Different look

As I believe I've mentioned before, I sit on the side with the Spanish-language TVs when I go to the laundromat. Reason being, I find the Anglophone programming―especially news―intrusive. With Spanish I'd have to concentrate to understand what's being said, so it's easier to let it slide into the background.

Just as I was readying to empty the dryer and leave tonight, I saw that a telenovela was playing. I know that these are in the same general genre as American soaps, but I noticed a difference. Daytime soaps in this country are―or in most cases, were―shot on soundstages, and tend to have a kind of underwater look. This was filmed in a real indoor location, with available light. It was a more natural look. Albeit with flawlessly pretty people, because it's still TV.

Mutant follies

David Strorm lives in a farming community in Labrador, Canada. Except that "Canada" doesn't really seem to exist anymore, and is never mentioned. Because John Wyndham's The Chrysalids isn't just a postapocalyptic novel, it's long past the apocalypse.

Humans where David lives are in an open war against mutation, be it of crops, livestock, or other humans. That means that the former two are destroyed, while the last are banished to "the Fringes" even if they're still infants. David's own father cheers on this regime from the pulpit. But David is different himself, part of a circle of telepaths. They're going to have to escape.

The Chrysalids was published in 1955. By my count this puts it eight years ahead of the creation of Marvel Comics' X-Men. I note this because its persecuted, "mutants against everyone" tone is eerily similar to what writer Chris Claremont brought to that comic in the 70s and onward. It doesn't take away from the novel's literary quality, but you can't unsee it once you've noticed.

Parallels aside, the book encourages the reader to identify with a new kind of person. Not just new, in fact, and not just different, but actively better than all those who came before. As they say, the golden age of science fiction is 15.

Something had to give

What can I say about this past week? If it hasn't been the hottest week of the summer, it's at least been hotter than any week in August. Days in the 80s and 90s, nights not much cooler. 

This afternoon we had a thunderstorm. Having been caught out in it while I was grocery shopping I can testify that the rain got thick enough so that some streets you couldn't cross without dipping your feet in a flooded curb. That might cool things down some. I'm hoping for a comfortable sleep.

Drama llamas

There were a lot of news stories in 2020, and most of them were stupid, so it was a difficult time to keep track of all the stupid news. So while I think I did read about the foundation of We See You White American Theater* at the time I'd forgotten it until reading this Tablet article yesterday. Anyway, this "Won't someone please think of the theatre kids?" organization has been in business for three years now. Since then there's been a lot of anti-white American theatre that no one will ever see because why the fuck would you? Mission accomplished I guess. 

One thing that has happened in many institutions is a kind of political treadmill. The loudest critics within and without are doctrinaire leftists, so leadership adopts by adopting their demands as its own. So the only permissible critique is from the left. But eventually these radical demands become so homogeneous that no meaningful dissent is even possible. This seems to have happened to much of American theatre. 

While you could say that conservatives have been frozen out, the truth is that in most cultural and artistic matters like this they just don't show up for the fight. They're either not comfortable with the subject or don't think it's important. More enthusiasm for spreading gay rumors about a man who will never again have to stand for election. Those are some priorities.

*No, really, that's their name.

♥

The thing about loving thy neighbor is that it's not just a nice cliché that appears in the Bible. A society that doesn't at least hold it up as an ideal is not going to survive, not as anyplace you'd want to live. 

But no political faction favors people loving each other. Quite the opposite, if you look at the most vocal. The idea has no bloc or sponsor. Which is actually often the way in important matters.

L+L

The team of Richard Levinson and William Link make up one of the more interesting behind-the-scenes creators in TV history. They worked together as fiction writers and playwrights as well, so must have had good chemistry. Among other things they were scriptwriters on Alfred Hitchcock presents, and it was on their advice that Hitch would later read the book that he'd adapt into his final movie, Family Plot. Among the works they can take credit for:

Mannix: I haven't seen much of this, but it had an interesting history. The first season had Mike Connors's title character working for an investigative firm called Intellect which relied on computers to reach its solutions. Only Mannix was an old-fashioned PI who ignored the computers and went with his own hunches. So a variation on the rationalism-vs.-romance theme that's really at the heart of classic mystery fiction. From Season 2 onwards they'd drop the computer angle and make Mannix a private detective.

Columbo: A biggie, maybe the biggie. They first created the LAPD lieutenant for a TV play starring Bert Freed as Columbo. But of course it was after Peter Falk stepped into the role that he really became the character we know and love. And actually Falk needed a practice run. He's off, a little too standard a cop, in the movie Prescription for Murder. In the follow-up, Ransom for a Dead Man, he's more disheveled and disarming. This seems like it could work.

Ellery Queen: Interestingly they took two stabs at Dannay and Lee's mystery writer detective. The first was in a TV movie starring Rat Packer Peter Lawford as Ellery, helping police track a serial killer. They used a pseudonym for this one, perhaps not approving of the changes made to their script. Their second try starred Jim Hutton (Timothy's dad) as Ellery, with David Wayne as his police inspector father. It only lasted one season plus a pilot movie, but hasn't been forgotten.

Murder She Wrote: Their last commercially successful series, as Levinson died a couple of years into production. Also features a mystery writer as the lead, making it something of a Queen companion piece. It's not a period piece, so 80s aesthetics permeate everything. (Femme fatales wear so much product in their hair that they can't even smoke!) Angela Lansbury plays Jessica Fletcher with a mix of warmth and reserve that helps to sell fairly standard crime stories. Then sometimes it pays off with a truly bonkers episode, like one where Jose Ferrer plays a hypnotist who gets murdered in a roomful of hypnotized subjects.

The pair ventured outside of the genre sometimes as well. TV movies they've scripted include That Certain Summer, with Hal Holbrook as a gay father, and The Execution of Private Slovik, a docudrama about a young GI executed for desertion in World War II. They had some impressive accomplishments.

Words upon words

Archive.org gets a lot―probably most―of its content from other video sites. YouTube seems to be a big source. Then they get removed from the other place, but the Internet Archive has them, so that's definitely a good thing. 

Of course, there are occasional snags. If you watch a movie on YouTube and it has subtitles that you don't need, you can turn them off. On Archive.org if the movie has subtitles you're stuck with them. I guess if it doesn't have them and you're prefer to see them you're sort of screwed too.

Ah well, maybe I unconsciously brushed up on my Spanish tonight.