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Reviews
The Trials of O'Brien (1965)
"Terrific...jus' terrific."
This was one of my "must-watch" TV shows in the early 60s, along with The Defenders, Route 66, and the vanished summer replacement Diagnosis: Unknown. I'm going to pretty much echo everything said here already; I have a couple of prized DVDs of several TOOB episodes I got from an outfit called Robert's Hard to Find Videos, and the shows pretty much hold up all these years later. (Of course I'm easy to please, what with Falk's charismatic performances plus the fun of seeing regular working New York actors who later became screen icons or quasi-icons, like Martin Sheen, Herschel Bernardi, Alan Alda, Philip Bosco and Elaine Stritch.)
Some of the plot contrivances absolutely strain credulity, possibly due to the pace of production and turnaround; an hour is a lot of time for a writer to fill, and sometimes it shows. But the acting is uniformly superb, the NY locations are memorable, Falk is a pleasure, Joanna Barnes is a dream, Ms. Stritch is a hoot, and it's all just great fun. (A word on the DVDs: most of the episodes seem to have been shot directly off a TV screen by a 16mm camera, and copied many times since, and the quality isn't exactly archival--glarey video and occasionally "underwater"-sounding audio. But everything's there, and the quality's perfectly acceptable for us TOOB diehards, and really--where else ya gonna go to find these episodes?) The overall experience is still, as O'Brien says, "Terrific
jus' terrific."
Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe (2011)
Slipshod, lightweight, and implausible.
First, if you haven't seen this yet and want to, read no further--go watch instead, because you deserve to see TFOSA unimpaired by my dour outlook on it. Maybe it's unfair to take this vehicle MORE seriously than it takes itself, but I found it an overlong exercise in missed opportunities, implausible plotting, jarring inauthenticity in the military aspects, and performances that were sometimes a little too superficial (usually the show strikes a good balance between light banter and lethal circumstances, but here not so much). Strong performances by seasoned pros are what keep BN from skating into complete unbelievability (with my thanks and much credit to Sharon Gless, Coby Bell, and Gabrielle Anwar for that). Here, the two standout performances for me were Chandra West and Ilza Rosario, particularly the latter, whose publicity stills on IMDb hint at an entirely different career trajectory than the 'young Joan of Arc' persona she portrays convincingly in TFOSA (and kudos to the production team for casting her). If the rest of the company's performances had been up to the level of these two, and if the writing had been a little less careless about authenticity and believability, this might have been something. As it is, you need a big dose of "suspension of disbelief" to get through it.
Dick and the Duchess (1957)
Saw an episode earlier today, and it's exactly as described in the above comments.
The Paley Center in NY has two episodes in its archive, and it was great fun to watch one. It's cotton candy, of course, with some wildly improbable plot turns and clichéd writing here and there.
But the comic acting and timing are first rate, and the cast seem to be enjoying themselves a lot. I enjoyed them too, and it was intriguing to see 1957-era London locations (e.g., the Richard Wattis character walking down a London street, with actual Londoners in the background, frankly gawking at the actor, camera, and crew passing by).
And yes, at the end the hero and heroine DO end up in their chaste twin beds, discussing the day's events.
(By the way, the Paley Center version includes commercials from the sponsor, Mogen David Wine, and its subsidiary, "Key Wines" (presumably for the secular market)--with Hans Conreid posing as a Frenchman who is congratulating Americans for having the good fortune to be able to enjoy the wonders of Key Wines. Yes...they WERE simpler times.)