Other TV Shows Discussion Forum -- June 2018


The following are archived comments from June 2018. After looking around, please add your own comments!

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Submitted by: Ben
From: LA

I got a question about 'Kojak', (S03E12) Money Back Guarantee.

This is the 1 where a gang steals cars from buyers who took out a loan from a bank to finance it. Here's the plan:
some1 either is in debt or simply don't want their car anymore. So, the gang contacts them and tells them to leave the car parked on the street with the keys in the ashtray, to be easily stolen. The owner then contacts the insurance company, and gets some $$$ for the stolen car.

Here's what I don't get - what's the profit motive for the car owners? For the gang, they get a car which they can upgrade & sell, or strip for parts. Their profit motive is clear. But let's say I'm a car owner with a loan. I go along and get $$$ from the insurance company. BUT, that would be depreciated value, not replacement value. So if some1 had an outstanding loan balance of $7,000 and they got back $10,000 on a $20,000 car, they'd get $3,000 profit. BUT, they'd still be down 1 car. The show takes place in 1975, were there insurance policies that paid out full replacement value as opposed to depreciated? And then, after participating in a felony, yeah they'd have some $profit, but they'd still have to buy another car, so they'd actually lose $$$ on the deal. It don't say in the show, maybe this was targetted at people who were giving up their cars entirely? I understand why the gang would want to keep this gig going, but not why some1 who is a carowner and wants to continue to be a carowner, would participate. What am I missing?

Added: June 29 2018 03:59:53 PM


Submitted by: Mr. Mike
From: Vancouver

Denis, the guy from the French site who is also reviewing SOSF, sends along his ratings for season two, comparing them to mine.

In the list below, the bracket after the first number like 4 (7) means there are 7 episodes with that rating.

The number after the titles is MY rating.

The number in brackets like after Shield of Honor (+1) means that Denis upgraded his rating for that particular episode since the last time he reviewed it...

4 (7)
For the Love of God - 3
Crossfire - 2
Going Home - 2,5
Betrayed – 2,5
Shield of Honor (+1) - 3
Blockade (+1) - 4
Commitment – 2,5

3 (5)
Rampage – 3,5
Before I Die (+1) - 4
Harem – 2,5
The Victims - 2,5
A Wrongful Death – 2,5

2 (10)
The Hard Breed - 3,5
A String of Puppets - 2,5
The Stamp of Death - 2
Death and the Favored Few - 3
Chapel of the Damned (-1) – 2,5
The Twenty-Four Karat Plague – 2,5
Most Feared in the Jungle – 3,5
Inferno – 2,5
Winterkill – 2,5
The Runaways (+1) - 2,5

1 (1)
No Badge for Benjy - 3,5

Added: June 21 2018 08:13:16 AM


Submitted by: ringfire211
From: Philadelphia

Haha, that’s basically Tom’s polite way of saying he hates the idea of the reboot. He obviously wants no part of it because he knows it’s not the REAL thing, it’s an impostor.

Added: June 17 2018 03:31:23 PM


Submitted by: Mr. Mike
From: Vancouver

Selleck on Magnum reboot:

https://www.tvinsider.com/696360/tom-selleck-reacts-magnum-pi-reboot-cbs/amp

Added: June 17 2018 10:56:52 AM


Submitted by: ringfire211
From: Philadelphia

For anyone who’s interested in what fans of the original MAGNUM are saying about the reboot trailer you might have some fun here: https://bit.ly/2t5f0Ba

Some of them are pretty vicious about the reboot and those magnum-mania guys overall are a pretty civil bunch LOL. There are a few who are open-minded, even one who digs the idea of this young female Higgins (or as she’s called “Sheggins” LOL!). But they are definitely a minority. There are even a few who say they enjoy Five-Zero, hence why they’re keeping an open mind about the reboot.

Added: June 12 2018 10:23:57 PM


Submitted by: ringfire211
From: Philadelphia

I think THE EQUALIZER TV show has a pretty wicked opening intro - both the images and music by Copeland. Very dark, gritty and stylish!!

I’ve heard good things about JOHN WICK but haven’t seen either one. Will need to check it out at some point. Sounds like THE EQUALIZER with Denzel. Lots of stylized hardcore violence.

Added: June 04 2018 12:32:23 PM


Submitted by: Mr. MIke
From: Vancouver

I thought Edward Woodward played the prim and proper Englishman McCall well, but the scenes where he is running in the episode I saw were ridiculous, reminiscent of similar scenes where Karl Malden was hoofing it in The Streets of San Francisco. Woodward was almost 60 when the third season was filmed, and suffered a massive heart attack around this time.

I had a good laugh, the music for the show is by Stewart Copeland of The Police, and someone said that some of the score in this religious-themed episode with Savalas and Atherton was "Gregorian chant." But these passages were ripped off from Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, composed in 1930, with no credit whatsoever!

Added: June 03 2018 04:47:22 PM


Submitted by: Mr. Mike
From: Vancouver

I recently took the action movie John Wick 2 out of the library; I quite enjoyed it. Keanu Reeves is a retired professional hit man who gets in conflict with some Russian gangsters who not only steal his car (a classic Mustang) but KILL HIS DOG (a cute dog that Wick's wife, who succumbed to some incurable disease in the first John Wick movie, gave him posthumously after she died).

Wick gets his revenge in a big way (and gets a new dog, a pit bull). But he runs afoul of an Italian gangster who gets Wick to knock off his sister, who is involved in crime in Italy in a big way. After the sister commits suicide by slitting her wrists (and Wick gives her a bullet in the head for good measure), this gangster then puts out a contract on Wick.

Of course Wick triumphs in the end, but he commits several faux pas which at the end of the movie leave him the object of pursuit of everyone with a gun in the free world.

I also watched the first movie, which I didn't think was as good as the second one. There is non stop action and martial arts fighting which seem heavily influenced by the movies of John Woo throughout both of these flicks, the whole point of which is that JOHN WICK MUST STAY ALIVE AT ANY COST!

Added: June 03 2018 04:29:38 PM


Submitted by: ringfire211
From: Philadelphia

I saw a couple episodes of THE EQUALIZER and thought it was a pretty good show. Edward Woodward in particular is quite good - a very English and very efficient operator. Takes no BS. I actually also saw the 2014 big-screen remake with Denzel Washington (playing McCall) and was very pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I love Denzel as an actor and thought his various OCD quirks as McCall worked very well for the character. I didn’t bother comparing him to Woodward. It was a different take on the character but I thought Denzel nailed it. Basically he single-handedly takes down the entire Russian mob and the crooked cops in Boston and even makes it all the way to St. Petersburg (or was it Moscow?) at the very end to take care of the BIG BAD! I mean it’s all pretty ridiculous but at the same time it has the vibe of those old-school revenge action flicks from back in the day (a la Charlie Bronson) except much more bloody and violent. Directed by Antoine Fuqua, who I have to admit hasn’t made a single film that I didn’t enjoy to some extent. Even his KING ARTHUR (with Clive Owen) was watchable. I hear that EQUALIZER 2 is in the works.

Added: June 03 2018 03:52:17 PM


Submitted by: Mr. Mike
From: Vancouver

I don't recall ever watching The Equalizer, the mid-80's show with Edward Woodward as Robert McCall, the guy who dispenses justice for hire (and maybe pro bono), though I know what it is about. I got the third season box set from the library because the opening 2-part show co-starred Telly Savalas.

William Atherton plays Martin Loeber, a.k.a. "Alpha," who is a psycho terrorist. He has a connection to McCall, because he caused an explosion in Europe which killed McCall's godson, and was also the protégé of Savalas's character, Joseph Heiden, who became a priest after serving a jail term for terrorist activities and is now a "good guy" (sort of).

The FBI get Heiden's help to track down Alpha who kills some guy at a disco and then sets off a bomb at the place resulting in many more deaths. Alpha calls the local papers, telling them this is only the beginning of his murder spree. But because of what happened to his godson, McCall hates Heiden's guts and refuses to work with him.

I thought the show was particularly stupid the way Alpha was an all-knowing bad guy who was always ahead of McCall and the cops. For example, when the mother of Alpha's wife Linda finds a gun at her daughter's apartment where she is letting the couple stay, she contacts McCall. Alpha knows that the mother found the gun, and when McCall and the mother meet in an out-of-the-way location on the docks, Alpha murders the driver of some large truck and drives it into McCall's car, pushing it off the dock into the harbor (the mother dies, McCall later manages to make his way to shore).

This is nothing, though.

Later, well aware that McCall and his "employee" Mickey are on his trail, Alpha takes the wife and child of FBI Detective Frank Standish (who is working with Heiden) hostage along with an officer who was assigned to guard them. After McCall shows up at Standish's house, Alpha drives away with the FBI guy and shortly after runs the car into a truck, causing the car to burst into flames. When the forensics people analyze the bodies in the car, they find the FBI guy and another body which, according to dental records, is Alpha. But it is not! Alpha has managed to find some guy who looked exactly like himself, get a dentist to duplicate the dental work in this guy's mouth, and then, as the car is heading towards the truck, manage to jump out of the car after presumably getting this duplicate dude's body from the trunk (where I guess it was hidden) into one of the car's front seats where the cops will find it.

At the end of the show, Alpha gets some guy to insert these contact lenses in his eyes which obscure his vision so he looks like this blind priest, and prepares to dispense communion to these people in church where the wine will contain some horrible poison (sarin, ricin, or anthrax ... something along those lines, I can't remember specifically what). Prior to this he kills his mentor Heiden in the church, who struggles several hundred feet in an operatic finale where he confronts his former student in the church just before anyone can get poisoned.

Alpha flees outside where he is fortunately gunned down as Heiden expires back in the church.

Added: June 03 2018 12:25:20 PM


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