Todd’s Serial Blog

Feeling a little down about the state of serials today, or lack there of? Well Sci-Fi Channel has a temporary cure.  The Adventures of Sarah Jane Smith, an import from England, is a half hour show featuring one of the most popular companions in Doctor Who history solving mysteries and saving the world from invasion with the help of her scientifically created adopted son and the spunky daughter of her clueless next door neighbor.  Best of all each two part story ends at the halfway point with a cliffhanger ending so you have to tune in again next week to see how they survived.  If you want to check it out it’s on Fridays at 8 and 8:30 PM, but you better hurry, the season ends at the end of this month.

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I was surfing the web the other day and came upon a blog called alycatsclaws and she asked a very interesting question.  What movies did you enjoy enjoy watching growing up? That is a good question,  now being a serial fan the answer is pretty obvious of course.  Star Wars comes immediately to mind as it came out in the theaters during my grade school years and was a big film for me, and undoubtedly led to the old Flash Gordon serials to be shown on local TV out of Cleveland on Sundays.

But the Big Kahuna of movies was hands down Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Now there was a movie to warm the heart of any die hard serial fan.  Chock full of action, derring do, and suspense, Sean Connery’s James Bond quickly droppeddown one from from my top spot and Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones is still my favorite film hero. Released while I was in Junior High I saw it several times in the theater, and I still crack open the box set now and then to rewatch it.  Can’t wait for the new film coming out later this month.

If you want to join in on the discussion of favorite childhood films check out:

http://www.alycatsclaws.com/2008/05/movies-you-watched-over-and-over.html

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I was putzing around the internet the other week, checking out serial write ups on IMDB, and came across Blackhawk (1952), began reading the comments and was struck by a misconception one of the reviewers fostered.  In the serial, due to budgetary restraints, all of the villains’ various hideouts use the same set.  The reviewer, echoing many other serial fans online, states that this is never mentioned or explained.  I didn’t think that was correct.  I remembered that there were comments by cast members comments and an explanation.   So I went and checked the review I did back in ‘03 and saw that I pointed this out.  I then watched the serial to be sure and yes they did offer an explanation.  When prisoners are shuffled from one hideout to another, they comment on having never left the original hideout.  After several chapters Kirk Alyn’s Blackhawk postulates that the hideouts might be intentionally set up like that so  prisoners will never be able to tell where they really are.  It is  a simple and logical  theory that covers the low budget necessity of reusing the same set over and over again.  Mystery solved!

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