After being reminded of this show, and how much I liked it as a kid, I was able to find a set of Automan episodes online. There were only 13 of them, aired in 1983-1984. Automan puts a slight science fiction overlay onto the traditional hour-long cop show. Desi Arnaz, Jr. plays Walter Nebicher (a name that exists only so people can “accidentally” call him Nebbish), a police officer who’s stuck in the computer room when he wants to be […]

Since I’ve been talking about beloved 1980s television, do you think there’s a chance I’ll ever see a DVD set of Probe? It’s best known (if at all) today for being co-created by Isaac Asimov, but I quite enjoyed this short-run TV mystery series. There was a two-hour pilot movie, followed by six hour-long episodes. (Judging by the comments there, some people are still bitter it’s gone.) Parker Stevenson co-starred as genius Austin James, who lived in a computer-controlled warehouse […]

I liked the first season of Teen Titans well enough that I rushed into the second. That was probably a mistake. The first episode, “How Long Is Forever?”, pits the Titans against a time-traveling thief, resulting in a surprisingly elegiac and overall depressing entry about losing friends and the ravages of time. Cyborg is particularly damaged, tethered to the tower due to his technology becoming obsolete. Beast Boy is fat, bald, and caged in a circus. Raven is utterly alone. […]

I was drawn to Teen Titans because the the characters are so well-done, whether it’s Starfire’s alien optimism, Raven’s quiet darkness, or Cyborg’s stubborn strength. Beast Boy’s the most teen to my eyes, with his goofy screwups serving as metaphor for gawky adolescence. In the first episode, Robin’s voice is not quite right for me, but by episode two, it has either altered or I’ve adjusted to it. The first episode, “Divide and Conquer”, is an interesting choice for an […]

I really like Eureka. It’s about a town full of geniuses, where someone rather like Tony Stark (Ed Quinn, playing “Nathan Stark”) runs a secret government research lab. His ex-wife is the top administrative official (Salli Richardson), and she’s attracted to the new sheriff in town (Colin Ferguson), a well-meaning but not-too-smart former US marshal. One of the best parts of the show is the way it plays opposite to prevailing TV stereotypes. The smartest guy in town (Joe Morton), […]

I ran across a cache of Doctor Who episodes from the first Peter Davison season. He’s always been my favorite, and it was a treat to think about watching his adventures from the beginning. Oh, I was so misguided. The first, Castrovalva, was terrible. I remembered them getting trapped in a town square that became wrapped around itself like an Escher image. That was still there, briefly, but I had to get through an awful lot of “oh, my regeneration […]

A body is found in an alley. It’s a badly decomposed skeleton that indicates a fall or push from a high building, and next to it is found a maggot-ridden graphic novel. (“It’s a comic book” explains one of the resident geeks on the investigative team.) I typically watch Bones anyway, because I enjoy the interplay between Emily Deschanel’s straightforward forensic anthropologist (nicknamed “Bones”) and David Boreanaz’s FBI agent. This one, though, had friends at work asking me the day […]

KC and I just finished watching the DVD box set (seasons one and two) of one of the best sitcoms of all time, Titus. Those of you who know of the show will note that this was a somewhat twisted choice for the holiday season. Those of you who don’t, you have a fascinating and funny! discovery ahead of you. The show ran for all-too-brief a time on Fox, and it was rumored to have been cancelled for pushing the […]