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revdorothyl at 05:00pm on 31/07/2006
revdorothyl at 05:00pm on 31/07/2006Sorry to have been incommunicado so long, but just to show you that it's nothing personal against my online friends, let me confess what I've been doing with my free time during the past week: I finally got around to watching some DVD's that my sister gave me LAST CHRISTMAS.
(Yes, that's December 25, 2005, which makes me only 7 months late in opening that particular gift -- better than the year and a half I waited to open the DVD player I got from my parents one year, but still . . . !)
Just to reassure everyone that, indeed, I really am capable of INTENDING to post all sorts of thoughts on LJ for a month or more at a time, without actually getting around to writing anything down, just as I'm quite capable of INTENDING to watch my Christmas presents for 7 months before actually opening the box and trying them out.
Anyway, perhaps I wouldn't have lost track of the gift for so long, if my sister hadn't left the $7 "Half Price Books" price tag on the DVD box set (sister loves to drown her friends and family in bargain gifts, and sometimes the DVD's she gets for a dollar turn out to be worth a little bit less than that), but no matter.
I stand (well, sit) here today to say "mea culpa!" And a big "Thanks mucho, Sis!"
You see, the DVD set she got me was for the first half of the first (and only) season of a 1968 British Sci-Fi espionage show called "The Champions" -- and I actually remember watching that series a few times (must've been in syndicated re-runs, though, because I dimly remember being frustrated in my efforts to tune in to it on a regular basis, and when the show was brand-new I think that "Speed Racer" was about as sophisticated as my 6-year-old viewing tastes got) and loving it on the rare occasions when I tuned in.
Besides the pleasure of discovering/re-discovering another show from the folks responsible for "The Saint" and other fine, fun products of the era, with scripts by the likes of Terry Nation, I've had the pleasure of watching 12 of the first 15 episodes for the very first time. (Once I realized that the second half of the series doesn't appear to have been released on DVD, I started pacing myself a bit more).
I remembered the set-up for the 'special powers' given to the three heroes (plane crash in Tibet, where denizens of a "lost city" rebuilt our three young champions with certain improvements -- sort of James Hilton's "Lost Horizon" meets "The Six Million Dollar Man", with a touch of "Man from UNCLE" crossed with "The Avengers") and at least one opening scene from an episode not included in this set. But otherwise, it's all been fresh and new to me.
Oh, and I spent a good part of those first 12 episodes wondering why that tall, dark and gorgeous American agent of "NEMESIS" seemed so terribly familiar to me (though familiar in the way that comes from seeing someone in the same, limited role in the same story many times over -- but I was pretty sure he hadn't appeared in any classic Star Trek episodes, and what else could I have seen so many times over?), only to get to the actor bios on the last disc of the set, where I read that actor Stuart Damon had first come to the attention of television audiences by starring opposite Leslie Ann Warren in the 1965 version of Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Cinderella"!
Well, that certainly explains it! I must have seen that made-for-TV musical remake (since I hadn't even been born when the original live broadcast starring Julie Andrews was made) re-run at least once a year for most of my childhood, and Stuart Damon was the oh-so-eye-candy-ish prince! And no wonder I needed help to make the connection, since I don't recall the prince as being a particularly "fun-loving" character, while Damon's "Champions" character has quite a good sense of humor, and manages a very respectable snark upon occasion.
So, I guess the moral of the story should be something along the lines of: "sometimes our families get it right -- so right, in fact, that it's almost scary." Or perhaps it's "don't be an ungrateful little snob, no matter what you think about the shopping habits of your near-and-dear, 'cause a gift given out of love can knock your socks off now and then, no matter how cheap the price tag."
Or maybe it's just, "don't be such a lazy procrastinator, since you never know what you're missing along the way." I'll try to take all of those to heart.
(Yes, that's December 25, 2005, which makes me only 7 months late in opening that particular gift -- better than the year and a half I waited to open the DVD player I got from my parents one year, but still . . . !)
Just to reassure everyone that, indeed, I really am capable of INTENDING to post all sorts of thoughts on LJ for a month or more at a time, without actually getting around to writing anything down, just as I'm quite capable of INTENDING to watch my Christmas presents for 7 months before actually opening the box and trying them out.
Anyway, perhaps I wouldn't have lost track of the gift for so long, if my sister hadn't left the $7 "Half Price Books" price tag on the DVD box set (sister loves to drown her friends and family in bargain gifts, and sometimes the DVD's she gets for a dollar turn out to be worth a little bit less than that), but no matter.
I stand (well, sit) here today to say "mea culpa!" And a big "Thanks mucho, Sis!"
You see, the DVD set she got me was for the first half of the first (and only) season of a 1968 British Sci-Fi espionage show called "The Champions" -- and I actually remember watching that series a few times (must've been in syndicated re-runs, though, because I dimly remember being frustrated in my efforts to tune in to it on a regular basis, and when the show was brand-new I think that "Speed Racer" was about as sophisticated as my 6-year-old viewing tastes got) and loving it on the rare occasions when I tuned in.
Besides the pleasure of discovering/re-discovering another show from the folks responsible for "The Saint" and other fine, fun products of the era, with scripts by the likes of Terry Nation, I've had the pleasure of watching 12 of the first 15 episodes for the very first time. (Once I realized that the second half of the series doesn't appear to have been released on DVD, I started pacing myself a bit more).
I remembered the set-up for the 'special powers' given to the three heroes (plane crash in Tibet, where denizens of a "lost city" rebuilt our three young champions with certain improvements -- sort of James Hilton's "Lost Horizon" meets "The Six Million Dollar Man", with a touch of "Man from UNCLE" crossed with "The Avengers") and at least one opening scene from an episode not included in this set. But otherwise, it's all been fresh and new to me.
Oh, and I spent a good part of those first 12 episodes wondering why that tall, dark and gorgeous American agent of "NEMESIS" seemed so terribly familiar to me (though familiar in the way that comes from seeing someone in the same, limited role in the same story many times over -- but I was pretty sure he hadn't appeared in any classic Star Trek episodes, and what else could I have seen so many times over?), only to get to the actor bios on the last disc of the set, where I read that actor Stuart Damon had first come to the attention of television audiences by starring opposite Leslie Ann Warren in the 1965 version of Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Cinderella"!
Well, that certainly explains it! I must have seen that made-for-TV musical remake (since I hadn't even been born when the original live broadcast starring Julie Andrews was made) re-run at least once a year for most of my childhood, and Stuart Damon was the oh-so-eye-candy-ish prince! And no wonder I needed help to make the connection, since I don't recall the prince as being a particularly "fun-loving" character, while Damon's "Champions" character has quite a good sense of humor, and manages a very respectable snark upon occasion.
So, I guess the moral of the story should be something along the lines of: "sometimes our families get it right -- so right, in fact, that it's almost scary." Or perhaps it's "don't be an ungrateful little snob, no matter what you think about the shopping habits of your near-and-dear, 'cause a gift given out of love can knock your socks off now and then, no matter how cheap the price tag."
Or maybe it's just, "don't be such a lazy procrastinator, since you never know what you're missing along the way." I'll try to take all of those to heart.
(no subject)
If it makes you feel any better, my husband and I have DVDs over 2 years old we haven't gotten to yet. We get so many that they just build up, and it takes awhile to watch a season of something. Currently we have 8 seasons of television in our queue. Yikes!
(no subject)