More Raymond Burr on MeTV!

Speaking of other projects the cast has worked on, I have more news! MeTV will start running Ironside beginning June 3^rd! Maybe it will just be for the summer, or maybe if it does well, it will become a more permanent fixture for a while. It’s going to run back-to-back with the morning showing of Perry, booting The Rockford Files to get in.

I must admit, I really don’t care much for Rockford. It’s goofy and ridiculous some of the time, and I don’t like the way the police characters are portrayed most all of the time. It’s usually difficult for me to grasp that the main police character is friends with Rockford, and then in episodes where they do show a friendship, the other police characters still don’t always feel very flattering. Such as in the episode where the main cop, Dennis, is accused of crimes and is suspended. The other police pretty much just come off as one-dimensional, angry people. No one on the force seems to really be concerned for Dennis and/or thinks or at least hopes he’s innocent (unless I missed that part). And they generally seem to be portrayed as one-dimensional antagonists in other episodes. I’ve only seen one or two where I was happier with the portrayals. The police on Perry, by contrast, almost always feel very real and multi-dimensional, even within the confines of the formula.

I’ve been longing for months for the return of Cannon, a much better private detective series, but I am thoroughly thrilled by the addition of Ironside! I hope it will last long enough to do a whole series run—and that MeTV will, indeed, have all the episodes for an entire run.

Perry is actually one of the few long-running shows that they show all the episodes of. Bonanza they show six seasons of and then show sporadic episodes from later seasons, which is very frustrating. Gunsmoke seems to only show the color episodes. They literally show half of Hawaii 5-O, only going through season 6 before starting over. I kind of doubt that they have all the Bewitched episodes, since they keep doing these theme weeks. It makes me rather amazed that they air every Perry episode!

Other shows just beginning or returning in June seem to include The Lucy Show, Family Affair (the return of which I suspected when they spotlighted it with bells and whistles on a Sunday Showcase a while back), and Daniel Boone. I’m thrilled about the latter; I thought Leave It To Beaver had kicked it off either for good or for a long time. Daniel moves to an hour earlier than it was on before, causing the early-morning comedy shows to shift around. I’m still trying to pick up certain episodes of Daniel Boone with guest stars I love (including some Perry alumni), but Leave It To Beaver I can . . . well, leave. Shows about families rarely seem to interest me, although I can’t help loving My Three Sons. And I enjoy The Patty Duke Show, with Perry alumni William Schallert.

Overall, though, detective and police shows are definitely more my thing. And I love what I’ve seen of Ironside in the past. Robert Ironside is an interesting character, with some shades of Perry Mason while remaining very much his own person. Ironside is a lot more gruff and grouchy, but he’s really got a heart of gold and truly cares about the people working with him and the people they’re trying to help. It would be intriguing to see him and Perry work together on a particularly baffling case.

Someone I know had the same idea some time back. She’s been writing a series of crossover stories with the characters from both shows. And while I don’t really care for her occasional scenes of Perry and Della’s bedroom encounters (I just can’t think they’d do that without marrying first), I love the intense mysteries and how basically in-character everyone sounds as they work to solve everything. I’m quite far behind in reading her series (which, like mine, is also set in the present), but I enjoy reading a chapter or two when I have the chance. If anyone would like to have a look, they’re here: http://www.fanfiction.net/u/3098756/kaleen1212 And it looks like I’ve been gone so long that she’s also written some recent, separate stories for each show without me being aware she had started them. Either that or wow, she writes fast. Awesome.