his victims!
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Date: 25 Sep 2017 08:03 am (UTC)Louis Jordan's Dracula was good, except for the slurping noise as Dracula fed off his victims!
Tut, tut, is he a messy eater? I didn't notice!
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Date: 25 Sep 2017 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 25 Sep 2017 07:12 pm (UTC)And, heh, yes, you should watch them out of order if you want - vary them up a little, why not?