With the ongoing tragic events in Mexico, here’s a melancholy repost from several years ago of my look at the short-lived television series version of the El Mariachi movies.
EL MARIACHI (2014) – This Mexican television series directed by Salvador Cartas was loosely based on the 1992 Robert Rodriguez movie of the same name and its sequels, Desperado (1995) and Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003). It’s no secret that Rodriguez himself is not fond of this series. According to some sources Sony allegedly made a tentative notification of their plans to the writer/ director and then ran with it without further input from him.
Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog know how much I love and praise the original El Mariachi movies. The title character, who starts out the trilogy as a struggling mariachi guitar player who winds up having to go all Die Hard on Mexican drug cartels, was played by Carlos Gallardo in 1992 and then Antonio Banderas in 1995 and 2003.
The series of movies certainly seemed to partially inspire the later Sicario films, but I much prefer Rodriguez’s flicks. The El Mariachi television program is, unfortunately, inferior to both franchises. That’s a shame because lead actor Ivan Arana certainly looks the part and Martha Higareda as the hero’s love interest Celeste is just the right mix of sultriness and butt-kicking badness. For some reason photos of Higareda don’t come close to capturing her full allure but seen in motion she’s even more impressive.
Like in the Robert Rodriguez films, the up-and-coming mariachi player is mistaken for a Mexican criminal who is carrying a similar guitar case. From there he gets caught up in a battle with Mexico’s ever more powerful drug cartels.
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THE D.A. (1971-1972) – For any readers who are not familiar with the topic, D.A. stands for District Attorney. This short-lived series starred Robert Conrad as Deputy D.A. Paul Ryan in Los Angeles. Harry Morgan portrayed H.M. Stafford, Ryan’s investigator. 
MURDER ONE (December 8th, 1969) – Deputy District Attorney Paul Ryan (Robert Conrad) works at convicting a beautiful nurse who is using her medical skills to conceal her murders of her rich husbands and other relatives. It’s an uphill battle since his superiors think the woman is innocent. Also starring Diane Baker, Howard Duff, J.D. Cannon, Dana Elcar, Fredricka Meyers and Scott Brady. (2 hours) 
THE CHAMPIONS (1968-1969) – This British series from ITC featured three secret agents whose plane crash-landed near Shangri-La, the secret civilization in the Himalayas. They were granted enhanced physical strength and superior senses as well as ESP. They used their new abilities in their role as secret agents for an international organization called Nemesis. 
THE BEGINNING – Pilot Craig Stirling is flying himself and his colleagues Dr. Sharron Macready and William Gaunt out of Communist China after completing their latest mission. The Chinese Air Force damages their plane to such a degree that they crash-land in the Himalayas and learn Shangri-La really exists. The three are granted paranormal abilities and return to the world at large. Burt Kwouk guest stars. 
GREAT GHOST TALES (1961) – This half-hour series featured dramatizations of horror stories from Algernon Blackwood, Saki, Edgar Allan Poe and others. It was also the very last regularly scheduled fiction program to be broadcast live in the U.S. 
CHANNING (1963) – Also known as The Young and the Bold this hour-long drama series was a college version of Mr. Novak, against which it went head-to-head. B-Movie titan Jason Evers starred as Professor Joseph Howe, a Korean War veteran now teaching at fictional Channing College. Henry Jones portrayed Fred Baker, his former professor and now Channing Dean. 
ADVENTURES IN RAINBOW COUNTRY (1970-1971) – This forgotten Canadian series starred LOIS MAXWELL herself as Nancy Williams, a widowed single mother raising her teenage son and daughter in a home on Lake Huron in the late 1960s. 
STANDOUT EPISODES: 
CUCUMBER CASTLE (1970) – Eight years before the Bee Gees embarrassed themselves on the big screen with a horrible movie forcing a storyline to the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band they embarrassed themselves on the small screen forcing a storyline to their own album Cucumber Castle. 
Cucumber Castle is so awful that not being in it was presumably brother Robin Gibb’s greatest professional triumph. He had recently left the Bee Gees in a huff to try a solo career, and little Andy Gibb was only twelve years old, so Barry and Maurice, who also produced, were left holding the 
PETROCELLI (1974-1976) – Joel Hodgson once observed “You’ve got to light a fire PRET-ee early in the morning to burn Barry Newman.” However, that observation and the 1979 disaster movie that inspired it – City on Fire – have nothing to do with Petrocelli. It’s just the first thing that comes to mind every time Barry Newman’s name comes up. (Well, that and “Chickee chickee boom boom” from that same flick.) 
Viewers would get a Rashomon style account of the episode’s crime from the perspective of both the Defense and the Prosecution. Then, Petrocelli’s investigation would enable him to reconcile the conflicting accounts. 
THE WATCHER (1995) – It seems redundant to refer to a UPN series as forgotten. Or short-lived. Nearly every show that UPN launched in January of 1995 was on and off the air pretty quickly. At 13 episodes, The Watcher was to the new UPN Network what long-lived shows like Gunsmoke were to the established networks. 
The Watcher was an anthology series starring rapper Sir Mix-A-Lot as the title character. The Watcher was a mysterious, quasi-supernatural figure in Las Vegas who had hidden cameras throughout the city, thus allowing him to observe and narrate the grim fates of each episode’s main characters. He hosted from his plush room at the Riviera.
APPOINTMENT WITH ADVENTURE (1955-1956) – This forgotten program from the 1950s presented LIVE performances that were filmed and could be aired as reruns in the future. Appointment with Danger ran for 53 half-hour episodes and featured writers like Rod Serling as well as actors like Paul Newman and Gena Rowlands. If you don’t like black & white, some episodes have been colorized. 
FIVE IN JUDGMENT – Paul Newman and Jack Lord star in this drama about two brothers who take shelter from a storm in a small-town diner filled with other patrons waiting out the dust storm. News reports make the locals suspect that Paul and his brother are a pair of fugitives who just murdered a 16-year-old girl. Patricia Breslin and James Gregory also starred. 
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