Wesley Britton's Blog - Posts Tagged "television"

MARY: THE MARY TYLER MOORE STORY
Herbie J Pilato
Paperback: 458 pages
Publisher: Jacobs Brown Press (January 25, 2019)
ISBN-10: 0999507850
ISBN-13: 978-0999507858
https://www.amazon.com/MARY-TYLER-MOO...


Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton

Mary isn't the first show biz bio I've read from Herbie J Pilato, a founder of the Classic TV Preservation Society. I first learned about the depth of Herbie's TV expertise when I read his 2007 The Bionic Book: The Six Million Dollar man and the Bionic Woman Reconstructed. After that, he produced several adoring books about Bewitched star, Elizabeth Montgomery.

Now, Pilato has presented us with a in-depth, exhaustive bio of a star he clearly also adores, a star most of us out here in TV-Watcher land love as well. Mary Tyler Moore, and her more iconic roles like Laura Petrie and Mary Richards, certainly did turn the world on with her smile. If that number includes you, then this is a book for you.

To greater and lesser degrees, most of us know quite a bit about the biography of Mary Tyler Moore, her career, her private life, her struggles, her successes and failures. There's so much in the public record, including the autobiographies Moore wrote.

What Herbie J. Palato has given us is a one-stop tome that covers everything one could ask for about Moore herself, her colleagues, her relationships, her misfires and triumphs, her self-consciousness and lack of self-esteem in terms of her looks, not to mention her causes like diabetes research and animal rights.

When an author devotes this much attention to a beloved subject, there can be some excesses in the text. In this case, there's a lot of repetition, notably the countless references to the importance of Ordinary People in Moore's career. There are numerous paragraphs summarizing the careers and roles of those Moore worked with at one time or another. Of course, this makes Mary an easy book to skim. But keep your eyes open to catch the streams of nuggets Pilato gives us. We get a portrait of a woman in 3-D, including her shortcomings, talents, work ethic, parental skills (or lack of them) and her insights an perspectives regarding her important and influential career. And surprises--I didn't know her animal rights activism extended to protecting lobsters. Books like these are also good for reviewing lesser known projects like talk show appearances, guest-starring and cameos on TV series, and public speaking. For the first time, I got the story to what happened to the short-lived1985 Mary series co-starring John Astin from Addams Family fame. I got the insider stories behind the sad attempts to reunite the Dick Van Dyke cast and especially the dreary Mary and Rhoda TV movie.

Naturally, you got to have some real interest in the biography of Mary Tyler Moore to want to dive into this very detailed and balanced tribute. Someone needed to write this book, and who better than Herbie J. Pilato. He knows how to do it.

This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on Feb. 5, 2019:
https://waa.ai/oCZ1

Somewhere Beyond the Heavens: Exploring Battlestar Galactica
edited by Rich Handley and Lou Tambone.
Publisher: Sequart Organization (December 18, 2018)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
ASIN: B07LGFF1NP
https://www.amazon.com/Somewhere-Beyo...

Reviewed by: Dr. Wesley ?Britton

Back in 1978, I considered a new TV series I dubbed Battlestar: Ponderosa (due to the presence of actor Loren Green as Commander Adama), along with sister production, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, as two disposable, diverting attempts by producer Glen A. Larson to capitalize on the success of Star Wars for the small screen. As both series had short lives, I didn't expect to see much more of either of them. Little did I know.

In the case of Battlestar: Galactica, forty years have gone by with many repeated attempts to reinvigorate the franchise. We got novelizations, original novels, comics, films, webisodes, board and video games, unproduced attempts at revivals, and, most impressing of all, Ronald D. Moore's extraordinary 2003 re-imagining of the concept for the SyFy channel and elsewhere that earned considerable praise for a remarkable reboot.

Now, the Sequart Organization has published the fifth, yes, fifth, serious book-length academic analysis of all things Galactica by forty comic historians, novelists, bloggers, subject-matter experts, and franchise insiders including Jim Beard, Joseph F. Berenato, Joe Bongiorno, Jeffrey Carver, and October Crifasi.

Sequart is touting the fact their new title runs 572 pages, making it the longest book in their history. This is rather surprising considering their past essay collections on popular culture subjects included Batman, The X-Men, Star Wars, and Planet of the Apes, to scratch the surface of their catalogue. As with all their tomes, Somewhere Beyond the Heavens touches every conceivable base you can think of regarding Battlestar: Galactica including close scrutiny of the creative processes, analyses of key episodes and characters, not to mention deep dives into the ephemera associated with the franchise.

Clearly, Somewhere Beyond the Heavens is not a useful introduction for the uninitiated and not a simple overview for the mildly interested or simply curious. It's intended for serious devotees who might not need to explore every essay, especially if you're a fan of only the Glen A. Larson version or the Ronald Moore revision. For example, do you care about the background of the mysterious Count Iblis as portrayed by Patrick Macnee in a two-part episode in the original series? If so, this collection is for you.

This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on March 13, 2019:
https://waa.ai/o8Rj

These Are the Voyages: Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek in the 1970s Volume 2 (1975-77).
Marc Cushman
Publisher: Jacobs/Brown Media Group
Release date: July 1, 2020
Number of Pages: 650 pages
ISBN-10: 1733605320
ISBN-13: 978-1733605328

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/173360...


Reviewed by: Dr. Wesley Britton

Volume Two of Marc Cushman's three volume coverage of everything that happened in the Star Trek universe during the 1970s is the tenth of Marc's books I've read and reviewed to date. Starting with his single volume book on I Spy, I've read everything from Marc's first three books on Star Trek: The Original Series, his three volumes on Lost in Space, not to mention his explorations of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and The Moody Blues. All these books share one major attribute. Comprehensive is too mild a descriptor. Exhaustive is much more on target. Marc is the master of never leaving any stone unturned, no memo unread, no potentially useful data is left out of any of his tomes.

In the case of Cushman's Star Trek journalism, Marc was given unprecedented access to apparently every scrap of paper associated with Gene Roddenberry and everyone involved with the original franchise. In this volume, this resulted in a very comprehensive overview of all the scripts and stories we never saw in the never filmed Star Trek Phase 2 TV project. These chapters were my favorite passages in this history, reading about some adventures I'd like to have seen, some I'm glad were never produced. No Star Trek fan will want to miss these descriptions.

In addition, we get detailed histories of Roddenberry's lesser-known TV attempts like The Questor Tapes, Genesis II, Spectre, and The Nine. On top of that, Cushman tells us about projects featuring Star Trek cast members like Leonard Nimoy's In Search Of . . . documentary series and William Shatner's short-lived Barbary Coast. We hear about how cast members fared in their lives outside of Star Trek, like the sparring between Nimoy and Roddenberry involving Nimoy's possible participation in any Star Trek revivals.

A healthy portion of the book explores the growing fan support for Star Trek including the nationwide success of the show in syndication, the beginnings of Star Trek conventions, the expanding bonanza of Star Trek merchandise, and the public speaking tours of Roddenberry, Nimoy, and Shatner. Cushman also talks about the state of science-fiction television shows of the era, most notably a detailed overview of Space 1999, a program clearly influenced by Star Trek. Toss in generous samplings of contemporary reviews of all these items and it's no wonder the book reaches 650 pages.

As Cushman told me in a recent interview, he doesn't target his books to the casual fan but instead aims for the serious aficionados of his various subjects. In the case of Star Trek, that's a pretty hefty audience who will treasure this authoritative history of a cultural phenomenon. Sure, even this readership will likely find chapters and sections to skim over, other sections will be devoured for all the information never made available before. If you're a Star Trek lover, casual or serious, you won't want to miss any of Marc Cushman's extraordinarily researched studies. No previous histories match him for detail, fresh insights, corrections to popular myths; every possible stone is turned over and examined.

As I write this, I'm about to dive into Volume Three of this set which means one last long summer read. That's before Marc dives into all the movies and later series in the '80s and beyond. Stay tuned . . . six books later and the voyages have just begun . . .


To hear Karina Kantas and Wes Britton interview Marc Cushman about his Star Trek books, here's a link to Karina's "Behind the Pen" Podcast:

https://youtu.be/kchFuD9p64o


This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on Aug. 27, 2020:
https://waa.ai/ue9q

In few obits honoring the late, great Christopher Plummer, there are few mentions of his 1990-1993 Canadian/ French produced USA television series, Counterstrike.

In the series opener, after his wife is killed in a terrorist operation, international industrialist Alexander Addington (Plummer) assembled a private team of troubleshooters to help combat terrorism around the world. Headed by Peter Sinclair (Simon MacCorkindale), for 66 episodes, the team usually included one female French operative and one male American agent traveling together in a private jet connected to Addington via an internet link. The show could be considered something of a private enterprise version of the IMF from Mission: Impossible.

During its three-season run, the show was nominated for various Gemini awards including a 1992 nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Continuing Leading Dramatic Role for Christopher Plummer.

The title sequence for each episode included Plummer doing a dramatic reading of the show's motto: "We must fight evil, no matter where, no matter when, no matter what the cost":

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