Here’s a few episodes from the last season of St Elsewhere. In Requiem for a Heavyweight Axelrod (Stephen Furst) has a heart attack.
Dr Griffin (Bruce Greenwood) who has found Jesus, tells a man dying of Aids that he should renounce his homosexuality. And amazingly he isn’t sanctioned. Or reprimanded. Or anything at all. It’s especially inappropriate because Griffin is worried he might also have contracted Aids because he pricked himself with a needle while drawing blood from the same patient, so there’s all kinds of wrong there.
Dr Gideon (Ronny Cox) has a robot with a scalpel but it’s not a great idea, and he gets stabbed. After his experience in Robocop you’d think he’d know better.
Dr Craig has been away, being sued for malpractice, and so being ousted from his position as head of surgery, but he returns to pick up stuff and generally mope and look unwanted.
Nurse Rosenthal is coming to the end of her treatment for addiction to prescription drugs. She’s doing family therapy, where everyone has to say what they don’t like about the other person. It’s a bit brutal.
Her fellow addict is played by Beatrice Straight off of Poltergeist.
And after his heart surgery goes well, Axelrod wakes up in the night, confused, pulls out his lines, and dies.
After this, an odd short film in the Four Minutes series – Dogplant
Then, another St Elsewhere – Split Decision. Dr Craig is back after the malpractice suit was dropped. He wants to perform three transplants from a single donor, and some of the other doctors think he might be overcompensating for having been away.
Luther, now a physician’s assistant, meets Penny, who works on the hospital’s AV systems, and they suddenly decide to get married.
The last episode here is St Elsewhere – The Abby Singer Show. Dr Chandler (Denzel Washington) is reunited with Dr Roxanne Turner (Alfre Woodard), who’s been travelling the world.
Dr Erlich (Ed Begley) is missing, and his parents, who are spies, apparently, think he’s been kidnapped. His father is played by Steve Allen.
William Sadler plays a parent of a young girl.
At the Doctor of the Year awards, the ceremony is interrupted by a fire on a lower floor.
Dr Chandler decides to quit medicine.
Dr Griffin gets the results of his antibody test, and he has Aids.
After this, there’s a segment from The Late Show with a profile of Robbie Coltrane, with contributions from John Byrne, writer of Tutti Frutti.
After his brief appearance on Wogan a couple of days ago, we go back a little while to Peak Elton for some Friday Night Live.
Music from Magnum
Loadsamoney is helping out in Stavros’ kebab shop.
The Proclaimers perform ‘Throw the ‘R’ away’. An incredibly lively, upbeat song about accents and English parochialism.
Comedy from Michael Redmond.
Strange novelty act Arloe Barloe, who looks strangely like John Hegley.
Josie Lawrence interviews Madness as a ‘Wild Child’. “That nutty bunch of nutters”.
Then Madness perform I Now Pronounce You.
Donald And George are relieved.
From America, Darryl Sivad.
Josie Lawrence is back as a conservative canvassing the Proclaimers. “I’m sorry, I don’t speak gaelic”.
Then the boys perform “Make My Heart Fly”.
Stavros washes his smalls.
After Ben Elton’s set, about taking the driving test, Madness close the show. Was it Halloween?
In the next episode, there’s music from The Primitives.
Stavros is unwell.
More music from Paul Johnson.
Ben introduces a new act – Lee Evans.
Audience participation with The Grand Theatre of Lemmings.
An old friend of the show, Emo Phillips. Brilliant as ever.
Music from The Bodeans
Jag Plah, a performer with cerebral palsey. Very good last gag about the coach load of blind people playing football.
Florence from Cradley.
Loadsamoney has taken his money for a walk. “Not all of it, just loads.”
The show ends with Ben Elton’s stand-up set, and another song from Paul Johnson.
After this, there’s an episode of After Dark which, in the wake of the murder of three IRA members in Gibraltar, asks whether a civilised society can have a licence to kill.
This tape opens with Weather from Bill Giles, and a trailer for QED: Breaking the Pain Barrier.
Then, skipping over a couple of episodes since we last saw The Majestics, we have Tutti Fruttiepisode6: A Wop Boppa Loo-Bop A Wop Bam Boom
I looked at episodes four and five just over five years ago. Interestingly, I mention the change between shooting on film and video, and I say it’s because of industrial action, but I don’t include any citations, which is annoying because I couldn’t find a specific reference when I checked a week or so ago.
Episode 6, like episode 5, is shot on film.
Vincent’s girlfriend Glenna has killed herself, jumping off a bridge at the end of the last episode, after apparently losing her baby. Vincent visits her grave, and in his injured state, has difficulty putting something on the grave. I love how this show is able to maintain an element of the ridiculous, but still manage to be serious at the same time.
Eddie Clockerty is plotting to put Suzy Kettles into the band for their final big show. Bomba and Fud think he’s talking about replacing Vincent, but Eddie says it’s Danny he wants to replace.
Danny is trying to comfort Vincent.
“The Iron Man of Scottish Rock, that’s what they call me.” Maurice Roeves is just magnificent throughout this whole series.
Eddie tells Suzy Danny’s been cheating on her, so she accepts his offer to play in the band.
Danny is told he’s been dropped when they arrive at the venue. He assumes it’s Suzy’s fault, and they fight over the guitar, until they realise Eddie has been lying to Suzy about a supposed affair he had with TV reporter Sheena Fisher.
Even after they’ve reconciled, Danny is still a bit of a pig, if I’m honest. Self involved, and always ready to denigrate Suzy, even if he thinks it’s all in jest.
Vincent’s wife Noreen tells Vincent the real reason they were never able to have kids was because of his low sperm count, so Glenna’s baby couldn’t possibly have been real.
He’s haunted by his past.
The concert starts, including Vincent, with special guests the Inverbervie Ceilidh Quintette.
But there’s a fiery interruption as Vincent douses himself with Polish vodka and lights his lighter. About as grim an ending to the show as you can imagine.
And despite everything that I find problematic about the attitudes in the show, I still think this is great. Probably the Emma Thompson factor helps.
After this, there’s a trailer for Ever Decreasing Circles.
Then, an episode of Film 87 presented by Russell Harty. We’ve actually seen this episode before on a different tape (which also contains the infamous 1987 Oscars which turned up recent on Twitter).
After this, we have Quantum Leap and it’s the first episode. And Al is already leching over women.
It’s not just Al who’s sexist. Sam’s first jump is into a test pilot (cue loads of footage from The Right Stuff) and he’s married to a pregnant wife. “Even at six months I found her incredibly beautiful.” Wow.
It gets worse when Sam has to fill in a questionnaire designed to see if travelling at supersonic speeds leads to memory loss, so he fills it in, with all his Sam memories, including “What was the biggest impact on me in High School – Mini Skirts. What had the most negative impact? Pantyhose.” God, Sam, what a douche you were. That’s Bruce McGill as his commanding officer, by the way.
When his wife goes into labour prematurely, he gets her drunk, although this time it’s not sexism, it’s (apparently) science.
Having saved his wife and baby, Sam leaps, and this feature length episode has a second leap. It’s baseball, so I’m immediately at a disadvantage when it comes to liking this.
However, there’s a scene where Sam phones his father (who’s dead in his present) and talks to him that’s just beautiful, so I was in tears.
Before the next episode, Food and Drink looks at food in prisons. Did you know that Howard Jones moonlighted as a prison governor?
There’s a trailer for Land of the Eagle.
Then, another episode of Quantum Leap – Star Crossed. It has Sam doing the voice-over at the start. Teri Hatcher appears as Donna, a woman Sam was supposed to marry, but she left him at the altar. He thinks this is a chance to correct that, by reuniting her with her estranged father.
Al tries to help Sam, against the wishes of the other people at the Quantum Leap lab, and when he’s trying to communicate with Sam secretly, they find him and drag him out of the chamber.
There’s an almost throwaway ending where Sam takes Donna to meet her father in Washington, and he’s staying in the Watergate hotel at the same time as the break-in.
Here’s a couple of old horror films on Channel 4, starting with The Black Cat, whose theme music is a shameless pastiche of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo & Juliet overture.
It stars Bela Lugosi as the amazingly named Dr Vitus Werdegast. He meets a young couple on the train, abd proceeds to tell them of the terrible life he has led during the war, when he was believed dead, but in fact spent years in a prison camp from which he has just returned. He hasn’t seen his wife or daughter since.
The young couple and Lugosi travel in a bus, which crashes, and the young woman is injured, so they go to the house of an architect whom Lugosi was going to visit, so Lugosi can treat the woman. The architect is Hjalmar Poelzig, played by Boris Karloff (or Karloff as he’s credited here).
Karloff’s hobby is keeping a gallery of dead, embalmed women in his basement. Lugosi later learns that Karloff married his wife (who thought Lugosi was dead) but she died of the flu, and is now in his woman cave.
Even worse, unbeknownst to Lugosi, Karloff then married Lugosi’s daughter – his own stepdaughter, but he tells Lugosi that she also died. He doesn’t ask him why she’s not in the Lady showroom.
And as if we weren’t sure if Karloff was a wrong-un, this is his bedtime reading.
There’s a big satanic ritual, and by the end, the house is blown up.
After this, there’s The Raven, another production very loosely based on an Edgar Allan Poe story. In this one, Lugosi plays a doctor with a huge God complex, begged to help an injured woman by her father, a Very Important Man. He also likes quoting Poe’s “The Raven” and he’s built a torture chamber in his cellar.
Karloff turns up at his door, as a wanted murderer Edmond Bateman. Lugosi tells him that it’s no wonder you turned out to be evil, you’re so incredibly ugly. I don’t particularly see it myself, although that haircut is a little severe.
Lugosi tells him he’ll transform his face, if Karloff will agree to operate his torture chamber. But it just looks like he’s given him a shave and a squint. He’s frozen the muscles in his face, and will finish the job once Karloff has done what he wants him to do.
His descending pendulum starts from a long way up.
Neither of these films are close to the pinnacle of the Universal horror films, if I’m honest.
After this, Channel 4 closes down, and Carol Bolt wishes us a very good night.
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Here’s something a bit different. It’s the first episode of the Clive Anderson TV version of Notes And Queries, based on the column in The Guardian. Amazingly, one of the jokey examples of a question he throws out in his introduction is “Whatever happened to Spangles?” which I thought was an internet cliche, but clearly it predates the general popular web.
There’s a fascinating chat to a man who was in a lift that fell down a lift shaft.
Carol Vorderman works out how much Judas’ 30 pieces of silver would be worth today.
There’s a strangely heated discussion about the best way to dispose of dead people.
After this, the first episode of Joking Apart. This is the first episode of the series proper, not the original pilot, which I think I’ve got somewhere, and I think is different. It was Steven Moffat’s first sitcom for grown-ups, and his success with Press Gang. Mark and Becky meet when he turns up for a party at the wrong address, and accidentally comes to a funeral.
Whilst I do like this show, and find it funny, as time has gone on, I dislike the character of Mark (based on Moffat himself and his experience of divorce) more and more. He really is pretty awful, and Becky was quite right to leave him. Having said that, the final scene, where Becky tells him she wants a divorce, while all her friends are hiding ready for a surprise party, is masterful.
After this, recording switches to The Dave Allen Show, on ITV. Somehow, I miss the sketches he used to have in the BBC show. His material maybe isn’t the sharpest, but his delivery is still great.
After this, another episode of Notes And Queries which we join just as the opening credits finish. A man and a woman try to answer why is water wet, and it’s like every argument on Twitter except he doesn’t threaten to kill her.
Frank Muir talks about the most poignant passage in the English language, and also about his particular inability to pronounce the letter ‘R’. “I can’t order the book Rural Rides on the phone”
Carol Vorderman talks about the Querty keyboard.
There’s a discussion about how secret is the secret ballot.
Then, episode Two of Joking Apart. I’m finding it hard to sympathise with Mark now Becky has left him for another man. But at least Tracy is there to help. I do like Tracie Bennett’s performance in this.
Lots more episodes of The Wonder Years now. In Brightwing, Kevin’s sister, Olivia d’Abo, is now a hippie.
In the past she used to cosplay as Jessie from Toy Story
Even Kevin joins in with the hippie fun.
The next episode is Square Dance. Cutlip has to teach the kids. “Square Dancing. What is it? And what can it do for you?”
Kevin is mortified to be paired with Margaret Farquar, the weird girl. School is horrible like this. I can remember people being horrible to ‘the weird kid’. And I can remember me not being brave enough to call their behaviour out, despite knowing it was wrong. Peer pressure is an appalling thing. And Kevin doesn’t do any better in this episode. Despite Margaret being a really cool kid. She has a bat and a tarantula, for God’s sake.
It’s obviously Superbowl season for the next episode.
This episode is Whose Woods Are These? The local woods are going to be bulldozed for a shopping mall. Again, this rings a few bells. When I was young, we lived on the edge of our town, and right behind our house were fields. We’d play in the local woods all the time. And then, for years, they were planning to build a bypass road through the fields, about 200 yards from our back fence. I remember when the surveyors came around with their measuring sticks. I was probably 7 or 8 when this process started.
But these things take a long time. The bypass wasn’t even started until I’d left school and was working. And I’d left home and bought my own house by the time it was opened, so even that part of it never directly affected me. I was lucky to have those fields and woods for my entire childhood.
Now, even the fields that were left between our old house and the bypass have been developed, so every time I’d visit my parents, I’d look out at the garden, and there were these large house all round. It was strange. Like the house had been transplanted into a movie set.
But I do remember when this was all fields.
So I sympathise with Kevin wanting to preserve his local woods.
Raye Birk makes a guest appearance as the assistant principal. He’s familiar as Walt Twitchell, Cliff’s occasional nemesis from the post office.
Next it’s How I’m Spending My Summer Vacation. I wonder if these home movie sections were actually just shot on super 8, rather than post-processed.
Coach Cutlip gets emotional at the end of the school year.
The next episode is Summer Song. The Arnolds are going on vacation.
Kevin meets an older girl on vacation (Winne has written that she’s going out with someone else) and they have a fun time until she has to go home. Is this a bit like the Bochco thing of schlubby men being with far more attractive women? That Kevin appears to be irresistible to girls who really wouldn’t be remotely interested with someone that young.
The next episode is Mom Wars. Kevin is playing rough football, and his mom doesn’t like it.
Next it’s Wayne on Wheels. Kevin’s brother learns to drive, and Kevin falls in love with another random girl.
Juliette Lewis has a semi-regular role as Kevin’s brother’s girlfriend Delores.
After this, recording stops. Underneath there’s a tiny bit of BBC2 testcard before that recording stops.
This tape opens with the end of The Aristocracy: Letting in the Hoi Polloi.
There’s a trailer for Correspondent. And one for The Natural World. I do like this fishy 2 logo.
Then, Trouble at the Top – Live TV. It’s a rather good behind the scenes of the launch of Live TV. This is actually an updated edition of the original programme.
Mirror Group Newspapers want to get into television, so they hire Janet Street Porter to launch Live TV, in offices in Canary Wharf, and with a very small budget.
Unfortunately, they also hire Kelvin McKenzie, former editor of the Sun. Needless to say, they don’t always get on.
It’s a continual story of ‘saving money’. They wanted to buy outside broadcast trucks, but to save money, they wanted to shop around. During channel rehearsals, the presenters can’t hear the director because the truck isn’t equipped, so they have to route her voice over the shop’s PA system.
We’ve got this fantastic state of the art technology. Unfortunately it doesn’t work.
I spotted Media journalist Ray Snoddy in a press conference.
Complaining about all the technical difficulties, and there’s clearly one person mainly in charge of fixing everything, Janet’s getting annoyed. There’s a line from this that became a bit of a catchphrase among friends of mine. “And take him off the fucking Internet”. (Actually it’s ‘Internet Project’ which isn’t quite as funny.
“The Avid has crashed with all the graphics on it.”
12 weeks after launch, Janet Street Porter has quit, after Kelvin McKenzie did a deal for Rugby on the channel. I think Kelvin is the kind of person who can’t imagine something that isn’t supposed to appeal to him.
The Newsbunny appears. Is this somebody famous’s first job?
The Weather in Norwegian
And Topless Darts. It really is egregiously bad. Objectively bad. With no attempt to make something good. It’s just so pathetic. I would say it’s like a 12 year old is running things, but most 12 year olds would make something good.
After this, recording switches to Channel 4, for the end of an episode of Travelog.
Then, an episode of Fortean TV resented by the redoubtable Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe.
There’s a story about alien abductees creating art.
Flesh eating maggots.
Hybrid fruit. Here’s a cross between a Strawberry and a Tomato.
Dogs and the Afterlife.
A possible Holy Grail, not that there’s much left of it.
After this, recording switches and there’s an episode of ER – No Brain, No Gain. Wow, I didn’t remember Omar Epps being a regular.
I knew Glenne Headly was a regular, though.
They manage to misspell Jorja Fox’s name in the credits.
William Sanderson, off of Blade Runner, makes a guest appearance.
Dr Susan Lewis tells Mark Green that she’s leaving her residency.
After this, recording switches, and there’s an episode of Spin City. Woody Harrelson makes a guest appearance as a school janitor who wins an essay writing competition.
After this, another recording switch to an episode of Roseanne. called Roseambo, it’s a strange one, as Roseanne and family are travelling to Washington DC with Dr Bakshmi. In this one, Roseanne isn’t racist, but her mother is.
The train is captured by terrorists – and because this is the mid 90s and Roseanne isn’t racist yet, it’s not quite islamic terrorists, it appears to be misogynistic cowboys, from a country called Mondostan.
Although they do dress all women head to toe, and also cover their mouths.
“This time it’s personal.”
After their adventure, Roseanne meets “Hillary Clinton”.
And because this is basically a parody of Under Seige 2: Dark Territory, (for God’s sake why?) Steven Seagal turns up at the end.
There’s also a very strange bit at the end featuring Roseanne meeting Don King and Mike Tyson.
After this, recording continues with an episode of Here’s Johnny, Johnny Vaughan’s chat show. It’s not really my kind of thing. I once passed Johnny Vaughan in a corridor. I can tell you’re impressed.
He interviews Boyzone, although he doesn’t spend much time talking to the band, most of the item is a pre recorded thing about the band.
After this, recording stops, and underneath, there’s a bit of the slightly nerdy sports show Under The Moon. The tape ends during this.
I almost didn’t bother watching this segment, but I happened to leave it running, and spotted something that will mean nothing to anyone but me.
One of the presenters is wandering about in the studio – always fun in whatever show – and he goes to the room (“I like to call it a little grotto”) where they “look at your web messages”, and it’s staffed by “Mystic Jonathan”. There’s the obligatory Hackers poster on the wall, you can see, on the screen, the Channel 4 forum web page – three frame design (remember frames?) and Jonathan himself. Who I suddenly recognised as someone who worked at the BBC when I was there in the 2000s – it’s Jonathan Kingsbury, who was a senior producer in BBC New Media when I was there. Interesting to see one of his earlier jobs.
First on this tape, from Channel 4, Pink Floyd – The Wall. I’ll confess, I’m not overly familiar with the musical ouevre of Messrs Pink and Floyd, so this is, I think, the first time I’ve watched it. It’s directed by Alan Parker, who’s made some good films.
Bob Geldof plays (I’m assuming) a rock star, bored in his hotel room.
He’s remembering his father (I’m assuming) James Laurenson, who died in the war.
Young Bob Geldof (I’m assuming) reminds me a bit of Will Poulter.
There’s scenes of troops charging intercut with scenes of young people running to get into a stadium for a concert. There’s animation about how sad war is.
Geldof also imagines himself as some kind of fascist leader. Let’s be honest, haven’t we all done that at some point?
They play the hit, “We don’t need no Education” which itself clearly demonstrates they do need some education if only to improve that appalling grammar. A joke which has probably been made a million times about this song.
Some of the animation, designed by Gerald Scarfe (as is the whole film) is frankly rude.
Bob Hoskins eats a pineapple.
Bob Geldof is the most organised drug addict I’ve ever seen.
He’s watching The Dambusters on TV. I’m not sure this is because of any thematic resonance with the themes of the film, or just so they can play two lines of dialogue at two different times, both of which refer to Wing Commander Guy Gibson’s dog’s name, which just happens also to be a racial slur. I feel like this is edgy for edgy’s sake. Or Alan Parker’s a racist. Or possibly Roger Waters, who wrote the script.
Given that it goes full Third Reich at the end, with Fascist Geldof railing against Jews and Queers, it’s not impossible. I wish I was as clever as Roger Waters so I could understand what is going on in this movie.
Nice to see Nazi Geldof likes Black Panther though. Wakanda Forever!
And the final animation, featuring a High Court Judge who’s a literal arse just eludes me,
Well, I can’t say I’ll be going out and buying the vinyl.
After this, recording continues. There’s a bizarre trailer for a political version of Star Test, Star Chamber featuring Jack Straw.
Then there’s an episode of Tonight with Jonathan Ross.
First guest is Barry White.
Stand-up from Mark Lamarr
There’s magic from The Pendragons, a brilliant magic act but rather spoiled by later events, when they split up after he fired a gun at her during an argument (the bullet hit the floor).
The final guest is Kate Kray, who married Ronnie Kray after he was sent to prison.
Finally, some comedy from Jack Douglas.
After this, Channel Four closes down with Hayden Wood wishing us a very good night.
This tape opens with the end of an episode of Call Me Mister, the Steve Bisley drama
There’s a trailer for South Pacific in London.
Then, part one of Omnibus – Alfred Hitchcock. It’s a nice, in-depth look at his career, although, given he was working a long time ago, there’s a dearth of contemporary interviews, like this one from his screenwriter and collaborator Charles Bennett, who wrote Blackmail.
Rodney Ackland talks about Number Seventeen, a film where he and Hitchcock were making almost a parody of the type of film the producers wanted, and audiences and critics didn’t get it.
A longtime collaborator was the genius Matte Painter and Special Effects wizard Albert Whitlock.
Patricia Hitchcock talks about how instrumental her mother, Alma Revell, was to Hitchcock’s career, being the one voice he could trust to tell him the truth.
Joan Fontaine appeared in Rebecca.
Teresa Wright played the young Charlie in the thriller Shadow of a Doubt.
Samuel Taylor talks about Hitchcock’s method of creating a film, coming up with four or five great scenes, and tying them together.
Robert Boyle talks about Hitchcock and actors.
John Michael Hayes tells of the time when Hitchcock had a problem with Grace Kelly, saying she was too stiff, too controlled, too quiet. But Hayes found she was perfectly friendly off set, suggesting that on set, she was concentrating on being an actress. Maybe it’s because she was scared of Hitchcock.
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