What are you watching right now?

[Cavaliere (moderator emeritus)]

Criminal Minds: "Amplification"

[Jeff of Earth-J]

ULTRAMAN: We're working our way through this series again. Currently we're about 2/3 of the way through the first set.

[The Baron]

I binge-watched  all of Speed Racer over the holiday just because of something your wife wrote.  :) 

Jeff of Earth-J said:

ULTRAMAN: We're working our way through this series again. Currently we're about 2/3 of the way through the first set.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Yeah, I know. She's been keeping me updated on your progress. You have convinced her to give the series another shot (which is more than I have ever been able to do), so thanks for that. I don't know when we'll get to it though; I'm in the mood to re-watch Ultra-Q and Ultra-7 as well.

[Philip Portelli]

i saw the first episode of The Persuaders from 1971 starring Tony Curtis and Roger Moore (after the Saint but before James Bond). I watched this in syndication as a kid and it's still lots of fun. 

But Lordie, the fashions were atrocious and tacky! And the women were basically eye candy. I loved the premise but it certainly wasn't The Avengers or Mission: Impossible.

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

After watching the movie Breaking Away, my wife and I moved on to the TV series that was based on it. Barbara Barrie returned as Dave's mom, Jackie Earle Haley returned as Moocher, and John Ashton returned as Mike's brother, the campus cop. This series is like an Earth-Two version otherwise. Shaun Cassidy replaced Dennis Christopher as Dave and pretty much drops the Italian accent within an episode or two. Vincent Gardenia is Dave's dad in the series, and while he's good, he's no Paul Dooley from the film.
The series starts at a time before the movie and replaces it as, by the time we get to the end of the series, everyone is different from how they were in the film. An incident in the 7th or 8th episode in a way mirrors one of the last scenes in the movie. There are eight episodes of the series, the last one being shown on A&E only after ABC canceled the show.
We watched it online from Dailymotion.com. I wish they had higher quality copies of the show because it's not a bad show. It's just not as good as the movie. I don't believe it's available on DVD or any streaming service.

Jeff Daniels is in an early scene in the first episode. It may be his first screen appearance. Also, while the movie was set in and filmed in Bloomington, Indiana, the TV series was filmed in Athens, Georgia, but still set in Bloomington.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

STRANGER THINGS 3: Finished this up on Friday.

FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER’S MONSTER, FRANKENSTEIN: This is a short film featuring David Harbour of Stranger Things. It is a mockumentary about Harbour’s father, a stage actor, who staged his own version of Frankenstein. David Harbour plays both roles. The “documentary” features “actual footage” of the 1970s era production. It shot very much in the style of Dan Curtis TV movies of the era. In this version of the play, the Monster has killed the Doctor and assumed his identity, but then he “pretends” to be the monster while the Doctor’s former assistant pretends to be Frankenstein. This won’t be for everyone, but I personally found it to be hilarious.

VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA: About a year ago, we finished watching all three seasons of Irwin Allen’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, but I didn’t re-shelve the disc until last night. When I did, I discovered that Voyage had four seasons, and season four was sitting on the shelf still in shrinkwrap. (I’ve still got Allan’s Land of the Giants to watch, too.)

ALL IN THE FAMILY: Ever since that “live” All in the Family/The Jeffersons special aired several weeks ago, we’ve been working out way through reruns we snagged from a televised marathon. It has been, I’m sure, 30 years since I last saw AITF, but I watched so much of it when I was younger, first run and in syndication, I still remember them quite well. Archie Bunker had his 50th birthday in season four. (It’s difficult for me to grasp that I’m older than Archie Bunker.) I recently found out about a spin-off I was completely unaware of, 704 Hauser Street, in which a black family moves into the former Bunker household. It lasted only four episodes and stared John Amos as the father. It’s hard to come by, but I did manage to find a few clips online. Having just sold my own childhood home last year, the transition from All in the Family to Archie Bunker’s Place to 704 Hauser Strret kind of reminds me of my own house and family.

ULTRAMAN/ULTRASEVEN: The news that all f the Ultraman series will soon be available in the United States has inspired me to re-watch the ones I already own. We just finished re-watching Ultraman on Friday (for the second time since we’ve been married), and have now moved onto our second time through Ultraseven. The most recent “Ultra” series is currently available on Netflix. It had been my intention to move on to that after Ultraseven, but tracy doesn’t want to wait. I convinced her to wait until we were finished with Stranger Things 3. More on this situation as it develops.

[ClarkKent_DC]

Jeff of Earth-J said:

ALL IN THE FAMILY: Ever since that “live” All in the Family/The Jeffersons special aired several weeks ago, we’ve been working out way through reruns we snagged from a televised marathon. It has been, I’m sure, 30 years since I last saw AITF, but I watched so much of it when I was younger, first run and in syndication, I still remember them quite well. Archie Bunker had his 50th birthday in season four. (It’s difficult for me to grasp that I’m older than Archie Bunker.) I recently found out about a spin-off I was completely unaware of, 704 Hauser Street, in which a black family moves into the former Bunker household. It lasted only four episodes and stared John Amos as the father. It’s hard to come by, but I did manage to find a few clips online. Having just sold my own childhood home last year, the transition from All in the Family to Archie Bunker’s Place to 704 Hauser Strret kind of reminds me of my own house and family.

I dimly remember watching 704 Hauser Street a time or two when it was on. 704 Houser Street, like too many of Norman Lear shows, was full of people arguing with each other, which too many people think is a good thing.

As I recall, 704 Hauser Street came about because Norman Lear got tired of paying storage fees for the All in the Family sets and figured he might try to get some use out of them. The pilot episode featured young Joey Stivic -- son of Mike and Gloria, grandson of Archie and Edith -- all growed up, coming by the house and telling its current occupants that he used to live there.

Turning the All in the Family paradigm on its side, the modern-day residents of the home are the Cumberbatch family. John Amos, as noted, was the partriarch, locked in incessant verbal combat with his son, Thurgood "Goodie" Cumberbatch. To dad's chagrin, the boy grew up to be a conservative. And not a lovable conservative, like Alex P. Keaton over on Family Ties, but a strident, sanctimonious one.

That's about all I remember.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

That's about all there is to know. (The first episode of 704 is included if one buys the entire series set of AITF.) I really admire John Amos; I like him in everything I've seen him in. (He left Good Times when the show became too focused on J.J.) I found a clip of him on YouTube discussing 704 when I was searching for episodes. He had high hopes for 704 and was disappointed that it didn't last longer than it did.

[Doctor Hmmm?]

... and then Benedict, their "cousin from England" arrived one day ...

[ClarkKent_DC]

Here's a piece on 704 Hauser from Entertainment Weekly (back when it was weekly) that I found via 704's Wikipedia page: "Norman Lear's New Sitcom '704 Hauser'"

Wikipedia states that 704 was Lear's response to the rise of talk radio.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Ah, thanks. I found the Wiki article while poking around last week, but I didn't follow the link to the Entertainment Weekly piece.

[Captain Comics]

We binged Stranger Things 3 and The Boys, and can recommend both.

Meanwhile we just wrapped up the latest seasons (and sometimes series finales) of Agents of SHIELD, Archer, iZombie, NOS4A2 and Swamp Thing. The two shows that ended (iZombie and Swamp Thing) both ended clumsily, which is a shame -- we enjoyed both right up to the end. SHIELD has been awesome for several years, and the quality is still up there. NOS4A2 is hit or miss for me, but mostly hit. Archer is Archer -- if you like the humor, which I do, then it's always worth watching. Archer was supposed to end this year with its Space 1999 pastiche, but it's going to be extended for one more season.

We've half-kept up with Krypton, which is OK but not setting me on fire. We'll see it through to the end of Season 2, anyway.

We're waiting until the season finales to binge Season 3s of Legion and Siren. We've got all of Season 2 of American Gods, but haven't found time to binge it.

Coming up is Preacher Season 4 (Aug. 4), The Terror Season 2 (Aug. 12), Fear the Walking Dead Season 5B (Aug. 11), Carnival Row Season 1 (Aug. 30), Dark Crystal Season 1 (Aug. 30) and Titans Season 2 (Sept. 6). We'd like to watch Pennyworth, which began July 28, but we're not getting Epix just for that. If we get another streaming service, it'll be CBS All Access, because we're already behind on Star Trek: Discovery and are anticipating Star Trek: Picard. We're also going to have get Hulu at some point -- for the five animated Marvel series, Runaways, Hellstorm and Ghost Rider -- and are hoping that when we get Disney+ (Nov. 12) there'll be some sort of package deal.

We've got to hurry, because Arrow, Black Lighting, Flash, Riverdale, Supergirl and The Walking Dead all return in October. Batwoman begins Oct. 6, and Harley Quinn arrives Oct. 11.

Aside from that, we don't watch very much.