Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

Veep is a lot better than I remember when I last tried it... an adequate modern American successor to Yes, Minister.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

Whoah, Julie Newmar as Catwoman just used "TTFN." And I thought that was a millennial acronym!

PS: I spoilered some of my list as it was getting to be a pain to scroll through.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

It only took me a year and a half, but I finally finished the entire run of The Twilight Zone on BD. I ignored the plethora of supplemental material in the set. It probably will take me a decade or longer before I get to it. ;)

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

:clap:

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

Congrats :)

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

I just remembered a Robocop cartoon that came out around the time of the first or second movie. Would that make the original movie eligible for double credit with the Academy Award Challenge?

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

Travis and I are down to the last 6 episodes of season one of Batman. Hoping to finish tonight or tomorrow before the challenge ends. There were a few slower shows towards the middle-mainly would have worked better as a one episode show than a 2 parter. Finished the King Tut episodes last night and they have been my favorite so far.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

Since the majority of my entries were 30 minute shows and I just hit 400, I'd say I've hit approximately 100 hours with an episode of Image Quest on Outside Television.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

Yes.

*200*!

I'm certainly hopeful that we'll still finish S1 during the challenge, but I'm afraid our original goal of getting to the movie is almost certainly not going to happen. It was delightful to finally get to King Tut, though! Of all the original characters created for the show, he's always been my favorite.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

I started today's challenge viewing with an episode of Word Travels, on Outside Television, in which the travel writers visited Venezuela. I love travel shows, and wish I could someday visit the places I see on TV.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

150?

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

Tut's a great character and I can think of no one better than Victor Buono to pull it off! Like other iconic characters from the show it's almost as if he were born to play the role in that series.

I was surprised at just how well that series held up, at least for me, when I watched it last year after getting the series set. While it has its weak moments, especially in S3, it's overall still very good and well done. The guest stars are mostly good and overall quite entertaining.

I saw the movie during its original theatrical run and loved it. It's one of the first DVDs I got when I purchased a computer, making sure it had a DVD drive (in 1999 when stand alone players were quite expensive) and large (19" - quite large for the time) monitor. You guys *really* need to find time to squeeze it in!

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

I just found my first double credit movie since the official start of the Academy Award Challenge. I saw Parenthood was on TMCX, so I thought I'd watch that. Then after I was listing the movie, it occurred to me that a short lived TV series spun off from the movie.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

If I counted correctly I'm currently at 260 Broadcast Hours with 348 entries on my list.

I finished S4 of The Wild Wild West this morning. That's still one of my favorite programs. Great theme song with lots of Western SF action! It's one of the few programs where I'll play the open no matter what - every time - even if marathoning episodes. Even though Ross Martin (Artemus Gordon) was out much of the season recovering from a broken leg and then heart attack the show pretty much stayed on course with other actors brought in to fill his role. I've read they simply scratched out "Artemus" and wrote in the new character name on the script. I still missed his presence and a few episodes seemed to have been writen specifically without him. But it was still a great season.

Did you know it was cancelled as a concession to Congress over television violence? How stupid was that!?! It was at least a "break even" show for CBS and regularly won its time slot. But that also explains why lots of action oriented shows went of the air that year in favor of comedy/fantasy type stuff. It's a shame those guys couldn't get in their time machine to see how tame that show was compared to some of the stuff on the air today.

I also finished S1 of Charlie's Angels today. It ended somewhat stronger than it started and I'm glad I have it in my collection. I still don't know if I'll add any more seasons to the collection but that one's pretty good overall.

Up next will be more S1 episodes of The Outer Limits (the original).

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

I just finished the last episode of Baby Animals on Smithsonian Earth. I enjoyed the show, and the baby animals were very cute.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

Hey, we finished! :) And there is still time to get the movie in tonight!

I have to admit being glad to finish up season 1. I kind of feel like the novelty wore off after awhile and while there were still very humorous bits in the shows, they began to stretch out the story line too much to fit the 2 episode format. Also, towards the end, things seemed to have been done just because they were wacky (one episode Batman brought a suspect to the Batcave to interrogate them using his lie detector, that was good. But the very next one, he brought back a suspect and had her wear this face mask to collect her breath which he then applied to a potion to see if she was telling the truth. Why not use the lie detector again?)

Still plan on watching the next two seasons this spring but I'll be glad for a break for the Oscar challenge.

On a personal side, I broke the 100s for this challenge and while I do have a lot of half hour shows, I also have a fair number of 2 hour ones in there as well, so feel I did pretty darn good. I'm tempted to go through and calculate how much I watched but then feel like ignorance is golden when applied to my tv watching habits! :)

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

I'm nearing the end of season 2 (Batman). Was surprised a few moments ago when John Astin made an appearance as the Riddler. I had to look it up--apparently Frank Gorshin asked for a raise and was turned down, forcing a decision made to replace him in this season.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

It is indeed nice to have finished Batman Season 1 during this challenge! I love the production design, the costumes, the music, and the show's sense of humor just as much as ever. Along with other things over the years, I've read Adam West's Back to the Batcave and Burt Ward's Boy Wonder: My Life in Tights. I recalled various bits of trivia shared by each about the show, including how Burt Ward was nearly killed in the first episode by the reckless stunt driver who drove the Batmobile in the stock footage recycled in just about every Part 1, and how the safest he felt during the first week of shooting was when he was strapped to a table in a room with Frank Gorshin, reasoning that even if they didn't care to keep him safe, surely the'd keep the guest star from harm!

I've always appreciated how little there is in the way of origin stories. We know that Bruce's parents were murdered (I forgot that was even mentioned in the show, but it does pop up in a few Season 1 episodes), and there's some expository dialog about some of the guest villains, but for the most part the show just assumes you either already know who The Penguin is or that you don't care to know anything beyond whatever's in the episode at hand. After enduring the last 15 years of reboots and retold origins, that's not just refreshing; it's startling!

Of the guest villains, my favorite has always been Frank Gorshin as The Riddler. That guy was clearly having a ball, and Gorshin's enthusiasm elevates weak material (such as the penultimate 2-parter, "Death in Slow Motion"/"The Riddler's False Notion"). But credit Gorshin also for being able to be truly sinister and threatening! One of the strongest episodes is "When the Rat's Away the Mice Will Play", the second of a Riddler 2-parter in which he believes he has finally killed Batman and Robin. We see other villains believe they've succeeded, but always jubilantly. In that episode, though, Gorshin's demeanor is anything but. It isn't that he has any kind of remorse, or even doubt. Instead, what we see is how truly evil The Riddler is, that without the fun of tangling with Batman and Robin, he is completely ruthless.

I couldn't not make mention, though, of King Tut. God, I love King Tut. I love everything about King Tut, from Victor Buono's just-go-for-it performance style to the character's outrageously lavish lair and his affiliation attire and gimmicks. It must cost a small fortune just to even put on the theatrical show that King Tut maintains, much less to actually go out and do something like drop a sphinx in Central Park! The funny thing is, I have never once liked any incarnation of Maxie Zeus, who is more or less the same character but with a different historical fixation. King Tut, though, is one of my all-time favorite characters in the entire Bat-mythology!

As Lori mentioned in her remarks, though, the wheels started to come off near the end of this season. I think the last three 2-parters are basically all just a variation of one another, and as much as I adore Gorshin and Burgess Meredith in their respective roles, I have to say that it's Roddy McDowall as Bookworm who got the strongest of those last three Season 1 adventures. In fact, his Part 1, "The Bookworm Turns", is such a taut game of chess between adversaries - and features a humdinger of an opening teaser! - that it placed seventh on my ranked list of episodes.

My favorite single episode ultimately was "Batman Sets the Pace", the conclusion to "The Joker Trumps an Ace". In that story, The Joker has kidnapped a visiting maharajah and is holding him for ransom. Cesar Romero was every bit as delightful to watch as Gorshin and Meredith, and there was something about the plot twists in that one that I felt put it a cut above the rest.

As Lori and I watched, we would often snark to one another: "How did he not notice [this]?" or "Uh, did he forget [that]?", etc. "Batman Sets the Pace" provoked just as many of those snark-alongs as any other episode, but it seemed to keep in mind all of those plot points and addressed them in turn, rather than just glossing over them, as the weaker episodes did.

Special thanks to Trevor for being the one to add this show to our UltraViolet library! Couldn't have done it without ya, hoss! :)

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

My pleasure! I'm just glad someone is getting my money's worth out of that purchase.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

I'll second that thanks! I once had most of them taped on the DVR-but edited-and lost them to a hard drive failure before being able to go through more than a couple. This was really nice being able to go through them in order. Like Travis mentioned, I hadn't ever watched the movie after watching the show and it definitely helps put it in context. I think I like it a lot better now that I've watched it this way.

Edit: I broke down and counted how many hours of tv: 78 hours if I counted correctly. Not too bad.

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

Thanks for running a great challenge Travis, I really had fun. :)

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

Ditto! The TV (and Sci-Fi) challenges are always the challenges I most look forward to!

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

Since there were shows I never got to finish, I plan to continue the challenge when I'm not working on other challenges. Are there any other people that plan to keep watching TV in between working on challenge content?

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

I had a great challenge but need to finalize my list. I use Play All for Friends because episode titles have spoilers, but when I have to stop in the middle of a disc, I have no idea where I am and have to fill out my list later when I end the disc and can look at the titles. :)

Re: TV on DVD* Challenge - The Sixth Season Discussion Thread
 

As usually I enjoyed this challenge. Thanks for running it Travis.