Thursday, July 26, 2018

Thursday Movie Picks #211: Spies (TV edition)



This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. Since were at the last Thursday of the month, it's time for another TV edition, with the subject for this month being spies. I was able to come up with two classics and one that's probably not so well-remembered today:



Mission: Impossible (1966-1973). A group of secret agents for a multinational spy agency fight evil foreign powers and crime lords. Peter Graves was the leader for the final six seasons, replacing Steven Hill, who left the show after the first season because they couldn't fit the production schedule around his being an observant Orthodox Jew who wouldn't work on Shabbat. The series spawned a TV reboot in the 80s and then a whole bunch of Tom Cruise movies, with another one coming out this summer. It's also known for its memorable theme by Lalo Schifrin.



Scarecrow and Mrs. King (1983-1987). Mrs. King (Kate Jackson) got inadvertently involved with secret agent Scarecrow (Bruce Boxleitner) in one of those movie-type plot twists reminiscent of The Man Who Knew Too Much where a dying spy gives James Stewart a key piece of information. Except that Scarecrow doesn't die, and Mrs. King gets sucked up into the mystery so much that she winds up working for the agency.



MacGyver (1985-1992). Richard Dean Anderson plays Angus MacGyver, a spy known for his ingenuity at escaping from difficult situations by doing things like making an ultralite plane out of a roll of duct tape and some bubble gum. Well, I'm exaggerating, but the ingenuity was a big part of the series' appeal. MacGyver somehow wound up being a surprisingly big reference in later pop culture, notably with Marge Simpson's sisters Selma and Patty watching the show every day. Richard Dean Anderson would later go on to do a guest appearance on The Simpsons. This one also got a TV reboot.

3 comments:

Dell said...

I loved Mission: Impossible, but couldn't get into the other two. Scarecrow and Mrs. King bored me and I eventually got tired of MacGyver making bombs out of hairpins and pocket lint. I will say the latter is way better than the reboot.

Ted S. (Just a Cineast) said...

The one thing that surprised me in looking up the themes is that I always thought the Mission: Impossible theme was in a lower key.

I don't know if it's on any of the digital nostalgia channels for me to watch and check.

Birgit said...

We match with Scarecrow which I loved! I’d like to see it again and see if I still like it but I think I will. I would love to see Mission Impossible again and you would think it would be on tv somewhere consider8ng all the movies. I never really watched MacGyver even though I could have but it never interested me even though the acto was on the soap I watch.