Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Five Favorite Old Shows

I thought I'd list my five favorite old TV shows that no longer air, but sometimes you can catch on a cable channel.

1) Andy Griffith Show - To me, there has been no finer comedy made. It's pure small-town Americana at its finest. Great characters, but I think they were based on real people who probably were more like the ficticious characters than most folks would care to admit. My favorite episode was the one where Barney joins the choir. And I also love the episode about Aunt Bea's pickles. I never tire of this one.

2) Star Trek: TNG - Yes, I am a closet Trekkie. Not a fan of the original series, but this new show got me hooked. Star Trek: DS9 was a disappointment. Voyager was OK, but it wasn't TNG. Plus, it taught me cool words to throw around in some of my college physics classes. Say stuff like: "Quantum transducers" or "ionic plasma anti-matter" and folks think you're smart. Just don't tell them you learned those words off Star Trek!

3) Jericho - Short-lived show that really wasn't given a fair chance. It seems to me that lousy shows with worse ratings, especially those making some political statement or pushing an agenda seem to be given chance after chance in various timeslots. But Jericho aired on Wednesday nights - usually up against American Idol or Lost, and what do you expect? But I digress ... I hated to see Gerald McRaney's character killed off, but felt this show was cut short and the plot never really explained - even with the additional episodes that were supposed to bring closure to the story.

4) The Pretender - A great show that few people watched. A genius is trained by a super-secret think tank to be able to assume any identity and assume any vocation needed. Only, the genius discovers he's being used for nefarious purposes, so he escapes the think tank and proceeds to go around helping people. The plot twists in this show were GREAT. Unfortunately, the story line was forced to be wrapped in a couple of TV movies, and what could/should have been a good seven season series got cut into three seasons and a couple two hour movies.

5) Alias - This is the only series I own on DVD - I have the complete five season run. Again, there's a lot of plot twists: the heroine's dead mother isn't really dead. The lingering question of who Sydney's (heroine) REAL father is. Then there's that whole Rambaldi plot. And a sister pops up outta nowhere. And then Sydney marries Michael, her CIA handler, only to discover that Michel isn't who he says that he is, but he is killed before he can explain anything - only to find out he's not really dead, but in hiding.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Mission Impossible - Loved Jim Phelps and the IMF team; Babylon 5 - Actually, this was pretty good sci-fi show, but it kind of leaves you afraid of shadows (You have to see the show in order to appreciate that "shadow" comment); J.A.G. - Loved the navy ships and planes. I keep hoping one of these characters will drop in on the spin-off show, NCIS, sometime.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, Thanx for killing the plot for me there, Dad. Love Ya bunches.......

Tracy said...

You're welcome. We aim to please ...