I had a couple of “holy cow!” moments yesterday. You know the type — like when you suddenly realize that one of your favorite songs as a child was recorded by an artist you “discovered” later in your life. In my case, I learned something new about two classic movies I’ve always liked.
Yesterday I was watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine during supper. Afterwards, I saw my TiVo HD was recording Dirty Harry in high definition, so I segued into watching it. Somewhere along the line, it occurred to me that the Scorpio Killer character in Dirty Harry was terribly familiar. His voice, to be specific, sounded exactly like the voice of one of my favorite Cardassian characters from DS9, Elim Garak. In fact, the DS9 episode I’d just watched during dinner had featured Garak quite prominently.
At first I thought that the two actors couldn’t possibly be the same guy, because nearly 25 years had passed between Dirty Harry and DS9. The actor playing Garak wasn’t that old…was he? Honestly, it’s tough to tell beneath all that Cardassian make-up. Then again, just how young was the actor playing Scorpio, anyway? Well, in cases like this, there’s only one way to answer all questions, silence all quibbles and settle all bets: Check the Internet Movie Database.
Sure enough, the Scorpio Killer was indeed played by Andrew Robinson, the same man who later played Elim Garak in every season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. In fact, his role in Dirty Harry back in 1971 was one of his very first acting jobs. Fascinating!
The other “Hollywood epiphany” I had yesterday was when I discovered the 1984 sci-fi flick Runaway on TiVo’s list of upcoming HD movies. I remember when I was around six years old, I used to bug my mom to rent that movie for me almost every time we went to the video store. It’s totally ’80s cheese/camp sci-fi, but hey, I was a kid.
Well, I did a little poking around on the all-knowing, aforementioned IMDB about the film, and was astonished to learn that it was written and directed by none other than Michael Crichton, one of my favorite authors of medical/techo thrillers. It then occurred to me that, when I was a kid, I used to love movies that were based on Crichton properties — The Andromeda Strain, Runaway, Jurassic Park, et al — before I had even learned who Crichton was. Guess it’s no wonder I like the guy’s books.
Chief Oddball
Pooch
MichiganMom
Apple
How to Reboot a Television Franchise
By Chief Oddball on February 19th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Filed under Commentary ··· 2 Comments
Before I started this entry, I considered simply adding to the comments thread of Pooch’s post on the Knight Rider movie. In the end, I had so many thoughts banging around in my head that I decided it was worth adding an entirely new post on the subject.
To recap: This past Sunday night, NBC aired their “reboot” of the Knight Rider franchise, starring Justin Breuning, a Shelby GT500KR and a few forgettable folks. While I certainly didn’t think it was horrible, it also didn’t completely satisfy me, a die-hard KR fan from way back. In the end, I think this was due to a number of factors:
Now, all of the above are issues that can be addressed, if the new Knight Rider gets picked up as a series (and its excellent ratings performance suggests that it has a pretty good chance of that). And if a series does premiere on NBC, I’ll be right there to watch it. If nothing else, I feel like that’s my karmic duty as an original Knight Rider fan.
But one day after the Knight Rider movie premiere, I was reminded — by a network called Fox, of all things — that rebooting a television franchise in a genuinely exciting, interesting and engaging way actually is possible. This is exemplified by a show called Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and it might just be the most exciting sci-fi drama on TV right now. (At least, until Battlestar Galactica returns to the airwaves next month.)
Continue Reading…
Comments (2)