"THE RIFLEMAN" - S#!T CARSON

'THE RIFLEMAN'

"End Of A Young Gun"

When Will Fulton was recovering from a broken leg at the McCain ranch, he told Lucas how his parents had been killed when a man named Carson stole their farm.

If it's the man I'm thinking of, I don't think this Carson would have done the job himself. He probably had men working for him to do his dirty work. Everybody would know that they were Carson's hired thugs, but there would never be any proof to that fact. It would have been these outlaws who committed the murderous land grab, but it would have been on Carson's orders.

And who was this man named Carson?

I think he was the former Senator from Nevada, perhaps related (at least in Toobworld) to Kit Carson after whom Carson City, Nevada, was named. He was seen in the 'Bonanza' episode "The Iron Butterfly".
 Carson was a bitter, brutal man by the time he ordered his men to kill the Fultons, having lost his son in 1871 during an altercation with Hoss Cartwright over an actress. Carson served as one of the state's senators at some point between 1864 (when the state was founded) to some time after the events of "The Iron Butterfly" took place. (Although it could be he was already retired from Congress by 1871; Ben Cartwright would still have addressed him as "Senator" as a formal courtesy.)

By 1881, when Will Fulton arrived at the McCain ranch, Senator Carson was apparently  focusing his energies on building his personal wealth and his own private empire - by stealing the land of his neighbors.

BCnU!

LANDON ROLES ON "THE RIFLEMAN"

'THE RIFLEMAN'
"End Of A Young Gun"
When Mark gets caught on a mountain ledge, a young outlaw risks his life to rescue him and breaks his leg doing so.

"The Mind Reader"
A young man accused of a murder he didn’t commit is finally cleared by the accidental discovery of a “mind reader.”

We met two of Little Joe Cartwright's children in the 'Bonanza' TV movie sequels - Benj and Sara. But he may have had at least one other son many years earlier, when he was practically still a boy himself.

"Hello, Darlin'...."

At some point in 1861, when he was 19 years old, Little Joe could have had an affair with a married homesteader named Mrs. Fulton. (She may even have been his first.) Mrs. Fulton already had a son Henry (known by the nickname "Hank") by her husband; but for whatever reason, she felt the need to stray outside her marriage. And from that affair (which was more than likely just a one-night stand), she became pregnant by Little Joe but passed the child off as her husband's. (The virility of TV characters being akin to that of the Greek gods, a child would naturally have resulted from the one-night stand.)

Little Joe Cartwright (left) and Will Fulton (right)

As he got older, it would eventually become evident by his physical features that William "Will" Fulton was the son of Little Joe Cartwright. But the buffalo chips never hit the fan with any revelation of the scandal, however. When Will was still young, probably no more than fifteen, he and his half-brother Hank were left orphans after their parents were killed by a man named Carson who stole their land.

The Fulton boys turned to crime in their grief, but Will's heart was never into it. The outlaw life may have eventually led to his death, had his path never crossed with Mark McCain and his father Lucas (who was also known as 'The Rifleman'.)

(Both Lucas and Mark McCain kept journals of their life in Northfork, New Mexico, which are available on line where you can read Lucas' account of their encounter with Will Fulton.)

That episode of 'The Rifleman', "End Of A Young Gun", took place from August through September of 1881, not long after the McCains bought the Dunlap ranch. So if Will Fulton was nineteen years old as the Marshal figured, then he was born in 1862. And if he was the son of Little Joe Cartwright, he was probably conceived in 1861, when Little Joe was only nineteen himself. (Little Joe was born in 1842.)

I've looked through the 'Bonanza' episode guide to see if there was any place in which an off-screen "adventure" could have taken place in which Little Joe was able to conceive a son by Mrs. Fulton. The easiest answer would be during the show's hiatus between the second and third season, at some point between "Sam Hill" [June 3, 1961] and "The Smiler" [September 24, 1961.]

Why 1961? A prominent 'Bonanza' fan-site says that the common thinking in establishing the dateline for the show is that each season was broadcast 100 years after the "actual" events took place. So if we're looking for something that happened in 1861, it had to be found in (or between) the episodes shown in 1961. I tend to agree with that thinking.

But I did find an actual episode which definitely had pozz'bilities to be the framework in which Little Joe met and impregnated Mrs. Fulton......

From "Bonanza: Scenery Of The Ponderosa":
59.) The Gift
April 1, 1961
While crossing the desert to Yuma, Arizona, with a white stallion intended as a birthday present for Ben, Joe runs into a pack of merciless comancheros. His companion, a former comanchero, Emiliano, who raised the horse, must get he and Joe through safely. A season two highlight of the series.

While he was on the way to Yuma to make the purchase of the horse, Little Joe may have spent the night with Mr. and Mrs. Fulton and their son Hank.

(In my imagination, I see the situation develop along the same lines as seen in the movie "The Missouri Breaks" when John P. Ryan's character of Cy was going to sleep in the barn of another homesteader family, and the wife showed him out to the barn......)

Since Will Fulton voluntarily turned himself in and returned the loot stolen by Hank and his gang, he may have been given a much-reduced sentence by Judge Hanavan (perhaps influenced by Lucas McCain's testimony.) I don't think he would have been sent away to prison for any longer a time than six months. After he paid his debt to society, Fulton returned to North Fork, but he had changed his name to William "Billy" Mathis because he wanted a fresh start in life.

(I'm not sure if the shocking conditions we see in today's prisons - as depicted in a show like 'Oz' - existed back then, but a pretty boy like Will......? It must have been uncomfortable in the saddle on the ride back to North Fork.......)

Unfortunately for Will, it looks as though the lovely young Ann Bard who met him while he was recuperating at the McCain ranch couldn't wait for him to serve out his sentence. By the time we meet up with him again - as I said, now with the moniker of Billy Mathis - he was seeing the daughter of another rancher, Lucy Hallager.

Billy ended up being framed for the murder of Lucy's father, who told Billy publicly to stay away from his daughter. (Probably because of Billy's time spent in prison and riding with Hank Fulton's gang.) Things were going so badly for Billy during the trial that Lucy broke him out of the jail. (Because of incidents like this, Marshal Micah Torrance now has a bad reputation among many televisiologists. But if he was better at his job, there wouldn't have been that much for "the Rifleman" to do.)

Luckily, North Fork was visited by a traveling "mind reader" named John Barrow McBride whose "powers" were used to flush out the real killer. Billy and Lucy were then free to start new lives; and since they were never seen again in North Fork, it's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, that Lucy sold the family ranch to finance their future together.

I was tempted to say that Billy pursued a career in the cavalry - as seen with an unnamed Michael Landon character in an episode of 'Cheyenne', but the Toobworld timeline prohibits that. "Decision" took place back in the 1870's, as did the 'Cheyenne' series in general.

On second thought, that's probably a good thing, considering.....

One last thing:

One thing I always enjoy about the Toobworld timeline is how sometimes events are broadcast out of order. We got to meet Michael Landon's character(s) of Will Fulton/Billy Mathis a few years before he finally hit the big time with his signature role of Little Joe Cartwright on 'Bonanza'......

BCnU!

"THE RIFLEMAN" - FAKER OATS

'THE RIFLEMAN'
"Home Ranch"
After two of Oat Jackford’s cowhands burn the McCain’s house, drag Lucas, and steal his rifle, Lucas goes to hunt Jackford and his men to inform them that he and his boy are there to stay.

"The Money Gun"
Bookkeeper Asa Manning hires a professional gunman to provoke his client, a bully rancher who suspects him of embezzlement, into a gunfight.

"Trail Of Hate"
Lucas goes on a hunt for bank robbers after Mark is badly hurt while being held hostage.

From "The Rifleman Episode Guide List"

 When Lucas McCain's ranch-house was burned down by some of Oat Jackford's men, McCain went hunting for his neighboring rancher to settle the score.


The only thing was, the man he found wasn't the real Oat Jackford, even though his own cowhands believed him to be.

He was Ben Stark, a criminal passing himself off as Oat Jackford, who must have been out of North Fork on business. As for the ranch hands, Stark probably hired them, telling them that he was Oat Jackford. He then kept them out on the plains to avoid meeting anybody else in Jackford's employ or family and thereby learning the truth.

I can't say why Ben Stark was pulling this scheme, but he must have been planning to steal something large from Jackford. Maybe it was statuary, something akin to the MacCready Bust (as seen in 'Alias Smith And Jones'.) Perhaps he was going to intercept a shipment coming in on the stage, maybe it was the payroll for the real ranch hands. (And if so, he probably created a ruse to get the real Oat Jackford out of town.)

So Ben Stark needed those itinerant ranch hands to help him get it loaded onto a wagon.

The altercation with Lucas McCain would have been a kink in the plan, but he turned it to his advantage. The real Oat Jackford might have killed Lucas McCain for his insolence and for the beating Luke gave to him. But instead, the fake Oat Jackford sent those new hired hands over to build a new house for Lucas and his son. (They used building supplies bought in town and most likely charged to Oat Jackford's account.)

Nearly two years later, Ben Stark returned to North Fork with his brother and another cowhand in order to rob the bank. Lucas McCain didn't recognize him, or so it looked, but Stark must have chose Lucas as his patsy because he remembered the earlier incident.

How the real Oat Jackford reacted once he returned to North Fork was never made available for viewing by the Trueniverse audience, of course. But it must have contributed to the surly, belligerent attitude displayed by Jackford when he came into town to face down a hired gun. More than likely, he decided to keep quiet about the theft and the expenses incurred to re-build the McCain ranch house rather than be seen as a fool by the rest of the town......

The REAL Oat Jackford


BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: BILLY THE KID

Toobworld Central published two other ASOTV showcases for Billy the Kid in the past - a "Two For Tuesday" spotlight on his appearances in 'Stories Of The Century' and 'The Time Tunnel', and in the Tooniverse during a wild yarn told by Commander McBragg.

Both of those were not the true depictions of Billy the Kid in Earth Prime-Time. 'Stories Of The Century' featured fabrications told by former railroad detective Matt Clark for the penny dreadfuls. And the Billy the Kid who encountered the time travelers Doug and Tony was from a parallel dimension.

As mentioned in the previous post, I think the Billy the Kid played by Dennis Hopper in the 'Sugarfoot' pilot was Billy Turlock and not Henry McCarty AKA William Bonney.

And the Billy the Kid whom Bret 'Maverick' met was an escapee from the local asylum outside of Bubbly Springs.

  But I will accept one portrayal of Billy the Kid to be the official version for Earth Prime-Time......

BILLY THE KID

AS SEEN IN:
'The Tall Man'

AS PLAYED BY:
Clu Gulager

The show was about the uneasy relationship between Billy and "the tall man," Pat Garrett - which may have existed only in legend......

From Wikipedia:
During this time [November of 1880], McCarty became acquainted with an ambitious local bartender and former buffalo hunter named Pat Garrett. While popular accounts often depict McCarty and Garrett as "bosom buddies", there is no concrete evidence that they were ever friends. Running on a pledge to rid the area of rustlers, Garrett was elected as sheriff of Lincoln County in November 1880, and in early December, he assembled a posse and set out to arrest McCarty, at that time known almost exclusively as "Billy the Kid", and he carried a $500 bounty on his head that had been authorized by governor Lew Wallace.

The posse led by Garrett fared well, and his men closed in quickly. On December 19, McCarty barely escaped a midnight ambush in Fort Sumner, which left one member of the gang, Tom O'Folliard, dead. On December 23, the Kid was tracked to an abandoned stone building located in a remote location known as Stinking Springs (near present-day Taiban, New Mexico). While McCarty and his gang were asleep inside, Garrett's posse surrounded the building and waited for sunrise. The next morning, a cattle rustler named Charlie Bowdre stepped outside to feed his horse. Mistaken for McCarty, he was shot down by the posse. Soon afterward, somebody from within the building reached for the horse's halter rope, but Garrett shot and killed the horse, whose body blocked the building's only exit. As the lawmen began to cook breakfast over an open fire, Garrett and McCarty engaged in a friendly exchange, with Garrett inviting McCarty outside to eat, and McCarty inviting Garrett to "go to hell". Realizing that they had no hope of escape, the besieged and hungry outlaws finally surrendered later that day and were allowed to join in the meal.

Sheriff Pat Garrett offered that he responded to rumors that McCarty was lurking in the vicinity of Fort Sumner almost three months after his escape. Garrett and two deputies set out on July 14, 1881, to question one of the town's residents, a friend of McCarty's named Pete Maxwell (son of land baron Lucien Maxwell). Close to midnight, as Garrett and Maxwell sat talking in Maxwell's darkened bedroom, McCarty unexpectedly entered the room.

There are at least two versions of what happened next. One version suggests that as the Kid entered, he failed to recognize Garrett in the poor light. McCarty drew his pistol and backed away, asking "¿Quién es? ¿Quién es?" (Spanish for "Who is it? Who is it?"). Recognizing McCarty's voice, Garrett drew his own pistol and fired twice, the first bullet striking McCarty in the chest just above his heart, killing him. In a second version, McCarty entered carrying a knife, evidently headed to a kitchen area. He noticed someone in the darkness, and uttered the words, "¿Quién es? ¿Quién es?" at which point he was shot and killed in ambush style. Although the popularity of the first story persists, and portrays Garrett in a better light, some historians contend that the second version is probably the accurate one. A markedly different theory, in which Garrett and his posse set a trap for McCarty, has also been suggested. Most recently explored in the 2004 Discovery Channel documentary, "Billy the Kid: Unmasked", this theory contends that Garrett went to the bedroom of Pedro Maxwell's sister, Paulita, and bound and gagged her in her bed. When McCarty arrived, Garrett was waiting behind Paulita's bed and shot the Kid.

That part of the story never came up during the run of 'The Tall Man'......

It's a somewhat flexible rule of Toobworld Central that if an historical figure gets his or her own TV series, then that should be the official version for Earth Prime-Time. This would trump the "First Come, First Served" rule. So even though 'The Tall Man' strays far from the truth, that matters little in a universe where time travelers and robots roam the Wild West.

As for depictions of Billy in mini-series and TV movies, like similar portrayals of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Marilyn Monroe, they all get separate homes in alternate TV dimensions.

So Clu Gulager is the official Billy the Kid for Toobworld.

BCnU!

"THE RIFLEMAN" - "THE SHARPSHOOTER"

'The Rifleman'
"The Sharpshooter"

After wondering the country for four years, Lucas and Mark finally find the ranch they’d been looking for, but the ranch comes with a price, and Lucas may have to decide between the ranch and his son’s life! (9/30/58) ('Zane Grey Theatre'—3/7/58 - Season 2 — Episode #52)
- From "The Rifleman Episode Guide"

When Virgil Tippert's hand was injured in a gunfight, his days as a budding sharpshooter were over. But he would eventually be able to once again shoot a gun. So he may have devised a plan to still capitalize on what gun skills he still possessed, and yet avoid getting caught in shoot-outs against those looking to burnish their own reputations.

Virgil Tippert may have become one of the world's first professional celebrity impersonators.

Lucas and Mark McCain arrived in North Fork, New Mexico, in 1881, just in time for the annual turkey shoot contest. That year it was held in October, about 3½ months after the death of William Bonney, AKA "Billy The Kid".

From Wikipedia:
Billy the Kid, also known as William Henry McCarty, Henry Antrim and William H. Bonney (allegedly November 23, 1859 – c. July 14, 1881) was a 19th-century American frontier outlaw and gunman who participated in the Lincoln County War. According to legend, he killed 21 men, but he is generally accepted to have killed between four and nine.

Virgil Tippert bore an uncanny resemblance to Billy the Kid, at least the one who was forced to back away from a gunfight with a 'Sugarfoot' lawyer named Tom Brewster. (The evidence for the resemblance between Virgil and Billy can be found in the pilot episode of 'Sugarfoot'.)

Here's what Wikipedia had to say about those claiming to be Billy the Kid:
Legends grew over time that Billy the Kid had somehow cheated death and survived, despite eyewitness accounts of his slaying. In 2004, researchers sought to exhume the remains of Catherine Antrim, McCarty's mother, "so her DNA could be tested and compared with DNA to be taken from the body buried under the Kid's gravestone". Ultimately, the case was bogged down in the courts, "much to the delight of New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who knows all too well the value of Billy as a cultural icon and a draw for tourists". Several men have claimed to be McCarty over the years, and at least two became notable because they were successful in persuading a small segment of the public.

The Billy the Kid who arrived in Blue Rock was the cousin to the town mayor, Barney Turlock*. So he may have been Billy Turlock rather than Billy McCarty/Bonney. But he still decided to take on the moniker "Billy The Kid" to embellish his reputation.

But if this Billy the Kid was able to capitalize on the name, there would be plenty of people who would think he was the real Billy the Kid. And Virgil Tippert could cash in on that by impersonating that version of the legend. (At the time of the 'Sugarfoot' pilot, there was no notice [wanted poster] out on Billy according to Tom Brewster. So he hadn't gone very far yet in establishing his notoriety.)

A Wild West show - of which there were plenty in Toobworld, including Buffalo Bill's (as seen in 'The Murdoch Mysteries') - would have gladly paid Virgil Tippert to do dramatic recreations of Billy the Kid's life.

(Dennis Hopper played Billy the Kid in 'Sugarfoot', as well as Virgil Tippert in 'The Rifleman'.)

BCnU!

* In the real world, Barney Turlock may have been inspired, at least in name, by Doc Scurlock.

From Wikipedia:
Josiah Gordon "Doc" Scurlock (January 11, 1849 – July 25, 1929) was an American Old West figure, cowboy and gunfighter. A founding member of the Regulators during the Lincoln County War in New Mexico, Scurlock rode alongside such men as Billy the Kid.

TVXOHOF REDUX - LUCAS & MARK McCAIN

With a month of posts dedicated to 'The Rifleman', the August induction into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame would have been the perfect time for Lucas and Mark McCain... if it weren't for the fact that they both are members of the Hall already.

Back in 2002, during the online hiatus between the Tubeworld Dynamic website and the Inner Toob blog, Lucas and Mark McCain were inducted together that summer. They were the Western pair in that year-long salute to TV duos. (Even though I didn't have an online presence from April 2002 until August 2004, I at least kept inducting new members into the TVXOHOF.)

The McCains were inducted along with Andy and Opie Taylor, with a hypothetical "Born To Re-Run" suggestion that the Mayberry sheriff and his son were the reincarnations of Lucas and Mark.

Lucas and Mark McCain easily filled the requirements to become members of the Hall, as they each had three separate appearances on TV. (They were the same three programs for both, but they didn't appear together in the third.)

"The Sharpshooter" episode is now shown as the first episode of the series, but it was originally broadcast in 1958 during the second season of 'Zane Grey Theatre', serving as a pilot for 'The Rifleman'. Then the actual show was launched and ran for five seasons.

Their third TV appearance is in one of the great hubs for Toobworld - the TV movie "Gambler IV - Luck Of The Draw". In it, gambler Brady Hawkes made a cross-country trek to San Francisco in 1906 for a big poker game. Along the way he ran into many of the greatest TV Western characters of all time, from shows like 'Cheyenne', 'The Virginian', 'Maverick', 'Wyatt Earp', 'Bat Masterson', 'Kung Fu', and 'The Westerner'.

(About the only ones missing were Matt Dillon, James West, the 'Sugarfoot', 'Hondo', 'Bronco', anybody from the 'High Chaparral' and Kid Curry and Hannibal Heyes, 'Alias Smith and Jones'. Of course, for Toobworld purposes, it's a good thing those last two didn't appear, due to recastaway problems.)

Hawkes was rescued by Lucas McCain when he was ambushed near the McCain ranch in New Mexico. Since McCain was well-known as "The Rifleman" more than twenty years earlier (as often depicted in the series), it's not surprising that Brady Hawkes knew who he was.

Later in Colorado, Mark McCain was seen working on the set of a silent movie. He was drafted into performing as a stunt man for a scene and inadvertantly created the first fictional portrayal of the Lone Ranger. (Here's hoping that Mark McCain would have a bright future as a silent movie cowboy star in Toobworld.)

So there's the three requirements:

'Zane Grey Theatre'
'The Rifleman'
"The Gambler IV: Luck Of The Draw"

Chuck Connors died in 1992, not long after the "Gambler" TV movie, but John Ernest Crawford is still going strong as an actor and musician in the Los Angeles area. (I follow him as a Facebook friend.) So there's always a chance that Mark McCain might one day re-appear in Toobworld. It may seem like a long shot, given the status of TV Westerns in today's television landscape, but who knows?

After all, 'Cheyenne' Bodie showed up in an episode of 'Kung Fu: The Legend Continues'!

BCnU!

TVXOHOF, 07/2011 - AMOS BURKE

Here it is, the middle of July, I'm on the eve of my vacation, and I forgot to induct a new member into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame for the month. And I better do it now, because by the time I get back, it'll be time to induct our August Westerner!

And so, we're inducting the wealthiest police detective in all of Telemerica:

AMOS BURKE

This month's choice was spurred by a memorial induction back in May - Honey West. (She was chosen in tribute to Anne Francis, who died earlier in the year.)

Honey West is a multiversal who got her start in a series of novels, but her life in Toobworld began with an episode of 'Burke's Law'. From there she launched into her own series and finally returned to 'Burke's Law' decades later (but now with the married name of "Best".)

The main character of 'Burke's Law' was the type of detective you could probably only find in Toobworld - Amos Burke was a millionaire who didn't bother to lead a life of leisure. Intead he was a captain in the Homicide Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. Eventually he became the chief of the bureau.

(As such, certain LAPD detectives may have worked for him - Lt. Columbo, Pepper Anderson, Dennis Becker, Baretta, Hunter, Starsky & Hutch, and the Major Crimes squad - but before Assistant Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson, known for her skills as 'The Closer', joined the team.)

In its third season, Amos Burke became a globe-trotting spy who answered to "The Man" - 'Burke's Law' became 'Amos Burke, Secret Agent'. At first it was the Toobworld Central ruling that this was an Amos Burke from an alternate TV dimension. Same man, different life.

But because I wanted to make Mr. Sin (a character played by Michael Dunn) into an alias for Dr. Loveless, I needed to keep the show's reboot in Earth Prime-Time.

So now Amos Burke took a sabbatical from the LAPD at the government's request and worked as an intelligence operative.

Again, only in Toobworld.

By the early 1990's, we learned that not only had Amos Burke resumed his duties with the LAPD years before, but he was now in charge of the Homicide Division but also that he was working with his son Peter.

(This is not the same Peter Burke who now works for the FBI in New York, as seen in 'White Collar'. But he could be a nephew to Amos Burke.)

So Captain Burke's candidacy for membership in the Hall does have a bit of a grey area. There are two versions of 'Burke's Law' - the original and the sequel - and then there's the sequel of 'Amos Burke, Secret Agent'. (While it followed immediately after the original series, it had a radical change in premise as well as a new title. Claiming it as a different series is the same argument made regarding 'Archie Bunker's Place' during Archie's induction.)

Add to that Amos Burke as the introduction to Honey West, so his show had two sequels and a spin-off. If you search Inner Toob for 'Burke's Law', you'll see that I've made plenty of theoretical connections to other shows as well.

Besides all of that, Amos Burke was quite the colorful character, highly prized in Toobworld's Tele-folks Directory.

And that's why he's "Mr. July" for 2011 in the TV Crossover Hall of Fame.

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: BILLY BOB THORNTON

BILLY BOB THORNTON

AS SEEN IN:
'Star Stories'

AS PLAYED BY:
Trevor Lock

From Wikipedia:
Billy Bob Thornton (born August 4, 1955) is an American actor, screenwriter, director and musician. Thornton gained early recognition as a cast member on the CBS sitcom Hearts Afire and in several early 1990s films including On Deadly Ground and Tombstone. In the mid-1990s, after writing, directing, and starring in the independent film Sling Blade, he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He appeared in several major film roles following Sling Blade 's success, including 1998's Armageddon and A Simple Plan. During the late 1990s, Thornton began a career as a singer-songwriter. He has released three albums and was the singer of a blues rock band.

Once again, a televersion from that "doofus" TV dimension which also houses 'That's My Bush!' and 'The Secret Files Of Desmond Pfeiffer'.  Billy Bob's televersion in this world has a secret fear of furniture, but that's now limited to chairs of the Bauhaus period.

BCnU!

KIBBLES AND TOOBITS - A LOOK AT "WILFRED"

FX has a new sitcom based on an Australian show by the same name - 'Wilfred'. The premise is certainly... different - a guy named Ryan befriends a dog belonging to his sexy neighbor; but whereas everybody else sees Wilfred as the dog he should be, Ryan sees him as a rough, bong-toking Australian in a dog suit.

I have a feeling that, like 'Lost' and other shows with a strange, mysterious premise, I'll have to wait until the show finally ends its run before I can make sense of what it all means and how it can fit into the mosaic of Toobworld.

Normally, I'd just say that the American 'Wilfred' was just a remake and so had to be put down - er, dumped into the Land of Remakes. (Somebody! Help me with a name for that TV dimension!) But since the co-creator of the original series is playing 'Wilfred', just as he did in the Australian original, we could say that they both belong in Earth Prime-Time. Wilfred's the same man-dog (or whatever he is) but know living in America. Just tormenting somebody new.

Like I said, we probably won't know until the series' end, if then. But we could make a few guesses as to who - or what - Wilfred is.

1] WILFRED IS A DELUSION FOR BOTH ADAM AND RYAN
That he should look the same to both men on separate continents? Maybe they both drew inspiration from a picture book for kids or a TV-within-TV show aimed at kids with an international audience.

Do you think it strange that grown men would talk to a dog and follow its advice? Tell that to David Berkowitz....

2] WILFRED IS A DEMON
To the rest of the world, he looks to be a dog, but to the souls he torments he's a humanoid canine. Maybe he's only tormenting Ryan because he already drove Adam to suicide Down Under. When we first meet Ryan, he's making the attempt to kill himself, and that may have drawn the demon to him.

And speaking of souls.....


3] WILFRED HAS BEEN REINCARNATED AS A DOG
It's the natural transition in Toobworld - when a human dies, and they have unfinished business, they come back as a dog. (But don't tell the Minbari that!) If so, he probably died again while hanging out with Adam, only he didn't advance to the next level but instead he came back as a dog again. (We even have precedence for that, with Buck Bundy dying and being sent back from Animal Heaven as Lucky Bundy on 'Married... With Children'.)

Usually when we as the Trueniverse audience see a reincarnated dog, they look like a dog but we can hear their voice and/or thoughts - Cleo of 'The People's Choice' and 'Poochinsky', for instance. But in this case we see the human embodiment of Wilfred's soul blended with the trappings of fur.

Fur trappings. Heh heh. Heh heh.....

And the reason Ryan can see this is because he had been so near to death himself when he tried to kill himself.

4] WILFRED IS A QUANTUM LEAPER FROM THE FUTURE
There was an episode of 'Quantum Leap' where Dr. Sam Beckett leapt into the life of a chimpanzee. The same situation may have happened here, where a leaper from Sam's future, when they can specifically target a "leapee". (Why he would choose a dog on both occasions is unknown, but must be instrumental to his research project.)

Now, supposedly only children, animals, and people with "special needs" can see a leaper. So maybe there's been some damage to Ryan's brain after his suicide attempt......

5] WILFRED IS FROM THE PLANET PARENTHIA
Parenthia is a planet in the Sirius system, which is probably why Sirius is known as the Dog Star. Two of their astronauts, Alpha and Orvis, were brought to Earth by Aunt Clara's magic in an episode of 'Bewitched'. The humanoid canines were mentioned in an episode of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' and they were present at the Restaurant At The End Of The Universe in 'The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy'.

Wilfred could be observing human life on Earth in preparation for an invasion by his homeworld. His presence is masked by either a glamour device or by a magical spell cast by another practitioner of the dark arts. First he checked out life in Australia and is now living large near Venice Beach in California.

His dedication to the operation may be compromised because he's revealed his true identity to Adam and Ryan.

I've just read that last one back. It made a lot more sense when I was popping Puppy Uppers with my neighbor's dog.....

BCnU!

THE RETURN OF CAPTAIN JACK

At the American press screening for 'Torchwood: Miracle Day', former 'Doctor Who' producer Russell T. Davies declared to reporters that there's absolutely no chance that you'll see the Doctor show up within the contest of a 'Torchwood' story. And it's not because he's no longer the man in charge of the TARDIS.

"The Doctor's never gone into Torchwood; it's always been the other way around. Torchwood's gone into 'Doctor Who,' which I think is correct because there's a big child audience for 'Doctor Who,' and I think that would demand if we took The Doctor into Torchwood, it would be a clash of styles."

Steven Moffat is now in charge of 'Doctor Who' and hasn't used anything from the previous run of the series that he didn't create himself - like the Weeping Angels. So Captain Jack might still return to his roots, since Moffat wrote his first stories, "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances". And I think he'd be right in grabbing the former Time Agent for a guest appearance, since RTD had no problem in using the Eleventh Incarnation of the Doctor for a two-part story on 'The Sarah Jane Adventures'. Fair's fair......

BCnU!

A LEVERAGED FATHER'S DAY.....

I think this will remain my favorite in-joke for the entire year. It's definitely the sweetest.....

In "The 10 Li'l Grifters Job", the 'Leverage' episode that aired over the Fourth of July weekend, everybody had to dress up as a "fictional" detective.

Sophie was Irene Adler from "A Scandal In Bohemia", a Sherlock Holmes story.

Parker was Nancy Drew.

Harrison was one of the Hardy Boys.  (Update: Originally I had him listed as Encyclopedia Brown, because that's who he thought he was.  But I've just watched that scene again and Sophie corrects him over the comm-link: he's one of the Hardy Boys.  The big "H" on his sweater should have been a give-away.)

Elliott was real-life Pinkerton agent Charlie Siringo.

But best of all?

Nate Ford (played by Timothy Hutton) was Ellery Queen.....

Timothy Hutton's father, the late Jim Hutton, played Ellery Queen in a 1970's series by the creators of 'Columbo' and 'Murder, She Wrote'.

And seeing Nate Ford in that floppy hat, the tweedy jacket, and the red sweater, it was like seeing Jim Hutton in the role once more.

So when Nate declared Ellery Queen as the greatest detective ever, I think there was more than one voice speaking......

I'll have more on these disguises later in the week....

BCnU!

SKED ALERT: SCENES FROM TONIGHT'S "TRUE BLOOD"!

'Game Of Thrones' is over, but HBO doesn't let you take a break from great TV. The following week after the fantasy series ended its first season, their horror block-buster 'True Blood' returned for a fourth season.

Here are three scenes from the second episode, which debuts tonight at 9 pm ET on HBO. (Check your times and listings.....)

BCnU!

TRASHIN' "TODDLERS & TIARAS"

I wonder if there's such a thing as Video Voodoo..... You alter a video like this and it damns the subject to turn out that way.......

Hopefully, there'll be more opportunities from 'Toddlers & Tiaras' to make videos like this!

BCnU!

ENTER FLASHMAN

We covered the life of Harry Flashman as it appeared - and should have appeared - in Toobworld this past week. Here's the chapter of 'Tom Brown's School Days' which featured the introduction of his character into Earth Prime-Time:

 BCnU!

SHERLOCK HOLMES: PHYSICAL EVIDENCE

Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes
On the left: his first appearance in "A Scandal in Bohemia"
On the right: in his last episode "The Cardboard Box"

The brilliance of Jeremy Brett's portrayal of Sherlock Holmes, the official version of the role for Toobworld, could blind a viewer to the deterioration of his physical health as the various series progressed.

From Wikipedia, here's the story of what was happening outside the box:
After the death of Joan Wilson, Brett struggled with filming the third Granada series, 'The Return of Sherlock Holmes' in late 1985. On the set it was noticed that his manic episodes, his excessive changes of mood, were getting worse and eventually grief and workload became too much; he had a breakdown, was hospitalised and diagnosed manic-depressive.

Brett was given lithium tablets to fight his manic depression. He knew that he would never be cured; he had to live with his condition, look for the signs of his disorder and then deal with it. He wanted to go back to work, to play Holmes again. The first episode to be produced after his discharge was a two-hour adaptation of "The Sign of the Four". From then on the difference in Brett's appearance slowly became more noticeable as the series developed. One of the side effects of the lithium tablets was fluid retention. Brett began to look and act differently. The drugs were slowing him down; he was putting on weight and retaining water. Brett also had heart troubles. His heart was twice the normal size, he would have difficulties breathing and would need an oxygen mask on the set. "But, darlings, the show must go on", was his only comment.

During the last decade of his life, Brett was treated in hospital several times for his mental illness, and his health and appearance visibly deteriorated by the time he completed the later episodes of the Sherlock Holmes series. During his later years, he discussed the illness candidly, encouraging people to recognise its symptoms and seek help.

That certainly answers the questions about Jeremy Brett. But within the reality of Toobworld, what was happening to the state of Holmes' health?

My intent is not to make light of the situation; instead I wish to provide a splainin for the changes to Holmes' appearance by thinking inside the box. Hopefully this would also be in keeping with the "Canon", since he is the televisual embodiment of the original stories.

Although we didn't see it happen on screen, Holmes had begun conducting his experiments into the longevity benefits from the royal jelly of bees long before his retirement to Sussex.

Many Sherlockians believe he was ultimately successful and was able to extend his own life-span (to the point where some claim that Holmes is still alive today!) As with any scientific experiment, there would be many trials and errors during research. And heedless of his own physical well-being (which we know he was wont to do with the use of cocaine and morphine when bored), Holmes would have had no qualms about using himself as the test subject in his royal jelly experiments. He may have been convinced that his physical stamina (as demonstrated in "The Speckled Band") was enough to withstand any detrimental effects caused by his experimental serums.

But each new test caused physical alterations to his body - the bloating, the softening of his once finely honed features.....

Based on what we saw in those last episodes, Holmes never gave a splainin, and Dr. Watson was probably too polite to enquire. And then again, it may have happened in a scene were not privy to.

For Jeremy Brett, that physical deterioration was permanent and he died not long after completing his final story as Holmes. But for Sherlock himself, life continued after the series finale. Eventually he hit upon the right combination of the serum and probably returned to his old self again... with the guarantee of a longer life to boot.

BCnU......

MISSING LINKS: "CHAOS" THEORY

CBS finally started burning off the last episodes of 'CHAO' this past week. Two aired on Friday and the schedule shows three more to come in the next three weeks. And then that will be it for this CIA-based series (much better than 'Covert Affairs' in my opinion), making eight episodes in all.

The action-adventure series was about a division in the CIA called the ODS, and it had a great cast - the four team members were Freddie Rodriguez, Eric Close, James Murray, and Tim Blake Nelson, with Kurtwood Smith as their slow-burn boss and Carmen Ejogo and Christina Cole providing support.

In the episode "Glory Days", a theoretical connection could be made to 'In Plain Sight', which is definitely connected to the greater TV Universe by a crossover with 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent'.

Bruce Boxleitner played Ray Bishop, the legendary spy who created the ODS. In trying to get evidence on the head of Global Intel (a rogue spy corporation), Ray ended up in the hospital. (He thought he was poisoned, but it was an angina attack brought on by the excitement of being back in the "game".)

Michael Dorset, the current head of ODS, told his mentor that two U.S. Marshals were outside his hospital room; they were ready to whisk him away into protective custody just as soon as he was discharged from the hospital.

We never got to see the two U.S. Marshals; they never got involved in the defense against the assassin sent by Global Intel. And that's why I think we can make the claim that they were Marshals Mary Shannon and Marshall Mann, stationed in Albuquerque.

Looks like they're staking out the hospital reception desk

And because the 'CHAOS' episode was broadcast months past the time it should have aired, we can place it on the Toobworld timeline before this season's premiere of 'In Plain Sight'. Long before Mary started showing signs that she had been knocked up by her ex-husband.

So once Ray Bishop got out of Washington, DC, Mary and Marshall flew him to New Mexico where he would get a new identity in the WITSEC program.

It'll be interesting to see if any future one-shot roles played by Boxleitner could be considered to be Ray Bishop in his new identity.....

Ray Bishop:
New location, new identity?



BCnU!

"L&O: CI" FINALE SHOCKER - GOREN BREAKS THE LAW!

The series finale of 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent" ended on a nebulous note - would Detective Robert Goren be able to reconcile himself to a career which he loved but which was driving him crazy? Would he see his partner, Detective Alexandra Eames, as a romantic interest? (When he saw her on the street, he called her "Alex" for the first time in the show's history.)

I couldn't bring myself to think about that as I watched them drive away in the show's conclusion, however. I was too busy screaming at the screen: "Buckle up, you fools! It's the Law!"

BCnU!

SUPER-SIX LIST: "COLUMBO" EPISODES

I'm sending this out to a fellow crossover enthusiast named Gordon. He's seen several of the ABC TV movies about 'Columbo', but he apparently is too young to have seen the original run of the series from NBC. So to help him get started (Netflix online, Gordon!), here is a Super-Six list of my favorite episodes from the series as a whole.

1] "IDENTITY CRISIS"
My all-time favorite TV series is 'The Prisoner', so just for the opportunity to see Patrick McGoohan as the guest star would have been enough. But the episode (directed by McGoohan) is full of allusions to 'The Prisoner' - visual imagery referring to "#1", the design of McGoohan's windbreaker, the phrase "Be Seeing You".... Plus McGoohan's line readings are brilliantly off-kilter - just the way he says "I know!" is a pleasure.

2] "TRY AND CATCH ME"
This mostly has to do with Ruth Gordon as a sweet but crafty Agatha Christie type. But it also has an ingenious solution to the murder, worthy of the grande dame of mysteries.

3] "DAGGER OF THE MIND"
This is the first - and best - of several episodes that played with the show's formula - Columbo in London! (There would also be Columbo on a cruise and Columbo in Mexico.) Now he was in Christie country, complete with a country manor setting, a wax museum, pubs, theatre in the West End, and a gentlemen's club which I've decided was the famed Diogenes Club from the Sherlock Holmes stories.

Peter Falk did some location shooting in London, but most of the episode was shot in California with excellent British ex-pats providing support for Richard Basehart and Honor Blackman as the hammy Shakespearean murderers - Bernard Fox, John Williams, Ronald Long, Arthur Malet, and Wilfred Hyde-White.

(Having now seen John Fraser in an episode of 'The Rivals Of Sherlock Holmes', I'll have to watch "Dagger Of The Mind" again to spot him. He's prominently listed in the end credits, but I just don't remember him in the episode.)

4] "ANY OLD PORT IN A STORM"
The relationship that grows between Columbo and the murderer, Adrian Carsini, culminating in that last visit to the winery is probably the best in the series. And Donald Pleasance as Adrian is so... well, endearing, that it took me many viewings to realize just how ruthless his crime was.

5] "BY DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT"
Again, an episode with Patrick McGoohan as the muderer, and the first of his four appearances. The great thing about his murderers is that each of them looked so different from each other. A problem I always had with the repeat performances by Robert Culp and Jack Cassidy, among others, is that - great as the actors were - how come Columbo never noticed their similarities? Also, this was a nice spin on the formula in which the murderer was undone by that for which he committed the crime. In this case, it was the traditions of the school and subsequent infractions.....

6] "COLUMBO CRIED WOLF"
I'd say this was absolutely brilliant, but one thing mars it - that awful title.

This had the best capper of a revelation at the end since early episodes like "Short Fuse" and "Suitable For Framing". But best of all was the shout-out to the past - a mention of Chief Superintendent Inspector Dirk of Scotland Yard from "Dagger Of The Mind", and an uncredited appearance by Bruce Kirby. He was probably appearing as Sgt. Kramer, now promoted.

This is the only episode of the ABC run to make the list and it mostly had to do with the very inventive script by William Read Woodfield.

'Columbo' is in my top five TV series of all time*, so it was tough to limit this list to my self-proscribed "Super Six". But here's a Top Ten list of runners-up:

"Requiem For A Falling Star"
"Forgotten Lady"
"Uneasy Lies The Crown"
"Prescription: Murder"
"Negative Reaction"
"Etude In Black"
"A Stitch In Crime"
"Candidate For Crime"
"Mind Over Mayhem"
"Lovely But Lethal"

Just one more thing......

I'd watch any 'Columbo' episode over and over again, but I will admit some of them are not that strong. These would be at the bottom of the collection:

"Undercover"
"Dead Weight"
"An Old-Fashioned Murder"
"Make Me A Perfect Murder"
"Lady In Waiting"
"Ransom For A Dead Man"
"No Time To Die"
"Columbo And The Murder Of A Rock Star"
"Murder In Malibu"
"Columbo Likes The Night Life"

Sadly, that was Columbo's swan song.

BCnU.......
 
* Okay, just in case you were interested in my Top Five TV series:
'The Prisoner'
'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'
'The Dick Van Dyke Show'
'Columbo'
'Doctor Who'