The following are archived comments from December 2018. After looking around, please add your own comments! Links back: Discussion Forum Main Page • Other TV Shows Discussion Forum Archives
Submitted by: Mr. Mike
From VancouverI found this posting from the regular H50 forum dating back a few years, which I had removed from there -- I don't know why!
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It's not just during the last 30 years that TV executives have been idiots. I am watching more episodes of Harry O, the David Janssen series from the mid-70s. This is a textbook example of how to mess up a show, though I don't know who to really blame here, the creators of the show or the executives. (Intelligent analysis of this show years after the fact is hard to find.)
The latter definitely had a hand in the show's demise. According to Wikipedia, "Ratings for the series were initially fair and got a boost after the series was retooled in January 1975. Harry O was picked up for a second season and continued to gain viewership and critical acclaim; however, then-ABC president Fred Silverman decided to take the network in a different direction and canceled the series in favor of Charlie's Angels." Inasmuch as this is depressing, it was probably a smart business decision, considering ABC ended up making tons of money from Charlie's Angels.
But Harry O had a LOT of problems. It relocated from San Diego to Los Angeles in its first season, changed its theme song twice, changed Harry's nemesis on the local police force from Henry Darrow to Anthony Zerbe, and went from scripts which were tenseful and intelligent to mediocre.
Harry O had two pilots. In the first of them, Martin Sheen, who was responsible for wounding Janssen's character four years before, causing him to resign from the police force, returns from Vietnam where he changed his name to Captain Willard ... (just kidding) ... and wants to hire Harry to find his old buddy and dope kingpin Sal Mineo.
During his investigation, Harry is revealed to be a major stud. He has a ditzy girl friend who wants to clean up his place, but he doesn't want her getting too "domestic." (In some later shows, his girl friend was Farrah Fawcett-Majors.) While trying to track down Mineo via an educational institution, some 19-year-old blonde working in the administration office bats her eyelashes at Harry; he tells her she is too young. And when he goes to a bar where there is some information about Mineo's whereabouts written on a wall (still there after four years!), Harry meets a woman (Margot Kidder) who immediately jumps into bed with him, though I suspect Harry really is interested in her so he can borrow her car. So my first question here is: is David Janssen that sexually attractive to women? (Maybe some women can answer this.)
Harry tracks down Mineo at a paint company formerly run by the latter's family where all the necessities to manufacture heroin are available, even though Sheen's character says that this company went out of business some time ago. At the end of the show, Harry chases Mineo on a policeman's motorcycle that he has borrowed. This typical cop show chase goes on for several minutes and involves the two of them doing things like driving off loading docks and going up and down terrain more suited to dirt bikes. Yet Harry has a bullet in his spine (thanks to Sheen) which later in the series is shown as giving him a lot of pain, forcing him NOT to drive his car and to take the bus.
What a mess...Added: December 26 2018 10:59:02 AM
Submitted by: John Chergi
From Pittsburgh PAHere's my quick Top 10 Streets Of San Francisco BEST episodes. Everyone has their favorites of any series.
1. The Takers 2. Most Likely To Succeed 3. Judgment Day 4. Mask Of Death 5. Police Buff 6. Poisoned Snow 7.Flags Of Terror 8. Labyrinth 9.Monkey Is Back 10. The Glass Dart Board (PERT!). What Streets Of SF episodes crack your Top 5 or Top 10?!JCAdded: December 18 2018 03:37:17 PM
Submitted by: ringfire211
From PhiladelphiaCheck out the CGI composites/hodgepodge of the new Robin's Nest estate on the MAGNUM reboot. Unbelievable!!
https://bit.ly/2SMTlcgAdded: December 14 2018 10:01:34 PM
Submitted by: John Chergi
From Pittsburgh PAThanks for showing Denis Streets of SF ratings for Season 4. I agree with Denis that Judgment Day, Most Likely To Succeed, Police Buff all 4 star **** episodes. I would move Poisoned Snow up to 4. It was an excellent episode especially when Clu Gallagher's cop character tainted the drugs with the poison. That was very creative. It was realistic when all the junkies and dopers were dying from the tainted stuff. I'd probably drop Dead Air to 3.5 but it was a good episode. Mr. Mike, you are probably right on School Of Fear. My guess the students could have overpowered the teacher at some point at the run down school. Denis is right on Alien Country. I thought that was 1 of the weaker episodes of that season. Can't really argue much about Denis other ratings. Season 5 I might talk about another time. JC
Added: December 13 2018 03:43:41 PM
Submitted by: ringfire211
From PhiladelphiaAs for the Magnum reboot it’s laughable that the new Robin’s Nest estate is basically a CGI composite of a bunch of different locations! They’re using a place in Kailua for the house exterior and front gate, a Kahala property (the Banyan House shown in [Classic H50] By the Numbers and Joker’s Wild) as additional footage of the estate grounds, some place out in Kaneohe as the shoreline in the rear of the estate, some additional CGI greenery to expand the rear grassy estate grounds, and the Kualoa Ranch mountains pasted in to provide the backdrop of the estate. The whole thing is a farce!! How can you take seriously something that doesn’t even exist in the real world? It’s a fairy tale place. There is no such estate as shown in the show. Compare this with the original show where the estate actually existed -- the Anderson Estate in Waimanalo. An actual place you can visit and swim in the tidal pool out back (as I did this summer). Your eyes see a real place which really exists. Gee, what a concept, eh? Too bad Lenkov doesn’t get it and instead gives us some CGI hodgepodge. It boggles the mind that they couldn’t find a decent estate on the island where they could film. A REAL place. And to mess with the natural beauty of Hawaii by adding your own CGI greens and palms and fake backplates or whatever is borderline criminal.
Added: December 11 2018 05:32:44 PM
Submitted by: Mr. Mike
From VancouverI see that Denis sent me his re-ratings for Season 4 of SOSF as well some time ago, but there was a mixup with this e-mail. Same "conditions" as the ratings for season 5 below...
4 (8)
Police Buff - 3.5
Requiem for Murder - 2.5
Dead Air - 3
No Place to Hide - 3
Judgment Day (+1) - 3
Most Likely to Succeed (+1) - 3.5
The Cat’s Paw (+1) - 3
Deadly Silence - 2.5
3 (3)
Poisoned Snow - 4
Trail of Terror - 2
Men Will Die (+1) - 3
2 (8)
The Glass Dart Board - 3.5
Merchants of Death - 3
School of Fear - 1.5
Superstar - 2
Runaway - 3
The Honorable Profession - 3.5
Spooks for Sale - 3.5
Web of Lies - 3.5
1 (4)
Clown of Death - 2
Underground - 3.5
Alien Country - 3
Murder by Proxy - 3Added: December 11 2018 05:28:47 PM
Submitted by: Mr. Mike
From VancouverDenis Chauvet, who reviews Streets of San Francisco for the French site http://lemondedesavengers.fr/hors-serie/annees-1970/les-rues-de-san-francisco/, has updated his reviews for Season 5.
Explanation of ratings:
The first group are 4 star episodes, the (4) means how many have that rating.
The score at the end of the line is what >my< score is on my site http://www.thestreetsofsanfrancisco.info
The numbers in brackets like (+2) is what Denis's previous rating was in 2009.
4 (4)
Who Killed Helen French? - 2
No Minor Vices - 2.5
Once a Con - 3
The Cannibals (+2) – 3.5
3 (11)
The Thrill Killers - 3
One Last Trick - 2
Hang Tough - 3.5
Hot-dog - 4
Monkey Is Back (+1) - 3.5
The Drop - 2
Till Death Do Us Part (+1) - 4
Let’s Pretend We’re Strangers - 1.5
Interlude (+1) - 3
Innocent No More - 3
2 (5)
Dead or Alive - 2.5
Time Out - 3
A Good Cop… But (+1) - 3.5
Breakup - 3.5
Castle of Fear - 3
1 (4)
In Case of Madness - 2.5
Dead Lift - 3
Child of Anger – 2.5
The Canine Collar - 1Added: December 11 2018 04:51:36 PM
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