The toughest part of watching a TV show religiously is when a show gets cancelled. It’s become a thing that you have to get used to. Two shows I loved were “The Real O’Neals” and “American Crime.”
O’Neals was a funny comedy centered around Kenny O’Neal, who is in a catholic family and in the pilot, comes out of the closet. Hilarity ensued for two great seasons. Unfortunately, this season, it was on against the hot drama, “This Is Us”, and it got trounced week after week in the ratings. I loved the cast of this show, especially Martha Plimpton as Eileen O’Neal, she has great comedic talent.
“American Crime” was a show that was too good to be on network television. What John Ridley did with this show was nothing short of amazing. Each season of this show was a new story with new characters, but with many of the same actors. Regina King, Felicity Huffman, Timothy Hutton, they were all very dynamic on this show and showed a great range of flexibility in their acting range from year to year. It’s a shame we won’t see what they can do with a Season Four. Unless the show finds another home somewhere. One can only dream. (Hello Netflix, Hulu, or some other streaming service… are you listening????)
By the way, Connor Jessup is just sexy as hell. There, I said it. 🙂
Shows get cancelled folks. It’s nothing to lose sleep over, the world keeps turning on and great actors will find other jobs. At least that’s what one would hope would happen!
Today is May 4th, or has it come to be known in recent years, Star Wars Day. Or, as you may have heard it said, “May the 4th Be With You.”
You can actually celebrate the first Star Wars movie twice this month, on the 4th, and especially on May 25th, with 2017 marking the 40th Anniversary of the original release of Star Wars in 1977. This got me to thinking what theaters in the Knoxville area showed the film upon its initial release.
Before I go into that, I should point out a little background on the release of the film across the entire country. According to in70mm.com Star Wars opened in 32 theaters on May 25th (which was on a Wednesday,) and by the first weekend, expanded to 43 theaters. If you’re curious for more details, read this article from 2003 about the release of the movie. There’s lots of great in depth info there.
The nearest theater to have the film upon release was the Showcase Cinemas in Louisville, KY. As the film grew to more and more theaters, certainly word of mouth must have spread around. As 20th Century-Fox made more prints of the film, it grew to more theaters. A comprehensive list of when and where the film opened as it grew wider is in this very extensive and well researched 2015 article at The Digital Bits. The first place in Tennessee to get the film was the Hermitage 4 theatre near Nashville on June 17th. As a matter of fact, it was the grand opening of that theater. What an time to open an new theater! Check out this article from The Tennessean for more.
The film finally made it to Knoxville on July 15th at the Cedar Bluff Twin theatre. If you’ll note on that list at the Bits, it got to the Tri-Cities before it got to Knoxville. That certainly is interesting, but oh well. Here is a gallery of some period advertisements from the Knoxville News-Sentinel:
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Star Wars also started running in Oak Ridge at the Ridge Theater. It started there on July 29th and played there for 13 weeks. It also played at the Lakemont Drive-In in Maryville starting on August 10th. (As a side note, in research for this article, not long after Star Wars stopped playing at Lakemont, some rather seedy titles started to appear on its ads… go figure.)
Star Wars spend a mind boggling 21 weeks at the Cedar Bluff Twin. It was then replaced with (as shown in the gallery above) another big winner of 1977, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Fans of the sprawling epic needn’t have waited long to see it again, because it moved down Kingston Pike a bit and grew in epic scope and size, to the famed Capri-70 Theater, to be shown in the grand 70mm format! (Note: I am taking liberty here in assuming that the film was shown in 70mm. Since it’s a theater known for showing 70mm films, I think I can safely assume that it probably was 70mm… if anyone reading this happens to know, please do comment below and let me know!)
Article from the Knoxville News-Sentinel regarding the film moving theatersStar Wars moves to the Capri 70, 12/16/77The final day of Star Wars at the Capri 70, 3/16/78… 13 weeks later
If I were there, I probably would go watch it at least twice a week, just for the experience. From my personal experience, seeing a 70mm film is just something to behold. Star Wars played here for another 13 weeks, finally ending its run on March 16th, 1978. It played for longer in bigger cities, but 34 consecutive weeks between two theaters is an impressive run. Movies would certainly never be the same again. Star Wars did appear again in Knoxville later in 1978, particularly at the then Cinema 6, which is known today as the Regal Downtown West 8 (and is one of my favorite theaters in the whole area!)
So, as we celebrate the 40th Anniversary of this great film, just think back to the first time you saw it. Whether it was in 1977 or some time after, try and remember the magic of that film unreeling before your eyes for the very first time. I guarantee you that neither you or I will ever have an experience quite like that ever again.
The first season of a television series is interesting. The characters are new and have a lot of wiggle room for the audience to get to know them as well as the actors who portray them. The writers, directors, producers and all the people who create the show also have the same challenge of trying to bring to the screen an interesting, engaging and dynamic piece of storytelling as well. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
And then there’s Star Trek. You see, it’s the show that broke conventional wisdom. It was classic from the get-go. It’s not like they had to try very hard to do well. The characters were very strong and fresh from the moment they first called “Action!” on the set. True, the writing may have been a bit suspect at times, but every story had one thing going for it: it always attempted to be ambitious.
It could be said however that the show had two sides to its season, and it all boiled down to who produced the show. The first half of the season was produced by the series creator, Gene Roddenberry, and the second half by Gene Coon. The tale of two Genes has been told in print time and time again, so I’ll save you from regurgitating the background info (go seek out any number of books on this topic if you’re interested) and just give you my thoughts.
You can definitely tell a slight shift in how the characters interacted when Coon arrived. The one dynamic that Gene Coon brought to the show was the strong bond between Kirk, Spock and McCoy. That is what I always referred to as the “strong triad” of the show. If you don’t get that central core relationship right, you don’t have Star Trek. All of the other themes will naturally fall into place, but what those three do is of vital importance to make any story work. Look at some of the best episodes, like my favorite, “The City on the Edge of Forever.” While McCoy make have been doped up on Cordrazine, Kirk and Spock realize that what he did must be corrected, but they never blame him directly for what’s going on. A lot of TV shows these days would just outright blame him for negligence and make a whole 13 to 22 episode arc out of said negligence. That’s the reason I don’t get into a lot of new TV shows, by the way. Where a lot of TV shows fail in my book is that they fail to make me like the characters as well as I like these three.
Before you reach for that comment box, I do watch new TV shows, just the ones with characters I like.
The supporting players are just as vital to the show’s success. Where else on TV 50 years ago could you see a diverse mix of races all working together on a ship? Nobody putting the other down or hurling racial epithets at each other? That aspect was truly ahead of its time. Sadly, however, in 2017, that kind of acceptance and collaboration is still a challenge for a lot of people. We all need to work together and treat each other equally, especially now.
You can’t think of this show without thinking of the massive fan support that was generated. I do think that the network brain trust at NBC certainly was not expecting the massive letter writing campaign that they got to protest the rumors that Star Trek might be cancelled. I do applaud them for taking the step of not only renewing the show, but making an on-air announcement to such (during the closing credits of “The Devil in the Dark” on March 2nd, 1967.) I know that if I were around then, I would probably be devouring any information I could find about how to join a fan club and probably writing a letter as well to add to the mass protest that ultimately saved the show from cancellation.
Put simply, what a season! The first season of any show is the most interesting one in my opinion. It always is and always will be true. I firmly believe that.
Last night was the yearly tradition of ABC screening the epic Cecil B. DeMille film “The Ten Commandments” starring Charlton Heston. The film has been broadcast annually by ABC since February 18, 1973. Check out this ad from the premiere telecast:
This was back in a time when movies on television were a very big event. It was of course the days before cable and home video pretty much ruined that epic feeling you might have gotten when a great movie was on that you just had to watch.
I thought to myself as this movie was on last night, “You know, this movie has nothing to do with Easter directly.” True, but people love it more for it being inspirational. Of course, this movie would be more identified with Passover instead of strictly Easter, so don’t write in or comment that I don’t know my religious holidays, because I do know.
I guess people just love this movie so much and people still turn out to watch it once a year, even though you can readily watch the movie on any number of home video formats that it has been released on over the years.
While “The Ten Commandments” is not my favorite biblical epic, I got to thinking about when my two favorites appeared for the first time on television.
“The Robe” premiered on ABC on Easter Sunday, March 26, 1967.
My favorite film of all time, “Ben-Hur”, premiered on CBS Sunday, February 14, 1971 and was watched by over 85 million people (a record for a movie on TV at the time).
So, it’s come to this. Our favorite crew against these plastic-looking blobs on the planet Deneva that afflict pain and mind control against their victims. In a nutshell, that sums up the episode “Operation: Annihilate!”
In this episode, we finally get to meet some unfortunate victims of Captain Kirk’s family. His brother Sam (played by Shatner with a moustache) is DOA in this plot. Aurelan, his sister-in-law, and Peter, his nephew. Aurelan dies in a very memorable scene in sickbay. Peter never really comes out of it, at least in the footage that made the cut. There was a scene filmed, intended to be at the very end of the episode, in which Peter appears on the bridge and tells his Uncle that he is staying behind on Deneva.
Scene with Peter Kirk that was cut from the episode
Let’s take a moment to talk about the creatures themselves. Take a look at this image:
“It doesn’t even look real!” You said it, Yeoman!
I know the show was on a tight budget, but could they have made the parasites a little more believable? It doesn’t take away from the potential of the story line for me if they are 100% realistic or not. The viewer has to suspend their disbelief to the max on this aspect of the story. I feel that someone who doesn’t know what they’re watching could flip over to this and instantly think the show is hokey because of these rather fake looking parasites.
What saves this episode for me is the excellent performance, as always, from Leonard Nimoy. Spock has to go through a lot here to find the solution of how to cure the Denevans of this affliction. Isn’t it convenient that he has the forgotten inner eyelid? Those Vulcans, saving the day in unexpected ways!
So, that ends the first season of Star Trek. I will be writing a post in the next few days of my impressions of the season as a whole. Of course, the regular weekly reviews will resume on September 15th with “Amok Time.”
I had trouble getting to sleep. This has been common for me if I have to try to sleep in bed that I’m not used to. I’m just so used to sleeping on the couch in the living room that my body has a hard time doing anything different. I think another contributing factor is that I’m not active enough during the day and am not truly tired when I try to go to sleep sometimes.
I only slept for 34% of the test. In case you’re curious, the test was from around 10:30pm through 5:00am. I distinctly remember just lying there, trying to count sheep and trying to just shut down. It wasn’t working very well for me. The tech said they did get some data, but it’s very possible that they will have to do a second test. This is common. This test would more than likely be a fitting for the CPAP machine. They have to get the pressure that I would need to use figured out during this second test. I should know something in around two weeks.
I did come home and sleep some more, so I’ll be OK. I think that I need to start being more active right now to try and help the initial problem. I definitely can do that.
I am sitting here in a room at the UT Sleep Clinic about to undergo a sleep study. I have had problems sleeping for quite a long time. It’s about time that I did something about it.
It is probably a safe bet that I am going to end up wearing a mask when I sleep. They’ve already tried it on me. It isn’t that bad! As long as it helps me to fall asleep and stay asleep without sitting up and sleeping in a sitting position, I think I can do this.
Recently we got tired of the arrangement of our living room. I felt that the speakers were not configured properly to totally enjoy watching a movie in 5.1 surround sound at home. So, we reconfigured our living room and arranged the speakers in a more favorable configuration. It sounded pretty good. It needs to be said here that we don’t actually have the .1 part. You see, we never bought a subwoofer. That got me to thinking, “Gee, I should really do something about that!”
Well, we are going to get one. But then another problem came up. Newer Blu-ray movies are in sound formats that our receiver can’t decode. The standard formats are Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. Even newer than that are Dolby Atmos and DTS-X, which are more directional sound formats than traditional surround sound. A favorite YouTube channel of mine, TechMoan, has a great video where he installed some Dolby Atmos speakers in his living room, and explains Dolby Atmos as well, you can watch that at this link.
What spurred this thinking on was when I was watching one of my favorite movies recently, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” Greg noticed that the Blu-ray had both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. While we could decode the Dolby sound, when we tried to use the DTS track, it just came back in 2 channels instead of 6. Our receiver is a 10-year old model. Here’s a photo in case you’re curious:
That’s a Sony STR DG-810. It’s actually capable of 6.1 channels, you could add a surround back speaker to the mix. It’s a good unit, we got it from someone here in Knoxville via Craigslist for only $75, at a time when a very old RCA receiver we had started emitting very bad ground loop noise. In a very strapped budget mode, it was a good buy at that time.
Now, however, we have a more flexible budget to play with. After looking around at various websites, we decided to go with the Onkyo TX-NR555. This amp is a beast, at least as far as we’re concerned. It’s capable of 7.2 channels, 80W of power per channel, for up to 980W. Here is a photo of the new receiver in its home:
Let me tell you, this receiver is sweet. It takes a complicated setup of several devices in our home theater and lets us run it through one unit. It eliminated a whole bunch of cables from our wiring. That is a major fringe benefit. It’s very convenient to be able to do that. Watching CE3K with the true DTS-HD Master Audio is like night and day. Particularly when you hear alien ship flybys. The whooshes in surround sound make it very real, like you are really there.
I am very happy with this purchase. It was about time that we upgraded!
Maybe someday, the price of 4K will come down enough to where we might consider that purchase. Probably not for several years, at least.
It goes without saying that “The City on the Edge of Forever” is and always has been my favorite Star Trek episode. There has never been any question of that. But what makes it so great? My review this week will attempt to explain why *I* think so.
The story is and of itself a great premise. I say this of the finished episode. There has been lots of articles and books written about the writing process of this episode. In case you don’t know, the story idea was being worked on way back before the first season actually began filming. The story was written, and rewritten, and rewritten again before we ended up with was was telecast 50 years ago on April 6th, 1967.
I must say, it was a true classic on the first viewing. It remains a classic today for me and many others for one simple reason: it is deep. The characters are so good in this story. Kirk in love where he shouldn’t be. Spock being the voice of reason he always is. McCoy is the “random element” (as Spock puts it at one point), and Edith Keeler, played by the always dynamic Joan Collins, is a wonderful, fascinating, dynamic character. She is one of the best characters in any Trek episode.
The Guardian of Forever is a character in this too. This mysterious portal of a long dead civilization that is the catalyst for the problem in this story is so fascinating. I wish they would have found a way to do another story or two with the Guardian being possibly utilized in a more planned fashion that what happened here. I know there is an episode of the animated series (“Yesteryear”) and several Trek novels that have explored the possibilities of the Guardian. Honestly, I never read many Trek novels, although I do own a copy of the novel “Imzadi” where the Guardian is used by Riker to travel back in time.
The climax of this episode is so riveting. I have never watched this episode and have ever felt anything but tense and shocked by the decision that Kirk had to make to restore history to what it should be. Just watch this clip.
I don’t know if I could have done what Kirk did given that situation. It’s tough to make a personal sacrifice like that, even when the stakes of Earth’s future is on the line. William Shatner plays the scene with all of his great talent.
I just can’t say enough good things about how much I have always enjoyed this episode. It honestly has always deserved the recognition that it has gotten as one of the best episodes of any version of Star Trek there has ever been, before or since.
Next week, the season finale! Blobs take over people’s minds, and well, Spock almost goes nuts!
Tomorrow we head back home. It has been a memorable trip, in more ways than one. It goes without saying that, given the jobs that Greg and I are in, we are taking a trip to get away from the grind of Breaking News. In this case, we took the Breaking News with us.
Who knew that the I-85 Collapse would happen the day we got here? Fate just plays a strange game sometimes. In this case, it was just mere coincidence. It really didn’t affect anything we planned to do at all, nor did we think it would. It just created a minor problem in the long run.
This trip still turned out to be a major success, and we have a story to remember for a LONG time.
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