Stream of Thought - Civil War to The Twilight Zone

Maryland has gotten one blizzard and one reasonable snow fall, from which mounds of the white stuff can still be spied in small mounds strewn around the yard or street gutters.  Last week the local groundhogs recently forecast an early Spring.  Coming up this weekend are holiday celebrations for Presidents' Day and Saint Valentine's Day.  I'm not much for Saint Valentine's Day, perhaps due to some more then lackluster dating experiences.  President's Day is okay, and maybe I even have a little Lincoln on my mind as I've been following Mercy Street on PBS.

Mercy Street is a hospital drama during the Civil War era.  The production values seem top notch to me (although I'm far from a Civil War re-enactor, expert, or even enthusiast) while the writing deals sensitively with the human drama associated with those exposed to war and their efforts of recovery.  There are graphically real depictions of primitive surgery and shocks to the system range from the physical to the mental.  The hospital is a confiscated Virginia hotel.  A major subplot involves the hotel's Southern owner's attempt to remain loyal to the South while safe guarding his business enterprises.  Gary Cole, TV veteran of Crusade and Midnight Caller, plays the put upon Southern patriarch.  He's my favorite of the series.  Will he sign a loyalty oath?  The question is a divisive one amongst his family.  The issue of slavery is also explored in a subplot.  These types of questions are often in the center of some grandiose TV productions dealing with the Civil War.

Jonathan Frakes & I years ago at Garden State Comic Con. 

My favorite Civil War production is North and South, an 80's mini-series.  The epic uses a common Civil War motif - the central characters were two school chums who found themselves on opposite sides when the conflict broke out.  James Read and Patrick Swayze portrayed the once friendly duo, but the labyrinthine plot allowed for a mega cast.  Hollywood icons Robert Mitchum and Elizabeth Taylor were in North and South, as well as future stars like Jonathan Frakes, who would become famous as William Riker on Star Trek the Next Generation. 

While taking smaller roles in the 80's Frakes entered that decade's adaption of The Twilight Zone.  The episode Frakes appeared in concerned and unappreciated secretary who suddenly found herself in a place where secretaries were highly prized individuals.  I liked the 80's Twilight Zone TV version a lot and I actually saw it in prime time before being exposed to the classic black and white series with introductions by show creator Rod Serling.  Serling's opening narration and introduction are iconic and future versions of The Twilight Zone tipped their hat to that fact.   The 80's also produced a Twilight Zone movie.  I seem to remember The Twilight Zone returning as syndicated series in the 90's, when genre shows were the rage everywhere.  At the start of the millennium UPN reinstated The Twilight Zone briefly as a part of its lineup with Forest Whitaker as host.  Trying to chart The Twilight Zone's TV history might be as confusing as entering the Twilight Zone.

There are a lot of great supernatural anthologies out there - Dark Room, Hammer's House of Horror, Monsters, Night Gallery, The Twilight Zone, Ray Bradbury Theater, and Tales From the Crypt.  The later started life as a comic book, became a British film and then a TV show on HBO.  There are rumors that Tales From the Crypt may be returning with new macabre episodes.  Have a ghoul time!

Iconic TV Duos

As stated in my previous blog, I've been greatly enjoying the return of The X Files.  The new scripts have kept the same interesting mix of suspense, sarcasm, horror and humor.  And its leads are as charismatic together as ever.  Their banter and individual reactions to a fantastic crisis are still spot on.  Gillian Anderson's Dana Scully seeks the rational explanation that science can support while David Duchovny's Fox Mulder wants truth no matter the cost.  In honor of the return of this alluring duo, I thought I might list some of my favorite personal favorites from television's iconic duos.

John Steed & Emma Peel of THE AVENGERS - Perhaps I am out of date, but when The Avengers are mentioned, I think of elegant British secret agents instead of Marvel super heroes.  Patrick Macnee played suave super spy John Steed throughout the long run of The Avengers TV show.  Its episodes evolved from black and white to color while its tone shifted from dramatic espionage capers to more bizarre exploits required in saving the world from madmen.  While John Steed remained on duty throughout the run, his line up of partners changed, originally starting with a male doctor before adding female heroes to the mix.  Airing in the 60's, the show was groundbreaking in allowing its women to stand toe to toe with Steed in the action scenes.  Each new comrade in action brought a special vibe to the series.  The most popular pairing was John Steed with Emma Peel (Diana Rigg), talented amateur adventurer with a penchant for high kicks.  The show can easily be seen as a forerunner of The X Files with its male and female leads as well as fantastic menaces. 

U.N.C.L.E.'s  Robert Vaughn & I.

Napoleon Solo & Illya Kuryakin of THE MAN FROM U.N.CL.E. - While John Steed & Emma Peel were busy in the service of safe guarding Her Majesty's realm, a number of similarly unique spy pairs were in action in the states.  Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin worked for U.N.C.L.E. to safeguard the world from madmen of various specialties, often employed by the criminal organization called T.H.R.U.S.H..  Like The Avengers, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. began its run in black and white before switching to color.  Its adventures also grew more outlandish.  Interestingly, Robert Vaughn's confident character of Solo really wasn't into a partnership at the start of the series, but the appeal with viewers of the quiet and intense Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) meant a slight change to the format's focus.  The two agents sparkled together in scenes of action or interplay, but quite often they did find themselves functioning separately on the same case.

Batman & Robin of BATMAN - It would be impossible not to mention the 'official' dynamic duo in such a list!  Batman and Robin were conceived by Bob Kane and had a multitude of adventures for decades in the pages of comic books before taking the leap to the television screen in the 60's without leaving much of its colorful trappings behind.  The television version in fact was a lighter version of Gotham City's grim detective.  The show heartily indulged in humor as Batman and Robin donned masked costumes to fight bizarre criminals.  Not much psychology went into the relationship of a millionaire seeking vengeance for his murdered family alongside his youthful ward, but Adam West and Burt Ward brought a straight laced heroism to their characters in or out of costume.

James T. Kirk & Spock of STAR TREK - Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock of The Enterprise were efficient explorers of space, the final frontier.  Kirk (William Shatner) was human and prone to lead with instinct.  Spock (Leonard Nimoy) was a pointy eared Vulcan, an emotionless adherent to logic.  Interestingly, this mix can sort of be seen in the clash between Scully's scientific rational and Mulder's urge to uncover the unknowable.  And so we come full circle with TV's iconic duos. 

New X Files

Mulder and Scully have returned!  The iconic characters investigated unusual occurrences ranging from enigmatic alien conspiracies to mysterious creatures of mythic proportions on FOX's X Files.  The TV show started in the early 90's as a Friday night cult classic sleeper and ballooned into a genuine ratings juggernaut with a move to Sunday nights.  The X Files' popularity even transported its adventures to the silver screen. The paranoid atmosphere of the series influenced many other shows of its era and since.  Chris Carter, creator of the X Files, fashioned several other moody TV offerings himself, such as The Lone Gunman which followed some conspiracy minded techno gurus and Millennium starring Lance Henriksen as a gifted profiler named Frank Black. 


Myself and Lance Henriksen of Millennium.


But now the X Files are back!  Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are reunited once more to explore new weird crimes.  The two are perfectly matched.  Both are physically able to handle themselves in a tussle and each has a brilliant mind.  Where those brilliant minds lead on a case can be dramatically different.  Scully is a medical doctor with a very healthy skepticism of the supernatural who was originally assigned to the FBI's X Files to debunk it.  Mulder is seasoned FBI agent with a drive to understand the inexplicable.  Over the course of the original series trust was earned between the two and each came to appreciate the other's point of view. 

And now The X Files are back on Mondays at 8pm on FOX.

The X Files was great at generating occasional humor alongside bizarre ideas.  The February 1st 2016 episode certainly succeeded, ranking at the top of my X Files favorites' list.  The agents were in pursuit of a were-lizard and ain't that strange enough to illicit a guffaw or a gasp?  It was a lot of fun watching as Mulder pondered how unfortunate it is that with today's proliferation of cameras on phones and such, no one ever seems able to get a good shot of a monster when it appears!  Alas, his attempt to master a phone's new app fails to land any proof.  What it does produce is a rapid series  of photoflashes.  It actually reminded me of the rapid photography of an earlier investigator of the unexplained, Carl Kolchak of the TV show The Night Stalker.  Darren McGavin played Kolchak, a reporter whose taste for lurid monster stories landed him working at a low rent news service.  Although following the good investigator's guideline of taking plenty of pics with his '70's era camera, Kolchak was never able to substantiate his wild claims with proof.  In fact police often exposed his film!  Kolchak always wore a straw hat, black tie and rumpled suit.  How interesting it was to see Mulder's principal suspect dressed in the exact same clothing!  The Night Stalker was a fun show that never took itself too seriously - how nice to see it smiled at in such a fun episode.  It was a fantastic way for Chris Carter to pay tribute to a show that he cited as an influence upon the creation of The X Files.

The Night Stalker did return to prime time TV years ago with a new cast and a tone much more in keeping with the serious tone of The X Files.  It was too much removed from the original series to be enjoyed on the same level and new fans didn't flock to it.  It disappeared after a handful of  airings.

The X Files seem to be getting good ratings for FOX - so will it return past its current limited run?
And its success may mean a return of other classic 90's shows, like Millennium.  In fact there is to be a Millennium twitter campaign Saturday February 6th  3pm to 5pm EST via the BacktoFrankBlack.com requesting fans to tweet for FOX to BRING BACK #MilleniuM20th. I'd love to see more Millennium and X Files - guess the answer is at FOX or 'out there'.