Content tagged with “tv”

“I got through Alias, Season 2 . Like a lot of shows that last about five seasons, the second season is where it got really popular. My notes — It’s darker. Sydney is less of an innocent this time around, and some really unpleasant things happen to people. Sydney’s mother looms very large in this…”

“I plowed through Season 1 of Alias in record time, aided by a European trip involving 20+ hours in planes. Some notes: I thought the Rambaldi plotline came later, but it’s actually central to the first season. It takes on kind of a mythological quality — like James Bond meets Indiana Jones. There’s…”

“If you blinked back in 2005, you might have missed Eyes which didn’t even last a full month. ABC filmed 12 episodes, but only aired five before yanking it off the air. It was an hour-long drama about Judd Risk Management, a private investigation firm. So, it wasn’t espionage in the classic sense,…”

“Cover Up lasted for a single season back in 1984, but it’s most well-known for how one of its stars died mid-season. Danielle Reynolds is a New York fashion photographer. She’s married to Mark, an embassy functionary (but really a CIA agent) in La Costa, a fictional country south of the border….”

“Masquerade was an attempt to bring the Love Boat/Fantasy Island format to espionage. It didn’t even last a full season back in 1983. Rod Taylor, Greg Evigan, and Kirstie Alley were the three constants. Taylor was the head of ‘Operation Masquerade,’ which was a program to use civilians in spy…”

“Magnum P.I. was always spy-adjacent. Magnum was an intelligence officer (…or a Navy SEAL?…or both?), and multiple episodes had a espionage angle to them, usually related to Magnum’s somewhat-murky service during the Vietnam War. He even gets called back to Naval Intelligence a couple of times….”

“For absolutely no particular reason, I watched the first episode of Scarecrow and Mrs. King the other night. (I almost said ‘re-watched’ because I can’t imagine I haven’t seen this before, but it’s been 43 years since it aired, so who can remember…) The show was a moderate success in the 80s,…”

“Back in the mid-90s, there was a very short-lived primetime show called Fortune Hunter . I can’t find a full episode (only five of them actually aired), but here’s a short promo video . Carlton Dial was a literal fortune hunter — he did jobs for money. I vaguely remember that he was searching for…”

“ During a live taping of Friends, the producers weren’t sure if the viewers would understand a joke. So they polled the studio audience. ”

“When an actor appears at the end of the credits prefixed by ‘and’ or ‘with,’ this is called ‘end billing.’ It’s usually reserved for bigger name actors who have smaller parts. For example, in beginning of the movie True Lies , Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis are the main stars of the…”

“ For various reasons, some actors who appear to interact in the same movie, never actually meet each other. ”

“ A group of artists collaborated with the showrunner of Melrose Place to insert Leftist political art as props in the show. ”

“This is the producer of a television show who has creative control over the content of the show. The showrunner is almost always a writer, and manages the writer’s room, making the final creative decisions. How the plot unfolds, season over season, is the responsibility of the showrunner. From an…”

“ A fictional airline has been used in dozens of TV shows and movies, often in situations where something bad happens to one of its planes. ”

“ The Hallmark Channel filmed a story about two sisters and edited it into two movies. Each one is told from the perspective of a different sister, and they share footage where the sisters interact throughout their respective stories. ”

“ In 1978, a BBC science show pulled off a shot for which timing was critical, and for which there would be no second chance. ”

“ A look at how toy companies got around laws limiting child advertising by creating cartoons for toys, so that the toys promoted the cartoons, which in turn promoted the toys, and kids couldn’t really tell the difference. ”

“‘The Method’ is a style of acting that was popularized by the Russian actor Konstantin Stanislavski. It was made much more popular in the United States by Lee Strasborg. The basic idea of The Method is that the actor should believe they are the character that they’re playing. They should ‘lose…”

“ A deep dive into the trope of the ‘bulletin board with things connected by string’ used in an investigation. ”

“ An Iowa TV station converts from black-and-white to color, live on the air, in 1967. ”

“A grip is responsible for setting up the camera equipment, especially when the camera is doing something odd, like traveling on a track or elevating. The ‘key grip’ is – as the name would indicate – the manager of the grips. A ‘best boy’ is the assistant to the key grip. A gaffer is responsible for…”

“ Mythbusters proved that the climactic scene in the final episode of ‘Breaking Bad’ could have worked exactly as it was portrayed. ”

“ The ‘mirror shot’ is when a movie or TV show films directly into a mirror, yet you cannot see the camera. Turns out there are multiple tricks to making this happen. ”

“ Filmmakers use some tricky techniques to make you think they had thousands of extras on the set. ”

“ A backstage view of the director of the Oscar broadcast and the decisions and pace the team has to maintain during a single award and acceptance speech. ”

“ A montage of 50-year-old cigarette television commercials. ”

“ There’s a very strict, technical rule on Wheel of Fortune that can cost a contestant a win. ”

“ An entertaining list of ‘celebrity paradoxes,’ which is where a story references a real person, and that real person has intersected with that story as a fictional character. ”

“ A bizarre, mind-bending, and occasionally disturbing send-up of the intro from every network TV show of the 80s. Buckle up. ”

“ A surprisingly informative comedy segment that mocks and meta-narrates a typical news report on the economy and explains why they are the way they are. ”

“ A cellist plays a single part of the Inspector Gadget theme, records herself, then plays another part against the recording of the first part, until she has all eight parts played by herself. ”

“ A history of the laugh-tracked sitcom, and why ‘The Big Bang Theory’ was the last major hit to use one. ”

“ A veteran voice actor looks at five drawings of cartoon characters he’s never seen before, and invents multiple voices for them on the spot. ”

“ A harrowing, humbling first-hand account from a contestant on the TV show ‘Naked and Afraid.’ ”

“ An insightful look at how Oprah Winfrey so easily connects with people and uniquely persuades them to reveal themselves in ways other people can’t. ”

“ The actress who played Hilary Banks found Hollywood a tough place after Fresh Prince , but ultimately found other meaning in life. ”

“ An interview with the head writer on Jeopardy! with lots of information on how clues get written. ”

“ A 1994 clip from the Today show where the hosts discuss the ‘@’ sign, and try to explain what ‘internet’ is. ”

“ A video showing some common verbal riffs from various Aaron Sorkin shows. ”

“ A touching retrospective of the careers of Chris Farley and Adam Sandler – two comedians who defined the 90s. ”

“ An SNL sketch where Jon Lovitz and Tom Hanks imitate Jerry Seinfeld without naming him, which is odd since this was right before Seinfeld launched and he was still a fairly unknown comic with just a couple TV appearances under his belt. Few people watching would have known who he was. ”

“ Some guy takes the normally-upbeat theme from Friends and turns it into a moody power-ballad. ”

“ The now-legendary acoustic performance at the 1989 MTV Music Awards which gave birth to MTV Unplugged. After the over-the-top glam rock of the 80s, this was nothing my generation had seen before. As a bonus, you get the see the strength of Sambora’s vocals, which are remarkable. ”

“ A tribute to the greatest years of ESPN’s SportsCenter, with Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann. ”

“ An interesting look at what happens when media franchises expand past their core source, and how to juggle what is canon and what isn’t. When you create a fake world, there’s a lot to keep track of. ”

“ A teen heartthrob disappears from the limelight and everyone assumes the worst. This story is a little boring by comparison, but that’s what makes it fascinating. JTT just…grew up. ”

“ A video supposedly about where the thousands of Bob Ross paintings went. But it’s really about the history of the Bob Ross phenomenon with lots of unknown backstory tidbits. ”

“ A short, fast-moving account of the five seasons of ‘In Living Color.’ ”

“ I promise you’ve seen James Hong dozens of times on screen, but never known who he was. He has 500 credits and has been acting for 66 years. ”

“ A recounting of the difficulties in editing out the profanity and questionable content of Tony Bordain’s TV show that is both hilarious and tender. ”

“ Fascinating TV movie about the Brexit campaign from the perspective of those who wanted to leave. Emphasizes the usages of data, and the deep divisions in British society that the campaign exploited. ”