ALL SCI-FI

[Krel]

The show was a spinoff from the TV Movie "Fame is the Name of the Game", about a reporter for Fame Magazine. The TV show changed the premise slightly. Each episode ran in a 90 minute time slot.

The TV show is a 'wheel' show. A wheel show is a show with rotating leads. three in this case.

Gene Barry plays Glenn Howard, owner of Howard Publications. Tony Francisoa plays Jeffery Dillon, lead reporter for People Magazine. This is before there was an actual People Magazine. Robert Stack is Dan Farrell, ex-FBI agent and the editor of Crime Magazine. Susan Saint James is Peggy Maxwell, editorial assistant to the three leads.

Gene Barry's stories covered big business and political intrigue.

Anthony Franciosa's stories covered current affairs.

Robert Stack's stories covered crime stories.

I watched the show when it was originally run, and the reruns in the 70s & 80s. I don't know if the show was withdrawn from syndication or if no one was interested in a show that needed a 90 minute time slot.

Gene Barry had some episodes with fantastic content.

"L.A. 2017", is the famous Steven Spielberg directed episode written by Phillip Wylie.

"Love-In At Ground Zero", where he is kidnapped by a group of Hippies, and brought to a government testing ground for chemical warfare. He is locked in a safe room and is expected to watch the Hippies commit suicide when the government gases the place.

A rather bazaar one is "All the Old Familiar Faces". Gene Barry is receiving death threats, so he goes and visits many of the people who's lives his magazines have destroyed. Naturally, he doesn't receive much sympathy or help. What makes this episode so strange is that as he travels around, you see a chorus of singers in the background. They are all blond and dressed in white, singing a song about "all the old familiar faces staring back at you".

As far as I know, the series has not received a DVD release.

David.

[Bud Brewster]

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I enjoyed this series often when I was stationed in Germany while serving as an Air Force Security Policeman between 1969 and 1971. The American Armed Forces Network provided episodes of shows like this, and I was very impressed with this one.

I can't find a source for downloads, but Youtube has this, at least.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

[scotpens]

The show had a lot of well-written episodes. One I remember in particular -- one of the Gene Barry episodes -- concerned a small southwestern town with an annual tradition of re-enacting a gunfight that was important to the town's history. Only it seems they've been getting the history wrong all these years -- the heroes were really the bad guys and vice versa! And someone has an interest in preventing the truth from getting out . . .

[Custer]

I did try to find S03E16, the science-fictional "L.A. 2017" episode, but the download link was dead... I'm hoping that the site in question can re-post it.

Spielberg said in later years that the show "opened a lot of doors for me"...