RebKell's Junkie Boards

[ArtBest23]

I haven't figured out the characteristic(s) that make an old 70s or 60s or 50s ﹰTﹰV show hold up well to time. Why are some "timeless" and still enjoyable, and others just drag and don't wear well at all.

Some that I've watched recently - Tales of Wells Fargo remains a terrific enjoyable Western. Death Valley Days and Daniel Boone are just awful. But I can't really explain why. Perry Mason is absolutely timeless. I can watch those any time.

I also don't understand the syndication system enough to understand who decides and how they choose which shows we get to see. I've been somewhat surprised that some early 60s detective shows like Hawaiin Eye (Robert Conrad, Connie Stevens, Troy Donahue) and 77 Sunset Strip (Efram Zimbalist Jr) never seemed to make it into syndication.

[jammerbirdi]

This is a very interesting topic. To me, anyway.

So one big problem with old one hour dramas is pacing. And budgets that permitted pretty much only reusable inside studio sets which put an emphasis on head and shoulder shots making for lots of slow dialogue and long drawn out knowing looks, etc.

Shows like The Fugitive, come to mind. Such a mystique to the premise. As an actual real-time youth I can't tell you how many times I gave it a go because of the cool opening credit sequence, music, and the intriguing premise, only to be bored to tears as Dr. Richard Kimble would find himself in some low budget-feeling melodrama delivered at a snails pace. Wow. And I think this all went on for like a seven year run. Back when a television season, I think, was the entire fall-thru-winter and into spring. I think that's the way it worked back then. But I can't remember one scene that was dealing with the show's premise and the whole one-armed man thing.

I also think that there are eras where stuff from that era just had a bad impact on shows.

TV is a sore subject for me anyway because of my thing for most of my life is and was that TV just sucked. Period. There used to be a lot of us. That started after All In the Family, which was the last show I watched of my own impetus until, believe it or not, Alias which started up in 2001. That's 30 years folks. 1971 to 2001. Not to say I didn't get stuck in a one TV relationship on many dead of winter Friday nights watching Knots Landing or Dallas but I sure would have rather been doing something else.

Anyway. What also doesn't hold up very well is the first or early episodes of a series when actors haven't quite found the character. And this is a subtle all-over-the-place thing. But, ironically, The Sopranos comes to mind. Early episodes are fine, but the actors are aping Scorsese and Godfather portrayals I think. Edie Falco is an exception. Then, of course, this becomes maybe the best show ever and the acting all around is off the charts.

Whenever I catch, and it's pretty rare the past like decade, The Andy Griffith Show with Don Knotts, I'm usually struck by how much that holds up. The comedy in that show is so psychological. It's very internal what you're watching on the screen at all times with Barney being Barney and episode after episode his rise (in his own mind) and fall being played out.

But comedy generally was very stupid back then. Sitcoms honestly were better than stand up comedy in general. The Dick Van Dyke Show was great. I bet some of those episodes hold up because back then the emphasis on that show was on wit with just a little bit of a highbrow couple. That reversed itself as sitcoms became very popular in America, but righteously stupid and repetitive and formula driven schlock, and standup comedy was taken to pretty much high art.

Drama, however, always had problems. Certain formulas like Perry Mason might have hit on something that really was tight and worked. But I just don't recall the show that well.

So here's my offering. Back before The Sopranos, there were a lot of voices out there that would mention the original The Outer Limits as being one of the best TV shows ever. I would have argued that seeing that I thought from the early 70s until the 2000s TV was just so bad.

So, even aficionados of the show will tell you there's a lot of stinkers and funny looking monsters, etc. I have the DVD set but I've used online info to steer me to the better episodes because I'm not watching alone I'm taking up an hour of mrs jammer's time as well so I want to see the good stuff.

I would argue that there really was never anything like this show on TV. But let me set the stage. It's the freaking early 60s in America. And the way they started this show was sort of, I think, an ABC device. Show a tasty excerpt from the episode and when you have everyone's attention, blam, run the titles and cut to the first commercial.

Imagine this popping up on your TV screen on a cold February night in 1964. I would have been seven years old. So I was fucked from the get-go. Amazing performance by Chita Rivera here. This episode was caled The Bellero Shield.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/luT6bodz6dQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[cthskzfn]

...and w/ SFX like these, who wasn't wowed?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUdmat1Env8

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Silly, stupid white people might be waking up.

[sambista]

this question intrigues me as well.

my brother is obsessed with old westerns. he finishes up his work each day, then wheels up to the tv in late afternoon for whatever old western fare is offered on socal tv: gunsmoke, wagon train, the rifleman, the virginian . . . i think he's clinging to the good old days when good vs. bad - white hats, black hats - and the bounds of morality were clearly drawn.

anyway, some old shows i never tire of, and i'm not sure why. mission: impossible. the original law & order. law & order: svu. frazier. the mary tyler moore show. all the star treks. some dated, but all with brilliant writing and/or compelling storylines. law & order is timeless, i think, because it challenges us to navigate the legal shades of gray.

which is to say i really don't know what makes and old tv show hold up, or whether it can be attributed to single thing.

which brings me to a related question i constantly ponder: is a tv show good because the theme song is great, or does the theme song become great because the tv show is so good? chicken or egg?

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no justice, no peace.