Search Results for: the defenders robert reed

Someone asked me the other day what old TV show that hasn't had a formal DVD release I would like to see so issued. A few months ago, my answer would probably have been Car 54, Where Are You? but I recently found out that a collection of Season One is on the way. My friend Hank Garrett, who is one of the few surviving cast members, was recently flown to New York. He and his fellow cast member Charlotte Rae were interviewed by Robert Klein for a Special Feature that will be included on the DVD. Hank has no idea when it'll be out but the fact that it's on the way is great to hear. If you're not familiar with those shows, you're in for a treat.

My second choice might be the American version of That Was the Week That Was, which aired here from 1964-1965. I remember it as an uneven but often brilliant comedy show that skewered events in the news with a rotating cast that included Alan Alda, Henry Morgan, David Frost, Buck Henry, Burr Tillstrom, Elliot Reid and many others. I also remember it being preempted almost constantly during the '64 presidential election. Back then, it was not uncommon for parties or candidates to buy up a half-hour or hour of evening network time to air political ads, sometimes with little advance warning. The Republican National Committee somehow decided it would help Barry Goldwater get elected if they prevented TW3, as it was affectionately called, from airing. So each week for months, we'd tune in when TV Guide said it would be on and each week, we'd be disappointed to find a Goldwater ad in its stead. Anyway, I'd love to see some whole episodes of that show if any exist. Some collectors have told me that not much has survived.

So I guess my choice would be The Defenders, no relation to the current program of that name. Aired on CBS from 1961-1965, it was a courtroom drama starring E.G. Marshall and Robert Reed as a father-son lawyer team that handled important, polemic cases. Unlike the concurrent Perry Mason (which also aired on CBS), the accused was not always proven innocent and the stories were not whodunnits. Often, they had to do with the morality of our laws and the legality of our morals. A few years ago, someone sent me a VHS tape of four episodes and I thought they held up quite well…and every one of them gave me a lot to think about. Every bit of controversy in them was still controversial, though often not in the same way as in the sixties. So that's my vote: The Defenders. Will someone get on that, please?