The Ray Bradbury Theater: The Playground , which aired in June 1985, features William Shatner as the adult Charles Underhill. On the surface, he’s a loving husband and father, but beneath the surface, he is living with a demon that only he can see. One of his …

I mentioned early on that most of my reviews for the early episodes of The Andy Griffith Show would tend to be glowing. I adore this series and it was so very well produced. That said, there are some shows that I’ve never warmed up to, and …

The Andy Griffith Show: The Manhunt is another solid outing for the first season of this wonderful family television series. It’s a bit of a face off between this small town of Mayberry, its sheriff and his deputy, and the bigger state police of North Carolina and the …

The Andy Griffith Show: The New Housekeeper is the delightful first episode of this landmark TV series. This one deals with the arrival of Beatrice Taylor to take care of Andy Taylor and his son, Opie. Some of my thoughts on this episode follow:
–The opening scene is …

The Andy Griffith Show: Irresistible Andy furthers the new relationship of Andy Taylor and Ellie Walker, the lady druggist who recently moved to Mayberry to assist her uncle, Fred. This show is about a church social and dance which Andy decides to ask Ellie to go to with …

The Andy Griffith Show: Ellie Comes to Town is the show where widower Andy Taylor gets himself a girlfriend in the form of new druggist, Ellie Walker. Elinor Donahue, who viewers watched grow up on Father Knows Best, plays the lady pharmacist, who has come to Mayberry to …

From November 1960, The Andy Griffith Show: Opie’s Charity is one of my favorite episodes of this terrific comedy classic. It’s just incredibly awesome.
This episode is another one that proves that Sheriff Andy Taylor isn’t perfect in any way. He’s human, and boy, does he make some …

The Andy Griffith Show: Andy the Matchmaker is devoted to the concept of Barney’s insecurity and getting him a girlfriend. The first main bit of the show is a funny routine where Barney (Don Knotts) says he’s resigning as Andy’s deputy. One by one, Barney starts placing …

The Andy Griffith Show: Runaway Kid is another winner from the first season of this brilliant family comedy. There’s a lot of importance in this one placed on the father and son relationship between Andy Taylor and little Opie.
I love how the story opens, with Opie and his …

Mary Morris plays Matilda in The Ray Bradbury Theater: There Was an Old Woman. She has a visitor who just sits there and listens as she talks and talks, telling him some story about a little girl named Emily. As I listened, I wonder if this was …

Season 3 of The Ray Bradbury Theater begins with a July 1989 episode called The Dwarf. He’s a writer who meets up with a fan named Aimee.
The action actually begins at the Mirror Maze where the dwarf (Machs Colombani) goes to look at himself in the mirrors. …

Oh no. It’s another story about a ventriloquist and his wooden doll, this one a female. I really don’t like these stories. I recently watched all of The Twilight Zone and there were several shows of this theme there. Then there was one on Mrs. …

Nurse Jackie season one was a great tv show with a premise different from other shows. It is about a nurse who abuses prescription drugs and has an affair with a co worker who is unaware she is married. Nurse Jackie lives a different life at …

Ariel is perhaps the best episode of Firefly, and that is saying a lot. Joss Whedon’s characterization is in top form during this episode. He’s been hinting since the pilot that the only thing that Jayne is really loyal to is money. This episode brings that …

True Jackson VP is a very good sitcom for children. Though in real life, it’s not possible for a teenager to become a vice president of a company at the age of 15 as she is doing office and adult jobs instead of being in high school. True Jackson …

Mash was an old TV show that took awhile to grow onto me but after watching it a few times I thought that the show ended up being great and there was so much that was funny about this show and I honestly think that this show was great. …

Now this is an enjoyable show. I just love, love, love Diagnosis Murder: Naked Babes, which I thought was cute and inventive with some awesome surprise guest casting.
Basically, Amanda is hosting a dinner party at her home. Her guests are her hospital family — Mark, Jack, Delores, …

Quite honestly, I wasn’t as thrilled with Diagnosis Murder: How to Murder Your Lawyer as others might have been. Something about it just didn’t connect with me. I actually wonder if this might have been a pilot for another series. From the start, it felt more …

In Diagnosis Murder: Death in the Daytime, Amanda Bentley (Victoria Rowell) wins a walk-on appearance on the soap opera, The Young and the Restless. Naturally, everyone is happy for her and they all want to go with her. Someone does die, along with members of the Y …

There’s good news and bad news about Diagnosis Murder. The good news was that it was back for another year. An Innocent Murder is the first episode of the show’s third season. Now depending on your preferences, some of the bad news might be deemed good …

Boy, do I not like this show, Diagnosis Murder: My Baby Is Out of This World. In fact, in my view, it was a horrible way to end a TV season. I think they should have reversed this one with the one that aired before it, which …

I don’t care much for Diagnosis Murder: Witness to Murder. There are some nice scenes with Dick Van Dyke as Dr. Mark Sloan trying to help a little girl named Blair who has been abused and doesn’t speak. He reaches her a little through drawing and such. …

Dick Van Dyke’s Dr. Mark Sloan finds himself the foreman on a jury in Diagnosis Murder: Murder in the Courthouse. The case is being prosecuted by Patricia Purcell, portrayed by special guest star Dixie Carter. However, this isn’t a show about the jury coming to a verdict. …

Episode three of season three is Diagnosis Murder: All American Murder. We continue to learn tiny tidbits of Amanda’s marriage to Colin Livingston, who she married in the off-season. They have to remind the audience because she’s very pregnant. They even did another Jack reference, talking …

The woman is on fire in the show business industry. I’m writing about Betty White, who is the primary guest star in this December 1994 show, Diagnosis Murder: Death by Extermination. In this show, White plays Dora Sloan, the sister of Dr. Mark Sloan, played wonderfully by …

Diagnosis Murder: The Bela Lugosi Blues should have been a show that aired in the month of October instead of in January, which it did in 1995, which was about midway through the medical and police drama’s second season. The title alone suggests that it’s an eerie outing, …

If you’ve read my reviews before, you know that one of the themes of TV shows that I don’t like are ones that focus on any kind of hand to hand fighting, such as boxing. These stories do not appeal to me. I tune out early and …

From 1995, Diagnosis Murder: Call Me Incontestable takes on the world of dating outfits. This one is called Perfect Couple and after a friend of Mark’s is murdered, the investigation leads to that business.
Here are a few highlights of this show from my perspective:
–There’s a bit when Mark …

From February 1995, Diagnosis Murder: Playing for Keeps has the hospital sponsoring a local volleyball team. This sets up a situation where Mark Sloan (Dick Van Dyke) has to conduct physicals on all the team members, which figures into the eventual murder of one of the players.
Following are …

Diagnosis Murder: A Blast from the Past begins with Steve Sloan (Barry Van Dyke) getting a friendly threat from Eddie Gault, who he’d sent to prison and is now out on parole. When Gault threatens not just Steve, but Steve’s father, Dr. Mark Sloan (Dick Van Dyke), Steve …

Meet the medical Baywatch, which is what Diagnosis Murder: Sea No Evil is. A swimmer goes out for a morning swim after smiling at a man she assumes is the lifeguard. Then she cramps up and he does all the right moves as he swims out to …

Diagnosis Murder: Murder on the Run: Part II picks up where Part 1 left off, at a dramatic standoff at a railroad station. The problem is that the end of Part 1 was a little misleading. Now isn’t that unusual? About the only good part was …

So far, Diagnosis Murder has done one two-part story each season and this third year is no exception. Diagnosis Murder: Murder on the Run: Part 1 aired in January 1996 with the conclusion airing one week later.
This is a good time to note another change to season three, …

Diagnosis Murder: Love Is Murder has Steve Sloan (Barry Van Dyke) unlucky at love once again. The man has bad choice in women, when he can find one, and as this series progresses, he finds a lot of them. Oddly, a lot of them are some kind …

While Norman Briggs (Michael Tucci) worries about a computer virus infecting the hospital computers, Dr. Amanda Livingston (Victoria Rowell) worries about the death of a young Rugby playing intern who died after a motorcycle crash, only the reason for the death wasn’t accidental. Joining in the action is …

Diagnosis Murder: Misdiagnosis Murder is a show I just don’t enjoy. It’s heavy on the Dr. Jesse Travis (Charlie Schlatter) character, and he’s my least favorite of all. He never follows orders, and he’s so hyper in this outing from the lack of sleep that I just want …

The Stunt was the sixth episode of the second season of the adventure series Sea Hunt. It guest stars Lisa Gaye as Blaze Green, who wants to be the best swimmer out there. She wants Nelson to race her to Catalina Island. He refuses at first, …

From November 1956, Highway Patrol: Typhoid Carrier has Chief Dan Mathews (Broderick Crawford) and his California Highway Patrol dealing with a potential outbreak of typhoid in the small community of Indian Valley. The problem is a man who is a known carrier of the disease. Frightened when …

This is one of those spoof like shows. Diagnosis Murder: The New Healers centers on a television show being shot at Community General Hospital where Dr. Mark Sloan (Dick Van Dyke) works. It’s bringing in some $10,000 a day, which makes Norman Briggs, the hospital administrator very …

Mark Sloan (Dick Van Dyke) celebrates a birthday in Diagnosis Murder: The Busy Body from season two. What this really does is give the show a chance for some slapstick type comedy. This occurs when a policewoman shows up and slaps handcuffs on Mark, only she’s really …

I enjoyed Sea Hunt: Monte Cristo quite a bit for several reasons. For one thing, when we saw scenes in the ocean, we saw some of the sea life. It was a little bit more than some of the shows I’ve seen lately.
For another thing, I loved …

From season two, Broderick Crawford stars as Chief Dan Mathews in Highway Patrol: Magazine Writer. Crawford talks way too fast. It’s like speed talking. He had multiple moments in this show where he rattles off words so fast I barely know what he’s saying. He …

Diagnosis Murder: Woman Trouble has a double meaning because it applies both to the murder mystery of the week and to the personal side story. In the case of the latter, Detective Steve Sloan (Barry Van Dyke) is working security at a party and becomes enchanted by a …

As I watched Diagnosis Murder: A Very Fatal Funeral from season two, I knew something had to be odd about the story. This was because as the opening credits rolled there was an unusual focus on a funeral. However, the angles didn’t show any of the mourners …

Diagnosis Murder: Many Happy Returns is the first episode of season two for this medical sleuthing series which stars the wonderful Dick Van Dyke as Dr. Mark Sloan. Following are a few observations about this showing.
–One of the first things I noticed was Victoria Rowell’s new hair style and …

Warning. Watching this show could make you crave ice cream. Diagnosis Murder: Georgia on My Mind deals with a murder of a private investigator who was working on a case for Harry and Walter’s Ice Cream. There are frequent references to the desert and we get …

I must admit that I’m not that crazy about the main murder investigation in Diagnosis Murder: You Can Call Me Johnson, but I do love the side story that involves Dr. Mark Sloan (Dick Van Dyke).
The murder is of Jack’s godfather who, as it turns out, is really a …

Diagnosis Murder: Murder Most Vial from season two centers around an unhappy multi-millionaire named William Bissell who sues the hospital for malpractice. It’s a frivolous lawsuit really since the nasty tycoon admits he hasn’t been following doctor’s orders. He ultimately becomes the murder victim. By the …

I always thought Diagnosis Murder: My Four Husbands was somewhat funny. It features Morgan Fairchild as actress Pamela Dorn, who has a TV series where she portrays the ‘Queen of the Jungle’. To Mark Sloan (Dick Van Dyke), though, she’s Pammie and he’s Uncle Mark.
One of the …

Diagnosis Murder: The Last Laugh: Part 2 concludes the events from the prior week’s episode, and there’s some good stuff contained within its hour.
The big news we learned at the end of Part 1 was that Bonnie Valin (Dyan Cannon) was truly guilty of killing her husband, as played …