Showing my age - it's Al Mundy!

"I'm not asking you to spy, I'm just asking you to steal..." Showing my age, but do I ever remember watching reruns of It Takes a Thief - Malachi Throne as Noah Bain, Dave Grusin's cool late-sixties theme music... and Robert frakking Wagner! Alexander Mundy (Wagner) is the world's greatest cat burglar...until he gets caught - but being a talented thief is an asset in the world of espionage, so Mundy is pardoned if he agrees to use his skills to help steal for the U.S. Government. On the heels of Mission: Impossible, It Takes a Thief was a bell-bottomed turtle-neck classic, with guest stars ranging from Fred Astaire to The 5th Dimension! That price is no steal, Amazon, but when this sucker bargains-out one day, definitely check it out.

Jump in the Way-back machine with me...the opening says it all:

Another reason to love Sesame Street

When you have a wee one in the house, you end up getting exposed to lots of Sesame Street - you may even find yourself talking like Elmo in meetings...but there are lots of great discoveries to be found - like this lovely chestnut - what can I say? I guess I've just had Next Gen on the brain this week...

Thee must turn on thy volume!

Fall TV Calendar

With the debut of favorite Sons of Anarchy last week, the new TV season is finally upon us, so it's time to map out our viewing for the coming weeks. A few things have changed since last May's fall preview. Alcatraz, from J.J. Abrams has moved to mid-season 2012 on Fox (Mondays at 9:00). Likewise ABC's The River also moved to mid-season 2012 (TBD), as did the animated Napoleon Dynamite.

Here's a handy calendar of the fall premieres I'm most interested in. I've left off a few that may have potential, such as Maria Bello's Americanization of Prime Suspect (lose that hat, Maria) on 9/22 and Portland-shot Grimm (10/21) - focusing mainly on the new and most intriguing genre shows or returning faves that I just can't wait for. Sharpen your knives!


Person of Interest - CBS Thusdays 9:00 - debuts Sept 22nd - Hopeful - love Michael Emerson - but this could fizzle fast. Better be a dynamite pilot.

Fringe - Fox Fridays 9:00 - returns Sept 23rd - Without a doubt, one of the best shows on TV right now with an ever-widening and always fascinating mythology. Fringe has long ago evolved beyond being an X-Files clone and was relentlessly suspenseful and fascinating last season. Can't wait!


Pan Am - ABC Sundays, 10:00 - debuts Sept 25th - Can a network even come close to aping the Mad Men vibe? The Sixties era makes it hard to look away and Ricci is terrific. Definitely worth a look.

Terra Nova - Fox, Mondays, 8:00 - debuts Sept 26th - Still intrigued as heck here. I'm worried about some of those cast members, but this still looks to be the genre debut with the biggest budget and could work. It could also be a huge flop. Stephen Lang has me tuning into the premiere no matter what.

Dexter - Showtime Sundays 9:00 - returns Oct 2nd - The return of Edward James Olmos?!? Say no more! - Let's not mention The Green Hornet, okay? - Always unhinged and very hard to predict, word on the new season is extremely positive.

American Horror Story - FX Wednesdays, 10:00 - debuts Oct 5th - Lots of buzz building here - Jessica Lange makes this hard to ignore.


The Walking Dead - AMC Sundays 9:00 - returns Oct 16th - Say no more! Other than a lot of post-Darabont-departure angst - not the kind of dread I was hoping for, but I gotta keep the faith on this one.

Hell on Wheels - AMC Sundays 10:00 - debuts Nov 10th - Quite a ways down the road, but anything new from AMC is worth a look and they're already running previews during Breaking Bad. Any new western has me at "Whoa."

What new or returning show are you most looking forward to?

Keep looking up

Much love and many thoughts to our family, friends and everybody in New York today, as always.

UPDATED WITH DATES: Next Gen on Blu-ray - episodes confirmed

While an official announcement is still pending, we've confirmed that CBS is hard at work on a Blu-ray "sampler" disc of Star Trek - The Next Generation Remastered episodes, for release sometime in the fourth quarter.

The four episodes on this disc will be Encounter at Farpoint, Parts 1 & 2 (the pilot), The Inner Light  and Sins of the Father. This represents episodes from seasons 1, 3 and 5.

The Inner Light is incredibly deft and moving science fiction, beautifully written. Sins of the Father is a cracking good episode that begins the long road to redemption for Lieutenant Worf and stands as the first episode of the outstanding Klingon Civil War story arc.

Encounter at Farpoint has always been a bit stilted - everyone was definitely still finding their sea legs - but it's bizarrely fascinating, after watching some of the later, more polished episodes. It's also one of the episodes most in need of an effects face-lift, so it could be very revealing to see what kind of remastering work has been done here. Stay tuned for an official release date, which should be coming any day now.

UPDATE: CBS will make their official announcement on 9/28, the 24th Anniversary of Next Gen's first broadcast back in (gulp!) 1987. Likely U.S. street date is 12/06.

Last chance to drool over steel and chrome

If automotive design sometimes takes your breath away, don't miss the final week of the jaw-dropping Allure of the Automobile exhibit at the Portland Art Museum. I had the pleasure of enjoying this show last June as a Father's Day treat and if you're any kind of car fan at all, you really owe it to yourself to check this show out before it ends on September 11th. The show highlights the stylistic development of cars against prominent design movements such as Art Moderne, contrasting European and American engineering and design influences from the 1930's - 1960's. Bring something to mop up the drool...

Daddy's favorite space vehicle - 1959 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray

Steve McQueen's 1957 Jaguar XK-SS Roadster - perfect for tooling around the curves of Mulholland Drive

 

1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR "Uhlenhaut" Coupe

1954 Plymouth Explorer Sports Coupe

1948 Tucker Torpedo

1933 Pierce-Arrow Silver Arrow

Check out this wasp's-nest chrome exhaust pipe!

No more complaints about changing a tire - we have it easy.

1937 Dubonnet Hispanno-Suiza H-6C "Xenia"

She's huge! Like a DC-3!

1937 Mercedes-Benz 540K Special Roadster - Baroness Gisela Von Krieger used this car to escape Nazi Germany just as the war broke out.

Anthony has the right expression! That's a 1961 Aston Martin DB4GT Zagato Coupe, behind him.

Take Anthony's advice and get over to the museum this week while you still can.

We guarantee you'll walk out with that same look on your face!

Star Wars Blu-rays -- Bantha dung included

The time may have finally come where it seems our buddy George Lucas is screwing with fans just to vex and annoy them. All six Star Wars films make it to Blu-ray in a couple of weeks and "the community" is already seething at yet another series of arbitrary head-scratching "adjustments" Darth Flannel has made to the beloved Original Trilogy, as well as some of the newer films.

In Episode I: The Phantom Menace, puppet Yoda has been replaced with digital Yoda. This looks to actually be an improvement, particularly given how good Yoda looked in Revenge of the Sith.

In Return of the Jedi, the Ewoks eyes will blink now, which is okay (Ewoks have eyes?!).

Other changes, however, are particularly galling, if not downright annoying. In Star Wars, Ben Kenobi's fake-out dragon call now sounds like Darcelle in distress...I mean just compare these two...!

...and in Return of the Jedi, heretofore cool moment where Vader stops Emperor Palpatine from torturing Luke, now gets the addition of a completely unnecessary "NOOOOO!" from about to be redeemed Anakin.



While many folks will wonder what all the to-do is about, it's kind of like having Charles Foster Kane blurt out, "My sled...Rosebud was my sled," or Rick Blaine embellish "We'll always have Paris...you know, that city where we first met."

What else we have in store is anybody's guess. The arrival of Star Wars in hi-def should be (and frankly, is) cause for celebration. The deleted scenes alone should prove fascinating. But Lucas seems so completely out of touch with and disrespectful of both his fans and of cinema preservation as a whole. None of this would matter if he was also restoring and making the original cuts of the films available. But when his tweaks and tinkerings start to actually damage the films and lessen their impact, it may be time for us to suggest that George put down his paintbrush and take a nice long break...on Carbonite, of course...