strangled

Recent forays into online television took us back to MCMLXIII (1963). For years, the copyright date for movies and television shows was mysteriously listed in roman, rather than algebraic, numerals. Perhaps this fact was the reason we had to study this outdated numerology in school.

We traveled back to MCMLXIII in order to watch online episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. NBC has moved ahead of its competition by posting many of its shows online. They supplement the current fare with classic shows. Hitchcock lent his name and co-produced the series but only directed one episode. It's worthy to note that NBC also considers The A-team and Miami Vice to be a classics. We took in an episode of the A-team and it was just as bad today as it was yesterday. Wooden characters? These are store-bought scarecrows guarding jack-ó-lanterns.

Episodes of the Alfred Hitchcock hour seem pretty uneven; this show is different than the earlier Alfred Hitchcock Presents of which he was more involved. Some of the scripts (Hitchcock calls them plays) aren't bad, and it's interesting to see actors like Peter Faulk and Robert Redford in some of their early acting jobs, but in half the episodes I watched, the victim is killed by strangulation. Guns are sometimes pulled, but usually the action is done to move people around the room, as the victims are rarely shot. When it comes time to do away with them for good, it's done bare-handed, a grimace, and a gasp.

Although episodes of the A-team usually come with multiple rounds of automatic weapon fire and car explosions, no one ever seems to die through gun play or violent wrecks. In the last minute, the bad guys, wearing sheepish looks, are always handed over to local law enforcement, who are so grateful to the band of ex-Green Berets they never seem to realize the A-team are still wanted for murder.