PARIS (1979-1980) – This 13-episode cop show was created by the one and only Steven Bochco. James Earl Jones took his first starring role in a television series as Woody Paris of the Los Angeles Police.
Paris commanded a unit of detectives, one of whom was played by Michael Warren, future Hill Street Blues star for Bochco. More importantly, Jones met and later married his white Paris costar Cecilia Hart. They remained together until her death in 2016.
Woody Paris also taught a criminology course at a city college. His wife was portrayed by Lee Chamberlain.
If you get the chance to watch James Earl Jones’ performance in this hour-long series, please do so. He masterfully plays a sharp detective, skilled leader and devoted husband helped immensely by his unforgettable voice and his gravitas.
THE EPISODES:
PARIS – Woody Paris risks career suicide as he and his unit investigate the murder of the wife of a Los Angeles City Councilman. The late woman’s lover is the chief suspect but Paris comes to believe that the councilman himself may be the killer when he learns of the man’s covered-up incidents of domestic violence. Directed by Jackie Cooper and cowritten by Steven Bochco, whose future Hill Street Blues collaborators Barbara Babcock and Kiel Martin guest star. Continue reading
THE WITNESS (1960-1961) – This David Susskind production offered a nice change of pace in a crime drama. It wasn’t a standard police story nor was it a courtroom drama. Instead, it featured a revolving committee of real-life lawyers cross-examining actors (Telly Savalas most frequently) who portrayed real-life criminals, their victims and their accomplices. 
THE EPISODES: 
FRONTIER CIRCUS (1961-1962) – The traveling Thompson & Travis Circus roams the 1880s American West performing for audiences and having adventures. 
DEPTHS OF FEAR (1st episode) – Ben Travis signs a formerly great Lion Tamer (Aldo Ray) who has become a town drunk. Ben coaches the man back to performing status despite the attempts to derail him made by a jealous bully. Guest stars Vito Scotti, James Gregory and Bethel Leslie.
EVERGLADES aka Lincoln Vail of the Everglades (1961-1962) – This short-lived syndicated series stood out from other law-enforcement programs of its era by not being set in either a big city or the American West. Constable Lincoln Vail of the Everglades County Patrol policed the Florida Everglades in his airboat, giving this series its signature visual appeal. 
THE GREAT ADVENTURE (1963-1964) – This hour-long series presented dramatizations of well-known and obscure events from United States history. 
THE HUNLEY – In February of 1864 the Confederacy launched the experimental submarine Hunley, named after its inventor Horace Lawson Hunley. Two previous crews had drowned on test runs but on its final voyage the eight-man sub used a torpedo to sink the Union Navy’s warship the USS Housatonic. The Hunley was also destroyed by the blast and the crew killed. 
IT’S A BIRD … IT’S A PLANE … IT’S SUPERMAN! (1975) – It’s the bomb that asks the musical question “How many Lembecks can you handle?” Even the most die-hard Superman fans would have a hard time forcing themselves to watch all of this made for tv movie version of the 1966 stage musical. 
Despite music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Lee Adams and script by David Newman & Robert Benton this Superman musical was Broadway’s biggest flop in history as of the 1960s. It’s no great shakes in its televised form, either. 
TOGETHER WE STAND (1986-1987) – With the new attention being paid to Ke Huy Quan/ Short Round in recent years, I decided to take a look at the sitcom he co-starred in with Elliott Gould, Dee Wallace Stone and others. 
The first episode unrealistically dealt with a social worker leaning on the Randalls to adopt two more children, Sam (Quan) and an African American girl named Sally (Natasha Bobo). But hey, My Mother the Car and The Flying Nun proved long ago that realism isn’t necessary. 
BRACKEN’S WORLD (1969-1970) – This one-hour drama has the dubious distinction of being the series that replaced Star Trek on NBC’s Fall Schedule for the 1969 into 1970 season. The program was set at fictional Century Studios in Hollywood and presented dramas about life in the film industry. Dorothy Kingsley created and produced the show and wrote several episodes. 
The episodes were sometimes self-contained with assorted guest stars at the center of each week’s backstabbing and maneuvering, but most revolved around a regular cast portraying figures who worked at or were under contract to Century Studios. 
101. FADE IN – Brandoesque Tom Hudson tries to make his mark as an actor, Paulette Douglas is reluctant to do a nude scene in her first film, but her ambitious show-business mother (Jeanne Cooper) insists she do it. Producer Kevin Grant’s marriage is in trouble over his use of the casting couch. Tony Curtis, Omar Sharif and Raquel Welch make brief appearances as themselves to sell the supposed “star power” of Century Studios. 
EMPIRE (1962-1963) – Ryan O’Neal, Charles Bronson, Richard Egan and Terry Moore starred in this modern-day (1960s) drama about a family ranch in New Mexico. 
RICHARD EGAN starred as Jim Redigo, the brawny ranch manager with an MBA. That was an intriguing idea, and this character helped capture the new complexities of operating a ranch in the modern era while retaining the raw machismo that 1960s viewers would have expected from a ranch manager. 
RYAN O’NEAL played Tal Garret, Lucia’s son who was being groomed to take over the family ranch one day. His relationship with Redigo went from being like an uncle and nephew to more like a father and son but Tal struggled for the respect that he felt the older man was not giving him. Neither as a young man nor a rancher. 
THE SUCCESSOR (1965) – This made for British television drama was as deep as a 1965 production was going to go in depicting the deliberations and the behind the scenes maneuvering as the College of Cardinals chooses the next Pope. All the characters are fictional, but it’s acknowledged that the events are slightly based on the election of Pope John XXIII in October of 1958. 
