Peter Gunn season 1 (1958)

Peter Gunn belongs to the first golden age of American private eye TV series. In the closing years of the 50s 77 Sunset Strip, Hawaiian Eye and Richard Diamond, Private Detective all hit the airwaves. And, more interestingly, there was at the same time a crop of decidedly hardboiled TV private eyes - Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, Johnny Staccato and Peter Gunn. These three series were all heavily influenced by the great American private eye movies of the 40s and early 50s and by the style that later came to be known as film noir.

This was no coincidence. The classic American B-movie had been largely destroyed by the advent of television but there was still an audience for slightly gritty crime thrillers. The TV private eye series more or less took over the audience of the crime B-picture. Of all these series Peter Gunn was probably the biggest commercial success.

Peter Gunn was created by Blake Edwards who wrote many of the episodes and directed several.

I reviewed the second season of Peter Gunn a while back (at that time the first season was unobtainable on DVD) and I was somewhat underwhelmed. Compared to Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer and Johnny Staccato it seemed rather tame and rather conventional and even a bit strait-laced. It seemed a bit too sanitised. A reader left a comment on that review suggesting that the first season might be much more to my taste. The suggestion was that Peter Gunn, like so many American TV series, started very promisingly in its first season and then in subsequent seasons fell victim to the perennial timidity of network executives.

Apart from Craig Stevens who is very good as the title character there are three other recurring characters. Lieutenant Jacoby (Herschel Bernardi) is Gunn’s patient long-suffering cop pal who is usually willing to cut Gunn some slack, sometimes against his better judgmeent. Mother runs the night-club that is more or less Gunn’s second home. Edie (Lola Albright) is Gunn’s cute chanteuse girlfriend who can’t quite get him to commit to her although she has no intention of giving up.

Selected Episodes

The opening episode, The Kill, was written and directed by Blake Edwards. It opens with the murder of a gangster. The new gangland boss who takes his place seems likely to be even nastier and more unpleasant. This episode has a definite film noir look and fell. It establishes Gunn as a guy who stocks by his friends and also as a tough guy who can be ruthless when necessary. There’s a bit on an edge to the character which was missing in the second season.

Streetcar Jones is a jazz musician suspected of murder but he doesn’t strike Gunn as the murdering type. Somebody wants to stop Gunn from proving Streetcar’s innocence. An OK episode.

In The Vicious Dog Pete has to see a man about a dog. A journalist believes that a dog attack was an attempt to intimidate him, and Pete agrees. The dog angle makes this a bit more interesting than most stories of this type.

In The Blind Pianist there’s only one witness to a murder and he’s blind. He can’t identity the killer. Or can he? And if he can, will he?The audience knows the identity of the killer so the interest is in Gunn’s attempt to prove a case with only a blind witness. Not a bad story.

The Frog is a small-fry gangster who wants to talk with with Pete but when Pete gets to the meet all he finds is the Frog’s hat floating on the water. The Frog’s boss, mobster Swink, obviously had him killed but why did he have the Frog’s apartment searched afterwards? A routine plot but fairly hard-edged by the standards of this series. It works pretty well.

In The Chinese Hangman Pete is hired by a religious cult leader to find a woman who stole $200,000 from him. Pete tracks her down but with unexpected consequences. A much darker episode and a very good one.

In Lynn's Blues Edie is worried about an old friend, a night-club-singer named Lynn. Pete goes to see her and it’s obvious she’s seriously scared. She’s got a gangster boyfriend, she wants out and he doesn’t see it that way. A fairly routine episode but still very enjoyable.

In Rough Buck a very promising boxer, Tony Triano, is shot and it looks like a professional hit. But everybody liked Tony. Nobody had a motive to kill him.

In Image of Sally Si Robbin, just out of prison, kills a guy. The man he killed was a professional killer. It was self-defence but he can’t prove that so he’s charged with murder. Si hires Gunn, not to beat the murder rap but to find his girl Sally. At least she used to be his girl. Now she’s Joe Nord’s girl and Joe Nord is a big-time criminal and a nasty piece of work. Pete gets some help from some beatniks (who look the way middle-aged men who’ve never seen a beatnik imagine beatniks to look). It’s another noirish episode with Si being not such a bad guy but he’s got himself into deep trouble, and Sally certainly has some femme fatale qualities.

The Man with the Scar is a very good episode. A young man is with his girlfriend when a man with a scar interrupts them, there’s a fight and the man with the scar is killed. The girl tells him not to worry, that it will be taken care of, but actually he has very good reason to worry.

The Torch is a case of arson and murder. The widow of the man killed in the fire is a suspect. She hires Pete to prove her innocence. It’s a fairly straightforward story but well executed.

The Jockey is an impossible crime story. The girlfriend of a successful jockey is a night-club singer. In between sets she goes up onto the roof. This time she fell through the skylight and was killed. There was nobody up there with her and nobody could have been up there with her, so it was accident. But the jockey thinks she was murdered. Pete doesn’t know if it was murder or not but he’s been given a case so he’ll do some digging. And he digs up something that really interests him. Not a bad story, but just a tad predictable.

In Sisters of the Friendless a young man is facing a murder charge. He has an alibi but there’s a problem. The one person who can confirm his alibi cannot do so for rather unusual reasons. A low-key story, pretty lightweight.

The Leaper is about a man who jumps to his death from a tall building. Except he didn’t jump. Pete doesn’t know that yet but he’s looking into the case for the widow. The curious thing is that the leaper was a professional carnival performer, a human fly. It’s Lieutenant Jacoby who makes the vital connection this time.  A good episode.

The Fuse is a very film noir episode. Honest union boss Carlo Matzi is murdered. Everyone knows that crooked union boss Jake Lynch was behind the murder. So why is Pete working for Lynch? He has his reasons. A solid story that isn’t dazzlingly original but it’s executed with a lot of style. Another very good episode.

Let's Kill Timothy tries to be whimsical but misfires. We get a couple of awful songs, we get Pete hired as bodyguard to a seal and some excruciating comic relief from a beatnik artist.

In The Missing Night Watchman (written by Blake Edwards) Pete is hired to investigate a robbery. Valuable jewels were stolen from a shop and the owner doesn’t want the police involved. He’s afraid of losing his best customer, the irascible Mr Lansdown (a wonderful performance by Murray Matheson). There’s also the matter of the missing night watchman and what’s going on with Mr Lansdown’s Buddha? An enjoyable romp.

Murder on the Midway is a carnival story and I just love murder mysteries with a carnival setting. The magician is doing his usual trick, making his glamorous lady assistant disappear, only she winds up dead. Pete thinks Rowena, who does the girly show, knows something. Rowena is one of those dangerous blondes, the type that men should avoid but they never do. A pretty decent plot with several plausible suspects. A very good episode.

Pecos Pete takes Pete to Texas. A rich cattleman wants to find his brother’s murderer. Pete has to do the cowboy thing, and it’s a fun if rather slight story.

Scuba has a great opening sequence and the plot revolves around scuba diving. There is murder as well, of course. A fine episode.

The title of Edie Finds a Corpse is totally accurate. She does find a corpse. In her bathroom. She is not happy about it. Pete isn’t happy about it either.

The Dirty Word has a nice slightly off-kilter atmosphere. A low-rent crooked private eye named Sam Hayes is framed for the murder of a rich guy named Sinclair. Pete doesn’t approve of Sam but he owes him a favour. Sinclair was surrounded by oddballs and there were things about him that didn’t add up. A good taut plot and good atmosphere.

The Ugly Frame begins with a nice old guy who runs a delicatessen getting murdered. Murdered for fourteen dollars. Lieutenant Jacoby had known the old guy for years. Jacoby wants the killer really badly. But maybe the case is not as straightforward as it looks. Jacoby ends up in an awkward situation. Maybe Pete can get him out of it. A solid episode.

The Lederer Story begins when a rich lady yacht owner, Mrs Lederer, drops dead in Mother’s. Before expiring she had asked to speak to Peter Gunn. Pete figures he’s more or less morally obliged to find her killer. Yes, her killer. The lady died from poison. Pete is convinced that the answer to the puzzle will be found on Mrs Lederer’s yacht. But he finds that boats can be dangerous places. A good solid episode although the mystery isn’t that hard to figure out.

In Keep Smiling a guy from out of town winds up dead. That’s Lieutenant Jacoby’s problem. Pete’s problem is a client in town for a bowling conclave who’s fallen victim to a blackmail racket. Since the dead guy was also in town for the bowling conclave Pete figures that his problem and Jacoby’s problem are probably the same problem. All Pete has to do is set himself up as an obvious blackmail victim. A fairly straightforward episode but enjoyable enough.

Breakout begins with a prison break. Then a guy hires Pete to find somebody but Pete is pretty suspicious. And Frank Norbert doesn’t want to be found. A solid film noirish episode with double-crosses and betrayal, and a father who can’t figure out what went wrong with his boy.

Final Thoughts

I enjoyed the first season more than the first. It has a bit more of an edge. It’s a bit more noir. Not as good as Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer or Johnny Staccato but still entertaining. Recommended.

Noir (2001 anime series)

Noir is a 2001 anime TV series.

I’m not going to give any plot details other than those pertaining to the first of the 26 episodes.

It opens with a cute blonde French girl (we later find out that her name is Mireille) in Paris. It looks like the opening for a fluffy romance story. Then the killings begin, and a dozen men are left dead.

Mireille really is a charming, pretty very feminine young lady. The only thing unusual about her is the way she earns her living. She is a hitwoman. A killer for hire. One of the best in the business.

But most of the killings were not done by Mireille. They were done by Kirika Yumura, a young very cute Japanese girl. Kirika knows nothing about herself. She doesn’t think Kirika Yumura is her real name. She has no idea how she came to know so much about guns, or became so good at killing.

It’s all a bit perplexing to Mireille. It’s obvious that some very determined very dangerous people are out to kill her. Teaming up with Kirika seems not only logical but necessary. After that she will have to kill Kirika. Mireille has survived in this business by never leaving loose ends behind, or living witnesses. She likes Kirika, but she will still have to kill her. She does think that it is only fair to let Kirika know about her intentions.

Mireille and Kirika work well together as a team but it’s increasingly clear that they have mysterious and powerful enemies out to get them. It may have something to do with Kirika’s past.

Maybe the Soldats have the answers, but the two girls know nothing about the Soldats other than the fact they exist.

This is not a straightforward Chicks With Guns crime story. There is as much cool Chicks With Guns action as you could possibly desire but there’s something deeper going on. That something deeper may have a rational explanation but in the world of anime you can never be sure. You can never be sure that you’re dealing with a single level of reality, or any level of reality at all. Early on the viewer has no idea what the central narrative will tun out to be.

Deadly lady assassins were nothing new in 2001 but Noir is a long way from the world of movies like La Femme Nikita.

The relationship between the two women is complex. They do not appear to be lovers but there’s an emotional bond, possibly a sisterly bond. These are two women who are both, for different reasons, cut off from all normal social interactions. It is highly likely that Mireille has never had a normal friendship with another woman. She believes herself to be totally self-reliant. She has never needed anybody. She knows that the sensible thing to do is simply to kill Kirika. Kirika is a threat. Kirika knows much too much about her and about her line of work.

But although Mireille thinks a lot about killing Kirika she seems unable to do so. She rationalises this. She needs to know Kirika’s secret. She does not want to admit that her reasons for not killing the girl might be emotional.

There is such a tangled web of female emotional relationships in this series. Female friendships, female loyalties and betrayals, female jealousies. And they’re all complex and ambiguous relationships. Mireille appears to develop some kind of maternal feeling toward Kirika. Or perhaps it’s a big sister-little sister thing. Mireille’s feelings towards Kirika evolve. Perhaps they are growing closer, or perhaps they are growing apart. Perhaps they are learning to trust each other, or perhaps in other ways Mireille is learning to trust Kirika less.

What’s nice is the “show, don’t tell” approach taken. Mireille never tells us how she feels about Kirika. We figure it out from her actions and from gestures and looks.

It is very important not to jump to conclusions when viewing this series, and not to interpret it in the light of 2020s ideological obsessions. Mireille and Kirika are not lesbians. The Japanese have fewer hangups about sex than Americans and this is very much an anime for grown-ups. Had the writers wanted to suggest that there was a lesbian component to the relationship they would certainly have done so. But they don’t. This is a series with philosophical, religious, moral and spiritual agendas. It is not about sexual identities or gender identities.

It is fairly obvious that Kirika and Mireille are both virgins. This seems to be part and parcel of their calling. For these two women killing is not a job, it really is a calling. It requires single-mindedness. There is no room for sexual involvements. As the series progresses it becomes more and more obvious that they really are in fact virgins. They are not like other women. They are more like virgin priestesses of death. We also might suspect that for these girls killing is a substitute for sex. As long as there’s killing to be done who needs sex?

We have to remember that these women are killers. It’s no good trying to tell ourselves that Mireille is really a nice girl and she only kills bad people. She’s a ruthless paid killer. She’ll kill anyone she’s paid to kill.

Early on you might assume this will be a Chicks With Guns crime thriller, or maybe spy thriller, a bit along the lines of La Femme Nikita. But as the series unfolds we discover that it’s something very very different. It’s a totally different sort of movie.

About three-quarters of the way through we get a huge plot twist. Followed by an even bigger twist. Followed in quick succession by two more. Everything we thought we knew will have to be rethought. It’s not just plot twists. At various stages we have to rethink our assumptions about key characters, and key character relationships. It’s not that we’ve been misled or that the characterisations are inconsistent - it’s more that we keep on discovering new layers. The picture we had in our mind wasn’t wrong because we were being lied to but because that picture was so very incomplete.

Kirika and Mireille do not understand themselves. Kirika doesn’t know how she came to be such an efficient killing machine, and she doesn’t know why she doesn’t feel sad when she kills people. Mireille’s memories of her own past are incomplete and are false in the sense that she was too young to understands what was happening. Kirika and Mireille will learn a lot about themselves. Some of it they won’t like.

This is the kind of series that makes me love anime TV series so much. It’s not afraid to confound expectations. Very highly recommended.

Naked City season 2 (1960)

Having watched and written about selected episodes in the second season of Naked City (which originally went to air on ABC from late 1960 to mid-1961) I’m now filling in the blanks. The more I see of this series the more I love it. Everything about it is unconventional, offbeat and original. Even the outrageous episode titles.

It’s not unconventional just for the sake of being unconventional. These are complex literate scripts that are concerned with exploring the psychological underpinnings of crimes. Why do some people go off the rails so spectacularly? The scripts are also concerned with another question - if we understand why people do bizarre and anti-social things does this actually help the police in dealing with these issues? Does it help society in dealing with damaged and dangerous people? The series rarely offers easy or comforting answers. Sometimes it’s even difficult to tell good from evil.

Naked City takes a very different approach compared to a series like Dragnet. Dragnet aimed for everyday realism - ordinary cops investigating ordinary crimes, the sorts of crimes that are committed every day in a big city. And they’re solved by following established procedures. Joe Friday relies on legwork, not sudden flashes of insight, to solve crimes.

In Naked City the cops are very much ordinary cops but the crimes they investigate are cases that are a little bit out of the ordinary. The aim of the series is to get inside the minds of the criminals and sometimes that’s easier if the crimes are spectacular or unusual. The crimes don’t have to be realistic. In reality the police do encounter bizarre crimes but in Naked City most of the cases have a touch of the bizarre. The bizarre nature of the cases is used to illuminate some dark recesses of the human psyche.

Of course a series that takes a deliberately offbeat approach is going to have its share of failures, of episodes that just don’t quite work. The amazing this is that this series has so few misfires. And even the misfires are interesting.

There have been other fine cop shows since Naked City but none has ever been able to equal this great series. It remains a uniquely brilliant achievement.

With some fine location shooting it also provides a wonderful glimpse of early 1960s New York City.

Episode Guide

The Pedigree Sheet begins with two dead bodies in a crashed car. And a live 17-year-old girl who was also in the car. One of the dead men is the foreman of the jury in a major criminal case. The other dead guy is a hit-man. And nobody knows who the girl is but the police are pretty sure she’s the key to solving the case. That’s what the story seems to be about, but it isn’t really. It’s actually about the girl, a good girl gone bad, and her father, once a famous lawyer and now a drunken bum, and how they got to be that way.

So it’s a pretty good mystery story and a psychological study. Trying to combine the two is the sort of ambitious thing that Naked City would do throughout its run and what’s truly remarkable is how often they did it successfully. And this story is definitely one of those successes.

A Succession of Heartbeats is a whodunit. Millionaire playboy Ben Harlow is shot to death along with his latest girlfriend, a married woman. Harlow has lots of girlfriends. The list of people who would have liked to kill him is practically endless. There are at least three people who could have done so. Some of the clues point to one of the suspects, some at others. But this is Naked City so it’s not just a solid mystery story but a character study as well. Can you put a life back together again once it’s been broken? And guilt can destroy the innocent as well as the guilty. A very fine episode penned by Stirling Siliphant.

In Down the Long Night Norman Garry tells the detectives at the 65th Precinct that a man named Max Evar is going to kill him. A year earlier Garry's printing factory burnt to the ground. Max Evar’s house, which was next door, was destroyed as well with Evar's life and child being killed in the blaze. Evar is convinced that Garry was responsible for the fire. Since Evar hasn’t committed an actual crime there’s nothing the cops can do but Adam Flint has a bad feeling about it and decides to look into it anyway. Evar runs a carnival funhouse and his family has for generations specialised in illusion, magic and the manufacture of terror for entertainment. He’s the kind of guy who would certainly know how to use fear as a weapon and that’s what he seems to be doing.

This is another intriguing psychological study, in this case a study of two men. And the funhouse climax is extremely good. A very fine episode.

To Walk in Silence is a reluctant witness story. A very respectable man, a Mr Weston, witnesses a murder in an illegal betting establishment. In fact he himself suffers a minor gunshot wound in the course of the murder. He’s not willing to talk to the police since it might threaten his professional and social position. What he fails to understand is that he might not have a choice. It features a good performance by Clause Rains as Weston. As a character study its interesting although the plot is rather predictable. An OK episode.

In Killer with a Kiss a psycho killer is stalking cops. He’s killed one and almost killed another. In the latest attempt he pretended to be a blind man. And he kisses his victims on the hand. The breakthrough in the case comes when Adam discovers the headless toy soldier. This episode is another attempt to grapple with psychological disturbance. It works quite well.

The Human Trap is the story of a murder among the rich and fashionable. Playboy Tobias Bennington Tennant III is dead with an icepick in him. Dress designer Walda Price claims she killed him in self-defence after he tried to maul her teenaged daughter Jessica. Adam Flint thinks the story doesn’t quite add up, and his boss Lieutenant Mike Parker doesn’t think so either, but neither woman will change her story. Jack Lord gives a great guest starring performance as Jessica’s devoted mobster father. A very good episode.

In Bullets Cost Too Much Adam Flint is in a bar when an armed robbery takes place and a man is killed. Adam thought about drawing his gun but decided that it would have put too many people at risk. Now the press is after his blood. And a young doctor has to make a choice between his brother and one of the hold-up men who was shot in the robbery. It’s a typical Naked City story, with the emphasis on the effects of crime on people’s lives rather than on the solving of the crime. And it’s an extremely good story.

Landscape with Dead Figures is another wonderfully offbeat episode. Famous dead artist Albert Blakely escapes from a mental hospital. He doesn’t know he’s famous and he doesn’t know he’s dead. But he’s worth a lot of money. In fact he was worth more dead than when he was alive. Everybody assumes he’s just a mental patient. Everyone but Adam. Adam thanks there’s something screwy about the story of the escaped mental patient who suddenly starts defying paintings. His obsession nearly gets him kicked off the force. The vital clues are in pictures done by Blakely - a doll without a face, two men in front of a pile of rocks. Wildly offbeat yes, but a fascinating story. Great stuff.

The Well-Dressed Termite starts with the accidental death of a telephone linesman. Only the guy was no telephone linesman. So what was he doing in a phoney telephone company truck and who was his partner doing with the telephone lines? And there’s a woman, who is currently divorcing her husband. He’s a rich businessman but a social nobody. Now she’s found a new man who is rich and a social somebody. But how does this relate to the dead guy tampering with telephone lines? A typically ingenious episode with a jigsaw puzzle that has to be pieced together but the cops have no idea what the final picture is supposed to look like. Great stuff.

The Day It Rained Mink involves the theft of a million dollars’ worth of fur coats. It’s a clever plan but the focus of the story its on the motivations behind the crime rather the crime itself. Thwarted ambitions, greed and lust are pretty good motivations. And a million dollars is a big payoff, but easy money isn’t always the solution. Lust in particular is a dangerous motivation.  In Naked City the biggest danger to criminals is not necessarily getting caught.

The Deadly Guinea Pig is another of the countless stories about Nazis that were such an obsessive feature of American TV at this time. Unfortunately they tend to be rather predictable and this one is no exception.

The Fault in Our Stars is the story of an actor named Donny Benton Donny’s career is going nowhere and he’s broke so he turns to murder. He’s so self-absorbed that he just assumes that his career is more important than the lives of a few dumb schmucks of cab drivers. Tracking him down proves to be surprisingly difficult and finding evidence that would stand up in court is even more of a problem. Typically for this series the story takes some very dark turns, much much darker than you’d expect from network TV in 1961.

The story also offers some fascinating insights into the strange unreal world of the theatre and the even stronger psychology of actors. A bravura performance by Roddy McDowall as Donny makes this another exceptional episode.

Tombstone for a Derelict is another Nazi episode. Or is it? A homeless person is brutally murdered by four young men. Three other murders follow in quick succession. The only clues are Nazi stickers posted on the wall near two of the victims. And an odd letter to the editor of a daily newspaper, and an even odder complain to the police by a concerned citizen. It seems they are dealing with rampaging Nazis. But it’s not that simple. Nowhere near that simple. This story seems like it’s going to one of the rare misfires but it ends up making sense, in a nonsensical way. So it’s an interesting episode.

A Memory of Crying is another attempt to deal with psychological abnormality. Willard Manson is a man with no human feelings, until he marries his fifth wife Jessica. He still doesn’t know he has emotions until she dies in childbirth. He then refuses to accept her death and cracks up, but he cracks up in a dangerous way. He convinces himself he needs money to pay for the hospital and he will go to any lengths to get that money. This one is perhaps not entirely convincing but at least it’s an interesting attempt. When an episode of this series doesn’t quite work it’s usually because it’s been too ambitious and the ambition at least has to be respected. And Luther Adler’s performance almost makes it work.

A Very Cautious Boy is a hitman (played by Peter Falk of all people) who kills with his bare hands. He is a karate expert. His latest target is a lawyer who is causing problems for an elderly restaurateur and ex-racketeer. Along the way he kills an ill-tempered bouncer and that’s what initially attracts the attention of the police. Adam Flint only appears briefly in this episode so it’s left to Frank and Lieutenant Parker to solve this one. And it’s a story will some cool twists.

Economy of Death is not as obvious as you think it’s going to be. Lazslo Lubasz escaped from Hungary in 1956 and has been paying Miklos Konya to find his missing granddaughter. Then Lazslo finds that Miklos has been lying to him, Lazslo’s wife dies of grief and Lazslo blames Miklos. But then there are a number of plot twists to make things more interesting. This is one of those episodes in which we discover that evil deeds are not always committed by evil men. Sometimes they’re committed by good men. And justice is a complicated thing. A very good episode despite a hammy performance by Sam Jaffe as Lazslo.

Final Thoughts

Naked City is one of the all-time great TV cop shows, very character-driven rather than plot-driven. Must-see TV.

Outlaw Star (1998-2001)

Outlaw Star is a 1998 anime space adventure TV series created by Hajime Yatate. It fits vaguely into the “western set in outer space” category but it’s also very much in the “bunch of ill-assorted misfits adventuring in outer space in a stolen super high tech spaceship” tradition. This is a formula that was used with success in series like Blake’s 7 and Farscape but Outlaw Star has more in common with the best-ever series of this type, Lexx. Outlaw Star began its run two years after Lexx debuted so there may have been some direct influence. I suspect that the old Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon movie serials may have been an influence as well - Outlaw Star has a lot of good old-fashioned space opera elements with spectacular but wildly improbably space battles.

Outlaw Star does not feature a living spaceship (which is named the Outlaw Star) but it does feature a spaceship with a definite personality.

It’s tempting to see Outlaw Star as being in the mould of Cowboy Bebop but it isn’t really. They’re both great series but the similarities are superficial.

There is also some magic. At first we might assume that this is more in the nature of paranormal phenomena but this series does eventually venture into quasi-spiritual territory.

The story takes place on the frontiers of inhabited space, and yes there’s a definite Wild West vibe. There’s the Space Force, representing the forces of law and order. Here on the frontiers of space they’re of little significance. There are pirates and there are Outlaws. The pirates are cut-throats, thieves and murderers. The Outlaws insist that they are not like the pirates. Outlaws may not be very honest but they’re not murderers. They have a romantic view of themselves as rebels.

The crew members of the Outlaw Star are definitely not noble crusaders fighting for a just cause. They’re not bad guys but they’re not quite good guys either (very much as is the case in Lexx). They have two agendas. They want to survive, and they want to get rich.

Gene Starwind and Jim Hawking run a business on the planet Sentinel. They’ll do anything as long as it’s profitable and not too illegal. Gene earns extra money as a bounty hunter. Jim is eleven years old but he’s the brains of the outfit. Gene is the muscle. Gene’s dad was a space pilot. Gene dreams of being a space pilot as well but he gets space-sick.

Then Gene encounters Hilda. She’s an Outlaw and she has come into possession of something very valuable indeed. It’s a large sealed box. When Gene and Hilda open the box they find that it contains a naked girl. Her name is Melfina. But clearly there is some secret connected with her that makes her incredibly valuable. Melfina has no idea what it is. She has no memories.

Melfina is a bio-android. She is not a robot and she is not a cyborg. She is flesh and blood. Physically she is a normal young woman. But she was artificially created. And she appears to have some specialised intellectual enhancements. Gene and Hilda would very much like to know why several very powerful pirate gangs are prepared to kill in order to get hold of Melfina.

Gene finds himself in possession of the most advanced spaceship in the galaxy, the Outlaw Star. The crew slowly comes together. At first it’s just Gene, Jim and Melfina. Melfina is vital. Only she can interface directly with the ship’s computer and unlock the ship’s full potential. To do this she has to take her clothes off. Why? Because a spaceship that can only be controlled by a nude girl is a totally cool idea.

The next crew member to be recruited is the Lady Aisha. She is a Ctarl-Ctarl cat-girl. The Ctarl-Ctarl are basically human but with a few feline characteristics. Aisha is a very high-ranking official in the Ctarl-Ctrl Empire until Gene unwittingly wrecks her career. Aisha vows revenge. Aisha assumes that everybody is in awe of her. She’s not just a formerly high-ranking official she’s a mighty warrior. Any sane person cowers in fear at the wrath of a Ctarl-Ctarl. Much to Aisha’s disappointment Gene thinks she’s amusing and rather adorable. Aisha has her own reasons for throwing in her lot with the crew of the Outlaw Star. She’s crazy and she can be exasperating but she really is a mighty warrior so she’s pretty useful.

Then there’s Suzuka. She’s a kind of samurai and she’s a professional assassin. She has a contract to kill Gene Starwind but for complicated reasons of her own she joins his crew.

What drives the plot and the actions of the major characters is the mystery surrounding Melfina. She knows that she is a bio-android but she knows nothing of the full extent of her special abilities but most importantly she does not know why she was created. She needs to know, both for her own self-identity and for her survival. Gene feels an odd sense of responsibility towards her. He’s a romantic at heart. The idea of rescuing a damsel in distress and helping her to fulfil her destiny appeals to him. He is sure she has a destiny. Melfina is sure of this as well. 

Neither knows whether Gene will be a part of her destiny but they both finding themselves thinking that maybe that would be a good thing.

They’re not in love but Melfina thinks Gene is ever so brave. And Melfina is a scared, lonely, vulnerable but very sweet girl. There’s no way Gene is not going to devote himself to being her protector.

For most people the standout episode is Cats and Girls and Spaceships and it’s incredibly poignant. An emotional punch to the gut but in a very unusual way. 

I also loved Hot Springs Planet Tenrei because it’s the kind of craziness that makes anime magic. It also adds a zany touch needed at this point in the story. The Outlaw Star’s crew are on a tourist resort planet, and it’s packed with gorgeous scantily clad babes. The Outlaw Star’s female crew members are soon parading about in minuscule bikinis and then it’s bath time and we get lots of gratuitous nudity, because gratuitous nudity is always a good thing. And when we see Aisha unclad we find that Ctarl-Ctarl cat-girls are in fact all girl where it counts.

Then we movie on to the climax with lots of cosmic weirdness and possibly hints of the spiritual and other planes of existence and other weird stuff that is handled well. And the ending offers lots of shocks and twists but it’s totally satisfying. It just feels right.

Outlaw Star is an outstanding engrossing strange and oddball series and it’s highly recommended.

It's available in a Blu-Ray/DVD combo boxed set which thankfully offers the Japanese language soundtrack with subtitles as well the English dub. Nothing on earth would persuade me to watch anime in an English-dubbed version.

The Time Tunnel by Murray Leinster

The Time Tunnel is a TV tie-in novel written by Murray Leinster. Quite a few well-known very good authors ended up writing such books as their usual markets started to dry up.

TV tie-in novels sometimes had a feel that was subtly different from the series. It was not unusual for the first tie-in novel associated with a series to be written before the series actually went to air, with the author having seen only the scripts and perhaps one or two episodes before they aired. That may be the case here. The novel is copyrighted 1966 and the series was first screened in September 1966. It does however capture the feel of the series fairly closely.

The Time Tunnel was a hugely entertaining TV series produced by Irwin Allen that was a bit cleverer than it seemed to be. The big problems with time travel stories are that there is no way to deal satisfactorily with time paradoxes and there’s the danger of extreme silliness. Various science fiction authors have tried to solve the time paradox problem but it’s a problem that can’t ever really be solved in a totally satisfying way.

The Time Tunnel TV series took an approach that was as good as any and better than most. You can try to change the past but no matter how hard you try you will fail and events end up playing out exactly as they did historically. The novel develops this approach in a slightly more complex way which is rather interesting.

The subject is an ultra top secret US Government project to develop a time travel device. The level of secrecy has backfired. The chairman of a senate committee that should have been informed about the project but wasn’t has found out about it and he’s hopping mad. He thinks it’s not just a waste of money but dangerous insanity and he intends to shut it down. I have to say that the senator’s objections make a lot of sense - the idea behind the project really is reckless to the point of madness.

To forestall the cancellation of the project one of the scientists, Dr Tony Newman, decides to use himself as a guinea pig. Everyone on the project is confident they can send a man into another time period. They’re not so confident they can bring him back.

Tony and another scientist, Dr Doug Phillips, end up marooned in time. In fact they’re marooned in various times. There is no way to predict where and when they will end up, and seemingly no way for them to get back to the present day.

Tony’s urgent problem is that he’s in 1889 and he’s about to be a witness to a horrific dam collapse (the famous Johnstown Flood disaster) which historically killed thousands of people. His scientific instincts tell him he must not interfere. His human instincts tell him that he must at least try to avert the disaster. This leads to a very unexpected consequence.

The dangers are not over for Tony and Doug. Having escaped one time period they find themselves potentially in the middle of a massacre in another.

One could object that an ethical scientist with a proper sense of responsibility would not behave the way Tony behaves, but who ever heard of an ethical scientist with a proper sense of responsibility? History is littered with examples of scientists giving no thought at all to the consequences of their scientific discoveries and technological breakthroughs.

And Tony is human. Give what seems to be a chance to be a hero and a benefactor he succumbs to temptation, and probably any man (or woman) would succumb to such a temptation.

The challenge for the writer is that we know what is going to happen. We know that the disastrous Johnstown Flood is going to happen. Somehow the writer still has to create an atmosphere of suspense. Leinster does this pretty well. Leinster was in fact a very fine science fiction writer.

This is an enjoyable read that has most of the strengths of the TV series. The characterisation is not exactly deep but it does at least hint at a few ethical issues. Highly recommended.

Murray Leinster wrote a number of these TV tie-in novels including The Invaders, based on the excellent series of the same name. He wrote some superb short stories - I highly recommend the collection The Best of Murray Leinster.

I’ve reviewed The Time Tunnel TV series, in a two-part review. The first part is here, the second here.

Lexx season 3 (2000)

The third season of Lexx went to air in early 2000. This third season does not just have a season-long story arc. Lexx had done extended story arcs before. The second season had had the multi-episode Mantrid story arc. But the third season is one continuous narrative.

Season 3 assumes that the viewer is familiar with the Lexx universe. There are vital things about the characters and the relationships between them that are not explained but you absolutely have to know these things to really understand the story. If you have watched the first two seasons then you do know these things and you will get much much more enjoyment out of the third season.

You have to know that Kai is dead, and why he is dead, and why he is still functional. You have to know why he is such an efficient killer. It helps if you know that he is the last of the Brunnen-G and why that matters to him. You have to know why Xev loves him. You have to know that Xev is part cluster lizard - if you don’t know that you will be puzzled and astonished when she displays the special abilities she possesses as a result. You have to know that she is a Love Slave. And that she is part cluster lizard.

The fourth regular member of the crew, the robot head 790, plays a more minor part in season 3. 790 is very much a comic character. The third season is much more serious and much more relentlessly dark in tone than the previous season. 790 is a bit out of place.

You have to know about the special bond between the members of the crew of the Lexx. They have an extraordinarily extreme Us and Them attitude. They will risk their lives for each other but they are entirely indifferent to the fates and the sufferings of outsiders. In the second season they were totally unbothered by the fact that the carnivorous plant-girl Lyekka was hunting down and killing and then eating the entire crew of a spaceship who were guests aboard the Lexx. The Lexx crew members were not bothered because they liked Lyekka and she was hungry. And she had become an honorary member of the crew. Stan, Xev, Kai and 790 didn’t know those other astronauts. They were strangers. If Lyekka wanted to eat them that was her business.

In the third season the Lexx crew members witness a brutal murder. The victim was a nice person who did not deserve such a fate. Stan and Xev are devastated. It takes them at least 30 seconds to get over it. Then they move on. There’s no point letting something like that spoil your whole afternoon.

As the season opens the Lexx is drifting aimlessly and has been drifting for millennia. The crew members have all been in suspended animation for 4,000 years. Lexx is helpless because he needs to eat but he’s too weak to find food. And then the Lexx is boarded by a group of ruffians. The leader is a menacing but charismatic man known as Prince. He’s a scary bad guy. Or is he? Maybe it’s more complicated. The story is continued in the second episode, May.

There are twin planets, Fire and Water. They have been at war for as long as anyone can remember. Prince is the charismatic leader of the planet Fire. He would like to use the Lexx to destroy the planet Water. The crew of the Lexx also encounter May. She is the charismatic leader of the planet Water. She hopes to use the Lexx to destroy the planet Fire.

Because this is Lexx one should not assume that this is a simple good guys vs bad buys story. Xev trusts Prince. That might be a mistake. She falls in love with him. That might be an even bigger mistake. Stanley trusts May. Which might be a mistake. He falls in love with her. Which could be a very big mistake. Perhaps Xev and Stanley are both wrong, or perhaps they’re both right, at least partially. What is sure is that both Stanley and Xev are not capable of being rational about such matters.

The cities on Water are all floating cities. They’re mostly given over to pleasure of one sort or another. The cities on Fire are at the tops of huge towers. They’re dangerous nasty places.

There’s something very very strange about both planets. The first clue is the complete absence of children. I won’t spoil things by hinting at just how strange life on these planets is.

Prince is very dangerous and he has a very odd ability but I’m also not going to spoil things by saying any more.

Several foes and friends from the past make appearances in this third season. Their reappearances are quite impossible but how they happen to turn up now is always connected with the oddness of these planets. It’s fun to see Lyekka again!

The most sensible thing to do would be to get as far away as possible from these twin planets but Lexx cannot take them anywhere until he eats. And finding food for him is a problem. Lexx is a spaceship but he is also a giant insect. He has a very healthy appetite.

Stan, Xev and Kai get drawn into the never-ending war between Water and Fire. They also get inextricably mixed up in Prince’s scheming. The problem is that they cannot figure out what Prince is actually aiming to achieve. They are not even entirely certain it is evil, although that seems likely.

There are very subtle changes in the regular characters. The changes make sense. They have been through a lot together. They understand each other a bit more. Stan is still desperate to get into Xev’s pants but he has started to think of her as more than just a luscious body. Kai has come to understand that although Xev’s desire for him is inconvenient it is not her fault. Xev has become just a little bit more tolerant of Stan’s foibles.

And Xev has grown up just a little. She’s a bit older and a bit wiser.

The narrative is concluded fairly satisfactorily by the season finale, and in a very Lexx sort of way. Lexx is not a warm cuddly science fiction series. But it is one of the all-time great science fiction TV series. Very highly recommended.

I’ve also reviewed the first season and the second season.

Mike Hammer - Murder Me, Murder You (TV-movie, 1983)

Murder Me, Murder You is one of two Mike Hammer TV-movies which served as pilots for projected TV series. Murder Me, Murder You screened on CBS in April 1983 and the response was positive. The series went ahead and was quite successful, running from 1984 to 1987. Stacy Keach plays Hammer in both the TV-movies and the series.

This was a TV-movie so there was no way the budget was going to stretch to a period setting. This is New York in the early 80s but it has a grimy scuzzy slightly sleazy 70s vibe. There’s no 80s glamour. Mike Hammer fits right into this environment.

Mike Hammer looks like he’s dressing the same way he’s dressed for twenty years. He wears a hat, which definitely adds a slight retro hint. The women wear dresses that also have just a very slight retro feel. The women’s hairstyles are not too 80s. This is not really New York in 1983. This is Mickey Spillane’s New York. This is Mike Hammer’s New York. It has its own reality. The visual style works, with nods to classic film noir and 70s grittiness.

Hammer is pressured by the DA to offer protection to an important witness. Chris Jameson (Michelle Phillips) runs an all female courier agency that specialises in delivering very sensitive documents. One of their couriers has been killed. It may have some connection to a crooked aerospace company. A briefcase disappeared from the murder scene. A briefcase worth killing for.

Mike soon finds himself with a personal stake in the case (which is a standard feature in most of Spillane’s Mike Hammer novels). Chris is an old flame. And Mike discovers he has a family member he didn’t know about, one who is mixed up in this case in some mysterious way. Mike has some personal stuff from the past that he will have to deal with.

There has been a murder. It’s very likely that there have been two murders. And as the story progresses, three murders.

As usual Hammer has clashes with the police and the DA. He’s used to that, but someone is taking pot shots at him and that annoys him. Some people he liked are dead. Someone he likes very much could soon be dead. When things like that happen Mike starts playing hardball.

You couldn’t get too sleazy on network TV in 1983 but Murder Me, Murder You gives it the old college try. There’s an astounding quantity of cleavage on display. There’s no naked flesh but there is a nicely squalid atmosphere. A key suspect is involved in the adult movie business. And there’s a balance between life in the gutter and life for the rich, and the rich people in this story are the sleaziest of all.

There’s an effectively twisty screenplay by Bill Stratton and most importantly it feels like a Mike Hammer story. There’s a bizarre twist at the end which you might find bewildering if you haven’t read Spillane. But it is a real Spillane touch.

And Stacy Keach is a splendid Hammer, always ready to start throwing punches and shoot people.

And this is the real Velda. If you’ve read the books you know that Velda has a private investigator’s licence of her own and a gun licence and she has no qualms about shooting people if she has to. I think Tanya Roberts is pretty good in the role. Velda has to be beautiful and glamorous and Tanya Roberts fits the bill perfectly. It’s a pity she wasn’t available for the series.

I have a few qualms about the ending. I’m not sure it rings true emotionally. Obviously I can’t say any more without risking spoilers.

The two TV-movies Murder Me, Murder You and More than Murder are available in a two disc DVD set. Murder Me, Murder You gets a perfectly acceptable transfer. Sadly the TV series seems to be long out of print on DVD. Blu-Ray releases would certainly be welcome!

I enjoyed Murder Me, Murder You quite a bit. Highly recommended.

As much as I like Stacy Keach here I do think that Darren McGavin in the 1958-1960 Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer TV series was a slightly better Hammer. And, oddly enough, a slightly tougher Hammer.