Tag: https://thesoundofonehandtyping.com

Kinks Weeks – When I Turn Off The Living Room Light …thesoundofonehandtyping.com

This post is by John from https://thesoundofonehandtyping.com . John’s blog has different subjects and he will post songs that I had completely forgot about. I like talking guitars with John also…He is an internet disc jockey, lover of old TV (especially the commercials), inveterate wise guy.

I’m not a huge Kinks fan, as I told Max, but there is one song I’m familiar with that I’m rather fond of…

Back in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, Warner Brothers Records would advertise sample albums on the inner sleeves of their albums. They were cheap as chips (maybe $2 for a double album), and had songs from albums they were trying to sell. That’s where I first heard this song, “When I Turn Off The Living Room Light.” At the time, the song was marked as “unreleased,” but it later appeared on the band’s 1973 Reprise album, The Great Lost Kinks Album. Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Lost_Kinks_Album), which, as everyone knows, is The Blogger’s Best Friend (trademark), tells the story of that album…

On 2 July 1969, Ray Davies and manager Robert Wace delivered numerous tracks to Reprise Records’s offices. Most of them were for the Kinks’ 1969 studio album, Arthur, as well as a potential Dave Davies solo album. They delivered an extra reel of twelve songs, marked as “spare tracks” and not assigned a master tape number, indicating they were likely not planned for an immediate release. Author Doug Hinman suggests the additional songs’ delivery was likely due to a contractual obligation that the Kinks provide the label a set number of songs over a scheduled period. Ray Davies later expressed he was hesitant to deliver them because he did not feel they were up to standard and wanted to include a note explaining, “please, we’re just fulfilling our contract, just put it in a vault somewhere.”

 In 1971, the Kinks’ seven-year contract with Reprise was set to expire. Disappointed with several clauses in the band’s contract, Davies opted to instead sign the band with RCA Records. The same year, Reprise rejected the Percy soundtrack album for US release, finding it lacked commercial potential in the American market. Because they did not release Percy, executives at Reprise determined that the Kinks contractually owed the label one more album.

All that said, here’s the song. I will warn you that the first line implies that Jewish women aren’t attractive. At the time, I was in high school where a significant number of my classmates were Jewish girls, many of whom were VERY attractive, so I don’t know what he was talking about… Anyway, the lyrics are in the video…

…

TV Draft Round 10 – Pick 2 – John Selects – The Avengers

The Avengers was a British TV series made by Associated British Corporation and ran for six seasons between 1961 and 1969. That came as a surprise to me, because I only remember the last two seasons. More on that later.

The one constant character in the series was John Steed, the bowler-hatted, Saville Row-suited, umbrella-carrying member of an unnamed British organization that simultaneously fights crime and deals in espionage and counter-espionage missions. Steed was played to perfection by Patrick Macnee.

Surprisingly, Steed was not the original lead character in The Avengers. That honor goes to David Keel, a physician whose fiancee was murdered. He was determined to find her killer when he crossed paths with Steed, who was after the same man for a different reason. By the end of the second episode, Keel and Steed had formed a partnership. Keel was played by Ian Hendry.

After the first season, Hendry left to go into movies (notably the Vincent Price classic Theater Of Blood) and the series was re-tooled with Steed as the lead character. His first partner was Venus Smith, a nightclub singer with no background in crime fighting or espionage. She was smitten with Steed, which was the only thing that kept them together. Venus was played by Julie Stevens.

His next companion was Mrs. Catherine Gale, an anthropologist who was an expert in judo and had a penchant for leather clothes. Cathy had been widowed in Kenya, and saw her work with Steed as service to her country. Some of the first Cathy episodes in Season 2 were originally written for Keel, and his lines (with modifications as needed) were simply given to Cathy. Cathy was played by the amazing Honor Blackman.

Cathy was unlike any other female character on British TV at the time. She was older (in her early-mid 30’s) and, because the scripts for her were originally written for Keel, was more mature and apt to argue with Steed. The attraction between the two of them became obvious, particularly in the third season, although it never got past the flirting and innuendo stage. At the end of the third season, Ms. Blackman was cast as Pussy Galore in the James Bond film Goldfinger, and left the cast.

At about the same time, the American Broadcasting Corporation in the US signed a deal with Associated British Corporation to co-produce the show, with ABC (US) airing all the new episodes. ABC (UK) agreed to shoot the new episodes on 35mm film rather than videotape, resulting in a clearer picture and better sound.

Honor Blackman’s replacement was Diana Rigg, as Mrs. Emma Peel.

The demeanor of the show changed with Mrs. Peel’s debut. Compare the theme music from the first three seasons, written by Johnny Dankworth:

with the theme music from seasons 4-6, written by Laurie Johnson:

The relationship between Steed and Mrs. Peel was more playful, the cases a little more absurd, the technology more advanced. Season 4 was shot in black and white, while seasons 5 and 6 were produced in color.

Diana Rigg left the series at the end of the fifth season. The story was that Mrs. Peel’s husband had been found in the Amazon jungle and he was brought back to England and reunited with his spouse, who then left Steed and rode off into the sunset with her husband. She was replaced almost immediately by Tara King, played by Linda Thorson. Here is that scene.

Unlike Cathy and Emma, Tara (nicknmed “ra-boom-de-ay” by Steed) was a trained (but inexperienced) agent of Steed’s organization. The flirtation between her and Steed was more pronounced, and the cases even more absurd.

I didn’t start watching the show until the fifth season, when ABC in the US ran it on Friday nights. I was twelve at the time, and while it’s unclear whether Diana Rigg in her leather catsuit brought on puberty in me, it certainly fanned the flames.

Our local religious broadcaster (who also shows reruns of Steamboat) has been running the episodes of Seasons 2 and 3 (plus the two or three episodes of Season 1 that still exist) pretty much nonstop for several years now. I seem to remember that Hollywood Video had a number of the videocassettes of those seasons on their shelves until they went out of business, and for some strange reason I believe that the station bought those VHS tapes and has been showing them nightly…

Now, for your listening pleasure, all the opens and closes for the series.

This is the last of my draft picks. I hope you’ve enjoyed them!

TV Draft Round 9 – Pick 3 – John Selects – Riverboat

We have a religious broadcaster in Atlanta that dedicates much of its evening entertainment on its primary subchannel to ancient black-and-white television shows, from the 1950’s and early 1960’s. Some were syndicated shows, while others ran briefly on network TV. One such show was Riverboat, which originally ran on NBC for two seasons, from 1959 to 1961 (31 episodes in the 1959-1960 season and 13 in the 1960-61 season).

The best description I have found for the show is “Wagon Train on a riverboat.” Like Wagon Train, it was an anthology series, this one based around the captain and crew of the riverboat Enterprise. NBC bought into the show as a competitor to ABC’s Maverick, which had lost James Garner, who was replaced by Roger Moore.

The captain of the Enterprise was Grey Holden, played by Darren McGavin. The initial pilot of the boat was Ben Frazer, played by a young Burt Reynolds, who had been cast in an attempt to lure the female viewers of the show. Reynolds left the show after 20 episodes, unable to get along with McGavin; the second season featured Noah Beery Jr. as pilot Bill Blake. Other regulars were, according to Wikipedia:

Dick Wessel, as chief stoker Carney Kohler, was cast in 41 episodes, Jack Lambert was cast in 23 episodes as first mate Joshua MacGregor (having played a different character, Tony Walchek, earlier in the series), John Mitchum co-starred in 10 episodes as Pickalong, the ship’s cook, Michael McGreevey was cast in 17 episodes as cabin boy Chip Kessler, and William D. Gordon played first mate Joe Travis in 13 episodes before his character’s death.

It was considered a Western, even though most of the show’s action took place on the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri Rivers. It took place during the antebellum period of the South; of some concern was the fact that there were no African American characters or actors, this despite the fact that historically the majority of dock laborers were Black or Creole. The network and sponsors of the show didn’t want to upset the viewers, particularly those in the South. The writers and McGavin felt this was stupid, but that was life during that period.

The remainder of the weekly casts were made up of guest stars, such as Mary Tyler Moore, Elizabeth Montgomery, Jeanne Crain, Mercedes McCambridge, Ricardo Montalban, Vincent Price, Eddie Albert, and in one show Sandy Kenyon as a pre-presidential Abraham Lincoln. A full list of the guest stars can be found here.

The shows were well-written with an eye towards the history of that period. There are Indian conflicts, con men, beautiful women, stowaways, dangerous cargo, and plenty of fisticuffs. As Mary would say, it was better than the average schlock. When it went off the air, it was replaced by The Americans, a show set during the Civil War.

If you get a chance, it’s worth your time to see it.

TV Draft Round 8 – Pick 4 – John Selects – The Two Ronnies

Welcome to the Hanspostcard TV Draft. I hope you will enjoy it! Today’s post was written by John from The Sound Of One Hand Typing.

Sunday nights at the Holton house in Chicago would see Mary and I in front of the TV at 10 PM, watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Dave Allen At Large (which it doesn’t look like anyone choe for this; maybe I’ll write it up later), The Two Ronnies, and Doctor Who.

The Two Ronnies was a comedy and variety show that ran on the BBC from April 1971 to December 1987. It starred British comedians and actors Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker. They met in 1963 when Corbett was a bartender at The Buckstone Club in Haymarket, London, and Barker was making a name for himself in the West End and on radio. They first appeared on The Frost Report with John Cleese, but their big break came when they improvised through an eleven minute technical issue at the BAFTA Awards in 1970. In the audience was Bill Cotton, head of Light Entertainment for the BBC, who signed them to a contract.

Personality- and appearance-wise, the two looked completely different: Barker was big, heavy, and spoke with a blue-collar accent, while Corbett was short, slight, and spoke with more of an upper-class accent. They didn’t become a comedy team like Morecambe & Wise and continued to work on separate projects while they were doing the show. They had some of the best comedy writers working with them, including most of the cast of Monty Python’s Flying Circus (John Cleese, Eric Idele, Michael Palin, and Terry Jones), and Spike Milligan, and Corbett wrote some sketches using the pseudonym “Gerald Wiley.” The humor was, for its time, off-color, relied on double-entendres and what would now be considered not politically correct and sometimes downright offensive. Kind of a higher-class The Benny Hill Show.

The show started and ended with a “news broadcast,” where the two would take turns reading humorous fake news items, such as “Someone broke into the local police station and stole all the toilet seats. Police have nothing to go on.” During the rest of the show, they would do comedy sketches together and separately. For example, “Swedish Made Simple.”

Another with the two: “The Inventor’s Convention.”

An example of Barker working alone is “TV Symbols.”

During each show, Corbett would sit in a chair and tell a joke, getting sidetracked as he was telling it.

The last sketch of the show was usually a musical one, in the grand tradition of the British musical theater. Some of the earlier shows had a continuing story instead of the musical number; I don’t recall seeing any of them when they were broadcast on WTTW in Chicago. I have a couple of examples. This is “Yeomen of the Guard.”

Another: “The Sultan’s Harem.”

The show would end as it began, with Corbett and Barker reading some late “news items,” and with a running gag, where Corbett would say, “that’s all we have time for, so it’s good night from me,” and Barker would say “And it’s good night from him.”

All the shows have been released on DVD. Many of them are available from eBay. Britbox or Acorn might have them available as well. Many of their sketches and musical numbers can be found on YouTube as well.

TV Draft Round 7 – Pick 5- John Selects – Burn Notice

Welcome to the Hanspostcard TV Draft. I hope you will enjoy it! Today’s post was written by John from https://thesoundofonehandtyping.com

Burn Notice aired on the USA Network from 2007 to 2013, 111 episodes in all. It was created by Matt Nix, based in Miami, and was a single-camera show.

l-r: Sharon Gless, Bruce Campbell, Jeffrey Donovan, Gabrielle Anwar.

Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan) is a spy. Or he was, until, in the middle of an operation, he gets a call informing him that he’s been burned, identified as an unreliable or risky operative. This comes as he’s closing a deal with a group of Nigerians, who take him out, beat him and leave him for dead. He wakes up sometime later in a hotel, being tended to by his former girlfriend Fiona Glenanne (Gabrielle Anwar), a former member of the IRA, who tells him that he’s in Miami, his hometown.

At this point, he has nothing: no work history, no money, no contacts in the intelligence community; in essence, he doesn’t exist. He’s being surveilled constantly, and knows that, if he leaves Miami, he’ll be arrested. He needs to do something for money, and, more importantly, find out who burned him and why. He enlists the help of Sam Axe (Bruce Campbell), a retired operative and Michael’s best friend, in his pursuits. Sam has no money (he hits on older women to sustain himself) and is known as “the guy who knows a guy.” Both Michael (Army Rangers, Green Berets) and Sam (Navy SEAL) have a Special Forces background, which makes their work as private investigators a natural fit. Fiona invites herself to help them, and her contributions (mostly with firearms) are not insignificant.

Michael’s mother, Madeline (Sharon Gless), usually sits at home, smoking cigarettes and fretting about Michael and his brother Nate (Seth Peterson), but she occasionally gets involved in Michael’s business. One interesting example: when Michael needed a list of names from the DMV, he sent his mother in to get it, where she worked with (and became friends with) a clerk played by Tyne Daly (a reunion of the lead characters in the ’80’s series Cagney & Lacey).

In the fourth season, Michael inadvertently burns another agent, Jesse Porter (Coby Bell). The two eventually reconciled and Jesse joined the group for the remainder of the series.

The shows themselves relied on action and, more importantly, narration by Westen as to what he was doing and why he was dong it, as though he was narrating a training film for operatives. It was a show that had a lot of supporting characters (many of whom were only in one episode) and several interesting subplots. Michael does manage to work his way back into the CIA, only to be hunted, arrested, shot at, and bullied. His friends stood with him, his brother died helping him dispose of a particularly psychopathic agent, and Madeline makes the ultimate sacrifice for him at the end of the series.

There was a prequel movie made, Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe, that aired toward the end of the series, that focused on Sam during his days as a SEAL. Tod Goldberg wrote five tie-in novels that were particularly good that you can probably get at your local used bookstore (that’s where I got mine).

I really enjoyed the series because the characters, as wild and off-the-wall as they seemed, were very relatable. You can feel the heat between Michael and Fiona as their relationship goes from “former lovers” to “lovers,” you can appreciate the friendship between Michael, Sam, and Jesse, and witness Maddie’s love for her sons and Michael’s friends. The series doesn’t seem to be running on TV, but relatively inexpensive used copies of the DVD’s are available on eBay.

TV Draft Round 6 – Pick 6 – John Selects – The Unicorn

Welcome to the Hanspostcard TV Draft. I hope you will enjoy it! Today’s post was written by John from https://thesoundofonehandtyping.com

    A short-lived but very enjoyable show was The Unicorn, which aired 31 episodes over two seasons on CBS. Walton Goggins played Wade Felton, a widower with two daughters, 14-year-old Grace (played by Ruby Jay) and 12-year-old Natalie (played by Makenzie Moss). As the pilot opens, Wade is digging through a chest freezer, looking for an approprite dinner among the many that were prepared for them during his wife Jill’s hospitalization and death a year earlier. The house is a mess, dogs are sleeping on the counter, and the girls are sitting in the living room, watching TV and playing with their phones, saying “yes” or “no” toi whatever their father digs out of the freezer. Two of Wade’s friends, Forrest (played by Rob Corddry) and Delia (played by Michaela watkins) are watching the disorder in the Felton home and are worried about their friend, who seems to be living life on autopilot.

    They discuss this with another couple, Ben (played by Omar Miller) and Michelle (played by Maya Lynne Robinson) and come to the conclusion that Wade needs to get back out into the world and start building a social life, specifically that he needs to dating again. A fortyish widower with an established career (he’s a landscape designer), a home, and two daughters make him a “unicorn,” considered a prime catch on the dating scene, a rare established and stable man.

    Wade is reluctant at first, then on the evening he pulls the last prepared meal out of the freezer, the enormity of his situation catches up with him and leaves him practically catatonic. He agrees to complete a profile on a dating site, and when he submits it he’s bombarded with messages from women. When he tells his daughters that he intends on starting to date again, Natalie freaks out, thinking that he’s going to replace their mother. Grace calms her down, saying that their father deserves a life.

    Thus begins Wade’s saga of trying to balance being home for his girls and finding love in a dating scene that has changed significantly in the twenty years he’s been out of it, all while carrying the grief that losing his wife has brought about. At times poignant, at times hilarious, we see him deal with trouble at home, disastrous dates, his struggles with introducing himself to women he sees and would like to date, breakups, being fixed up, navigating the bar scene, and so on.

    One thing I appreciate is that, unlike a lot of sitcoms, Wade isn’t treated like an idiot by his daughters. He’s believable as their father, and they’re believable as sisters. In one episode, Grace is giefvn the lead role in her school play, Little Shop of Horrors, by a director who was simply trying to be nice because her mother had died. Wade at first tells her that if she wants to quit the play, it’s all right, not wanting to see his little girl look like a fool, but then reminds her that her mother would make her see it through. Naturally, she does a fantastic job as the female lead.

    You can find the show on the Paramount+ application and website; I purcheased it on the Amazon Prime website. That might be the only way to see it, at least until one of the classic TV stations picks the show up, if in fact they do that. Perhaps one weekend it’ll air on the “Decades Binge.” We can only hope…

TV Draft Round 5 – Pick 7 – John Selects – CSI: Miami

Welcome to the Hanspostcard TV Draft. I hope you will enjoy it! Today’s post was written by John from https://thesoundofonehandtyping.com

  • Show: CSI: Miami
  • Network: CBS
  • Seasons: 10, 2002-2012

When CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (also known as CSI: Las Vegas) turned out to be such a hit when it debuted at the start of the new millennium, its producers said, “Hey! Let’s do a whole lot of them! Same thing, just in different cities!” Or perhaps it was the suits at CBS who said it. Anyway, no doubt they got together and decided that the second show should be set somewhere with a lot of violent crime and a lot of good-looking people (primarily women) running around scantily clad. So, they chose Miami, associated (rightly or wrongly) with illegal trade in both drugs and firearms and with lots of good-looking people running around in swimwear. As an added bonus, Miami is a city with a large Caribbean population, thus bringing that demographic into play.

The result was a show that played heavily on stereotypes and featured much more blood and carnage than its predecessor. Unlike its predecessor, which relied heavily on quirky crimes and equally quirky CSI’s solving them, CSI: Miami relied primarily on stories of gang wars waged by opposing drug kingpins who spent most of their time lounging by their swimming pools, surrounded by pneumatically-gifted and surgically-enhanced women in skimpy swimwear, while their footsoldiers went out and wreaked havoc on each other, and often innocent bystanders. Okay, that’s a bit of an oversimplification, but the longer the show was on the air, the more one-dimensional it became.

The Miami-Dade CSI’s were led by Lt. Horatio Caine, played by NYPD Blue alum David Caruso. David obviously prepared for the part by watching all of the “Dirty Harry” movies and episodes of (the original) Hawaii Five-O, because the character of Caine came off as a cross between Clint Eastwood and Jack Lord, in other words, a laid-back hard ass.

Just as the original CSI had Catherine Willows (Marg Helgenberger) as a counterpart for Gil Grissom (William Petersen), the original plan was to have Caine have a female counterpart as well. After Sela Ward (who eventually joined the cast of CSI:NY) turned that role down, the job was given to Kim Delaney, another NYPD Blue alum. She was gone after ten episodes, officially because there was “no chemistry” between her character and Caine. Rumor had it, however, that Caruso wanted her out.

Assisting Caine was Calleigh Duquesne, a petite, blonde, blue-eyed, and stunningly beautiful young woman played by the equally petite, blonde, blue-eyed, and stunningly beautiful Emily Procter. Calleigh was originally from New Orleans (although she sounded like she was from North Carolina, as is Ms. Procter) and joined the Miami CSI’s as a ballistics expert. The appeal was obvious: a beautiful blonde Southern girl who liked guns. Calleigh’s father was a down-on-his-luck attorney from New Orleans who drank a lot.

Calleigh had an on-again, off-again relationship with fellow CSI Eric Delko, played by Adam Rodriguez. Delko was a dedicated and responsible CSI who was frequently called on to don a scuba suit and look for evidence underwater. Tim Speedle (played by Rory Cochrane), on the other hand, though he was an excellent CSI, was a bit blasé about maintaining his pistol, which eventually led to his death. He was replaced by Ryan Wolfe (played by Jonathan Togo), who was obsessive-compulsive about maintaining his gun (and just about everything else).

Halfway through the series, a second female CSI, Natalia Boa Vista (played by the quite lovely Eva LaRue), was added to the cast to run around with Calleigh to crime scenes dressed as though they were going to a nightclub, in revealing tops, white pants, and high heels. Lt. Frank Tripp (played by Rex Linn) was a semi-regular member of the cast who was finally added to the permanent cast.

The Miami CSI’s were more likely than their Las Vegas counterparts to get involved in doing actual police work. With Caine in particular, you wondered “is this a CSI or a plainclothes cop?” Many of the relationships in the stories were with Caine, either family members such as Yelina Salas (played by Sofia Milos), who was his sister-in-law, and Julia Winston (played by Elizabeth Berkley from Saved By The Bell), who played a woman he had had an affair with, resulting in a son (played by, of all people, Justin Bieber).

For all of its faults (and I’ve barely scratched the surface here), CSI: Miami was fairly well-received, doing fairly well in the ratings and earning its share of awards, and it continues to be popular in syndication. The stories were generally well thought-out, although the execution was at times heavy-handed.

TV Draft Round 4 – Pick 8 – John Selects – JAG

Welcome to the Hanspostcard TV Draft. The remaining 7 rounds will be posted here. We will have 64 different TV Shows by 8 different writers. I hope you will enjoy it! Today’s post was written by John from https://thesoundofonehandtyping.com

  • SHOW: JAG
  • NETWORK: NBC (Season 1), CBS (Seasons 2-10)
  • YEARS: 1995-2005

From a high-concept perspective, JAG was Perry Mason meets Top Gun. It centered around Harmon Rabb Jr., played by David James Elliott, whose father was a Navy fighter pilot during the Vietnam War. Rabb Sr. was shot down over Vietnam and taken prisoner by the Viet Cong. Rabb Jr. decides to follow his father into the Navy as a fighter pilot. On one mission, he crashed his plane on the flight deck of a carrier. This led to a diagnosis of night blindness and made him unfit for flight duty. He transfers to the Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps, which is responsible for “administrative law, government contracting, civilian and military personnel law, the law of war and international relations, environmental law, etc. They also serve as prosecutors for the military when conducting courts-martial.”

The show was cosiderably different in its first season than the rest of its run. LT (later LCDR) Rabb was assisted in his investigations by LTJG Meg Austin, played by Tracey Needham (last seen on NBC’s Life Goes On), and did more investigations than arguing cases in court. His partner for the two-part pilot episode was LT (Kate) Pike, played by Andrea Parker. Evidently NBC wasn’t impressed with the chemistry between Harm and Kate, though later Parker was hired to play Miss Parker on the network’s Pretender. The chemistry between Harm and Meg was practically nonexistent, so then a third female JAG officer, Commander Allison Krennick (played by Andrea Thompson) was added as a supervisory officer. Cmdr. Krennick quite clearly had the hots for Rabb, but the relationship stayed professional, even prickly, during working hours.

The first season ended with Harm thrown in the brig for murdering a former girlfriend, LTJG. Dianne Schonke, who was played by Catherine Bell. (This will play a role later in the show.) Producer Donald Bellisario clearly intended for this to be the season finale cliffhanger, but NBC cancelled the show for low ratings.

JAG was picked up by CBS and was a midseason replacement in January 1997. In the first episode, Harm meets the new JAG, RADM A. J. Chegwidden (played by John M. Jackson, who had a minor role as the JAG in A Few Good Men), and the rest of his team, including LTJG Bud Roberts (played by Patrick Labyorteaux, who reprised his role from the pilot) and Marine MAJ Sarah “Mac” McKenzie, played by the aforementioned Catherine Bell. (Strangely, Bellisario didn’t clear up the cliffhanger from the first season until the middle of the third season.) When Harm sees Mac, he’s haunted by his former girlfriend, and that remains throughout the rest of the series.

Harm has two primary objectives when the show starts: to find out what happened to his father and to go back to flying F-14’s. He accomplishes the first objective in the third season, when a notebook found during an investigation contains information that could lead to Harm finding his father at last. Of course, the notebook disappears, taken by a Soviet agent who later agrees to give it to him. In the season 3 finale, he and Mac (who speaks Russian) take off for Russia, then in the season 4 season premiere Harm learns that his father died not long before he arrived. Also in Season 4, we learn that Mac is a recovering alcoholic, has been married before, and had an affair with a previous commanding officer, and is reprimanded by the Admiral for it. Also arriving on the scene in season 4 is LCDR Mic Brumby of the Royal Australian Navy (played by Trevor Goddard), mostly to woo Mac and make Harm jealous. By the end of Season 4, Harm has been approved to go back to flight duty and leaves JAG.

Season 5 starts with Harm as a fighter pilot again, but for some reason he keeps getting hauled into prosecuting or defending courts martial. Finally his commanding officer recommends that he go back to being a lawyer, which he does. When he gets back to JAG, he discovers that Mac has been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and that she and Mic are becoming an item. He now has new objectives: get Mac back and be promoted to Commander.

And the wheels kind of come off at that point. Over the next five years, Bud, kept in the show more for comic relief than anything, marries LT Harriett Sims and the two have several children. Mic goes back to Australia, then comes back, getting engaged to Mac, who secretly has been in love with Harm the whole time, something that comes out during her engagement party (how embarassing). LCDR Sturgis Turner (played by Scott Lawrence), a friend of Harm’s from the Naval Academy, joins the cast more for diversity than anything. Turner helps Bud get back into shape, whereupon Bud volunteers for duty in Iraq, only to have his legs blown off. Chegwidden falls in love and is ready to get married, only to find his bride-to-be in bed with another man. They break up and he retires to spend the rest of his life traveling around the country with his daughter and going to baseball games. His replacement is Marine Major General “Biff” Creswell, who had prosecuted Mac’s lover, so she’s worried he’ll hold it against her, but he tells her that he figured she was young and stupid and she’d get a clue and straghten up. David James Elliott’s real-life wife Nanci Chambers joins the cast as LT Loren Singer, who has designs on the Admiral’s job, but is eventually murdered, providing the basis for introducing the cast and premise of NCIS.

The show ends with Harm and Mac being sent to opposite corners of the world, deciding they can’t live without each other, and that one will resign their commission and follow the other, they’ll get married and live happily ever after. They decide to let Bud toss a coin to decide who stays and who goes, and the show concludes with the coin in the air.

Okay, so JAG was a soap opera. There were many more characters and many more things that happened than I was able to squeeze in here. Nevertheless, it was an entertaining show with well-crafted characters, interesting stores and plenty of humor.

TV Draft Recap Rounds 1 & 2

Welcome to the Hanspostcard TV Draft. The remaining 8 rounds will be posted here. We will have 64 different TV Shows by 8 different writers. I hope you will enjoy it! 

This is a recap of rounds one and two that were held earlier. Hope you will join us on April 11, 2022… Monday at 9am CST to kick it off. 

Round 1TV ShowWho PostedHome Site
1.Doctor WhoVichttps://cosmic-observation.com/blog-posts/
2.The Sopranos Mikehttps://musiccitymike.net
3.Bozo’s Circus Johnhttps://thesoundofonehandtyping.com 
4.Barney MillerMaxhttps://powerpop.blog
5.The WireKirkhttps://slicethelife.com/
6.Police SquadKeithhttps://nostalgicitalian.com/
7.Only Murders in the Building (OMITB)Paulahttp://paulalight.com
Round 2
1.The Odd CoupleMikehttps://musiccitymike.net
2.Cartoon TownJohnhttps://thesoundofonehandtyping.com 
3.Fawlty TowersMaxhttps://powerpop.blog
4.Rockford FilesKirkhttps://slicethelife.com/
5.Mission ImpossibleKeithhttps://nostalgicitalian.com/
6.FireflyVichttps://cosmic-observation.com/blog-posts/