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Originally Posted by Otis Criblecoblis
We haven't gotten to it yet. We're 6 episodes back. But we're looking forward to it. It was written and directed by Montgomery Pittman, who was known for that writer/director combo during his too-short career. He was building quite a reputation for high-quality TV when he passed away from cancer at the age of 45.
In a desperate attempt to tie this into the thread: I found the pilot, "Girl on The Run", on Dailymotion, and was intrigued to discover that it is not merely noirish, but expressly film noir in style and substance--quite different from the light, breezy tone of the show, although the Stu Bailey character is still completely recognizable.
We like the Roger Smith-penned episodes we have seen, too. I hope MeTV keeps running the show long enough to loop back to the beginning of the run. We started DVRing at season 3 episode 13. We would just buy the complete show outright on DVD, but it is bafflingly not available.
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I agree that Montgomery Pittman did some of the better shows in the series. What I didn't know was that he was stepfather to Sherry Jackson, who appeared in several episodes and well as many other shows in that time period. She made my pre-teen heart go pitter patter.
There has been many entreaties to Warner Bros. to put the series on DVDs, but so far to no avail. That's a shame, because the people who would purchase it are generally Baby Boomers, and we're a dying breed. I'm just glad MeTV brought it back for now. Maybe they'll follow up with the
Surfside 6 and
Hawaiian Eye shows.
When I first tried to get back into the series, I found
"Girl On The Run" on an old cartridge tape and watched in hopes to get retrieve my memories of the show only to realize it had nothing to do with the series. In fact,
77 Sunset Strip is never even mentioned in the film until the very end in an obvious voice-over to promote the coming of the new show. I believe Kookie played the bad guy in the movie. The rest of the team (Roger Smith, Louis Quinn, Jacqueline Beer) were not in the movie. Nor was the iconic location on the Strip or the theme song.
I hope MeTV goes on to Season 5 next, then skips Season 6 and moves on with seasons 1 & 2. Season 6 was a bust in that they scrapped the entire 77 Sunset Strip scene to make it more like
Secret Agent. It stunk. It was no longer the street that wore the fancy label, glorified in song and fable...