Yes, older shows were definitely not meant to be binge-watched.
Recently rewatched the entire Twilight Zone series. While many of the stories do hold up quite well, there are some that are just awful. Anything involving outer space seems like a bad Buck Rogers movie. And the writing throughout the series is nowhere near as consistent as I remembered.
But as far as things that really don’t hold up well, look no further than Adam 12 and Emergency. When I was about 8 years old, these were the coolest shows on tv to me. Watching them as an adult, I didn’t last 15 minutes.
I had a similar experience a couple years ago, when I tried to expose my kid to an episode of the Six Million Dollar Man.
I’ve been catching some Dragnet, and some of the stories are just as relevant today, but some episodes are really dated and full of sixties stereotypes.
A lot of comedy is like that. Like many Americans, I loved John Larroquette’s portrayal of Dan Fielding on Night Court from 1984-1992. Fielding was a sexual harrasser, a bully, and his scruples were often in short supply but he was funny. I wouldn’t want to work with a guy like Fielding though.
From 1959-1964 they produced 156 episodes, so some of them are going to be stinkers. It’s been about twenty-five years since I’ve seen an episode and my esteem for the series as a whole is fairly high.
It is impossible for me to watch the late 60s version of Dragnet as anything other than an unintended comedy.
Did it still have the rep of being a seemingly lifelike portrayal of the LAPD or police work back then like I’ve heard the radio show or 50s version did, or were people laughing at it like I do by then? Or maybe it was a generational thing, with moms and dads thinking it was serious drama, and kids recognizing it for the reactionary propaganda it was?
There’s one episode of The Twilight Zone that I still go out of my way to watch when I see that it’s on.
The last time I saw it, they cut a bit of the dialog. Heresy.
I don’t think that I’ve seen every episode of The Twilight Zone, but I’ve seen quite a few. My overall impression when I think of it today is that there are those handful of great episodes that everyone remembers–Eye of the Beholder, To Serve Man, It’s a Good Life, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, etc.–and then there are a lot more episodes that are pretty forgettable.
That’s true of all my favorite shows. There’s so much of Monty Python and vintage SNL that on rewatching I’d swear that I’d never seen (I saw them all, but I’d bet that half of the sketches were mediocre and never made it into my long-term memory).
Both of those would be on my list of “absolutely brilliant except when it wasn’t” shows.
The problem is that we only remember the funny bits, and then someone says “Oh, the new SNL cast just isn’t as funny as the first one.” Well, they weren’t as funny as you remember them, either.
I think it was Jane Curtin who said the same thing recently. She had tried watching those early episodes with her daughter’s family and, with the exception of a few sketches, found most of it painfully unfunny.
This was one of my Dad’s favorite movies. He loved the old German nun, especially the scene when she and Homer (Sidney Poitier) were arguing about him getting paid, with dueling Bible verses. And of course the language lesson (We stands up, y’all").
A while back my father in law got the first (few?) seasons of SNL on DVD, so we watched some of them.
The problem I had was the best sketches were classics, and made it onto all of the Christmas, etc. specials. They were not funny because I’d seen them so often. Many of the remaining sketches were not funny because they were just bad or very dated. That left a few middle of the road sketches that I found funny, but weren’t classics. Problem was I had no interest in watching a whole episode to get maybe one or two sketches I liked.
For me it is One for the Angels, which is oddly, only the second episode aired. I hate the one where the booklover is punished for loving books. Why? And the one where the astronaut comes into a town with no people is good also.
One thing that is usually cut out but I enjoy is Dregs and Vestiges.
I just looked it up, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen that one. I’ll keep an eye out for it.
While we’re on the subject, there’s an episode The Outer Limits that I’d like to see again, Demon With a Glass Hand. I was in Los Angeles a few years ago and went to the building where that was filmed (and dozens of other shows and movies, too). I’d like to see how that holds up.
Thats a good one. Based on a harlan Ellison tale.
Holds up: Miller’s Crossing
Not at all: Miami Vice (TV)
I’m halfway through watching all the Twilight Zone episodes, watching the hour-long episodes now. I’d say that the 30-minute episodes are consistently better, since they don’t have so much filler. It’s kind of like the Alfred Hitchcock TV series (I watched all of them recently-- ah retirement!), where for the most part the half-hour episodes are much better than the hour-long ones. The Twilight Zone overall is much better off the two.
Don’t get me started on the crappy Ray Bradbury series that was originally on HBO.
I just caught c. 20 min today of the latter, and it was pretty ordinary. For Miami-based action dramas Burn Notice was tons better.
My parents loved that movie. I just barely remembered seeing it so many years ago. The rewatch was a pleasant experience. Loved the German nuns! Thoroughly enjoyed their language banter.