ela and daria rooting for "due south" made me think about some older shows i'm still very fond of ...

my show addiction has actually started with "lost" but there have been some shows before that i still admire. to be honest, looking back, i realize that some of them appear to be very awkward nowadays nowhere even close to the quality of today's shows and while some of them still are fun to watch, some others don't really do it much for me anymore ...

when i grew up i was totally addicted to stuff like

"bonanza"

"mac gyver"

"the fall guy"

"falcon crest"

and "the a-team"

i'm not too sure i'd still watch all of them nowadays (well, i sometimes tune in on the a-team as my own personal guilty pleasure ...)

there are shows though, i've been rewatching during the last three years. they've all been broadcasted quite some time ago and they have almost no traffic in forums in here anymore ...

first of course is "due south" (1994 - 1998 ).

i'm so very excited, ela and daria are watching it right now. before "chuck" came along, this was my all-time favourite and maybe you remember that before the whole "save chuck" campaign started, i had its main character benton fraser as my avatar.

"due south" is the story of benton fraser (played by paul gross), a canadian mountie coming to chicago in search of the killer of his father. he teams up with a ray vecchio (played by david marciano), a pretty cynical cop who is rather irritated by fraser's methods, brought from the yukon to the big city but adapts more and more of fraser's kindness and points of view. fraser is a very polite and friendly guy who very much believes in the good in people even in the unlikeliest of places and his trust is met most of the time. in one of the first scenes for instance fraser lends money to a guy telling him, that his daughter is sick. vecchio is mocking him, telling him that he is never going to see his money again but fraser actually really gets it back.

"due south" is a show with a very eccentric and intelligent humour but it can be very sad at times as well, bringing up social issues in a very unjudgemental way and the the cast is really excellent down to the smallest role. seasons 1 and 2 were us-american/canadian productions, seasons 3 and 4 (treated as a whole different show in here) were purely canadian.

in seasons 3 and 4 ray vecchio is going undercover and is replaced by ray kowalski (played by callum keith rennie) who pretends to be vecchio in the beginning but has a very different approach to fraser first, finally turning into friendship as well.

another show i've rewatched some time ago is

early edition (1996 - 2000)

"early edition" takes place in chicago as well (maybe you've got a hint by now why the windy city has been the place of my dreams for so many years and why i went there this spring ) but other than "due south" which seems to have been shot in toronto, it really seems to have been made there.

"early edition" is the story of gary hobson (kyle chandler) who get's tomorrow's newspaper delivered today. you never know where the newspaper comes from but it gives him the chance of preventing bad things from happening. gary is pretty overextended with his new "job", ruining his chance of a normal life and a normal relationship. he appears on the radar of the police since he's very often at the place were bad things are about to happen or happening, but he still keeps going. he is supported by marissa, a blind woman and his best friend chuck fishman, who is constantly tempted to take advantage of the newspaper.

i know the whole thing sounds rather heavy but there is some very great and cranky humour mixed in as well and it's great how the show makes it clear that there isn't anybody not deserving to be rescued and that makes it one of the most human shows i've ever seen.

lois & clark - the new adventures of superman (1994 - 1997)

you all know the story of "superman".

i love "lois & clark - the new adventures of superman" because unlike "smallville" it never gets violent and it doesn't take itself all seriously. "lois & clark"'s clark kent is a really and friendly guy never using his powers to do any harm. he never takes revenge, he never uses force for force's sake. there are some pretty funny moments as well and the whole show quite often reminds of a comic strip.

max headroom (1987 - 1997)

"max headroom" takes place in a "blade runner"like future where the whole planet is controled by tv stations. it's the story of journalist edison carter (played by matt frewer). he's some kind of a pretty arrogant guy but he's also the best investigative reporter of channel 23. after he's discovered a scandal concerning his own channel, he is chased and finally has an accident. to find out what he knows, his memory is downloaded to a computer. out comes a computer generated guy (played by matt frewer as well) who calls himself max headroom (after the "max. headroom" barrier, edison carter hit his head at). he takes up a life of his own, appearing on screens in the most inappropriate moments, commenting a world he doesn't really understand with a heavy stuttering and a very dead pan humour and he makes edison carter's life pretty complicated because he is starting to spill out his memories to all kind of people ...

again "max headroom" has very eccentric humour, it brings up a lot of social issues and its cast is just brilliant (especially matt frewer playing edison carter and max headroom).

and now to a show that really is old ...

the man from u.n.c.l.e. (1964 - 1968 )

to be honest, i'm not quite sure how seriously this show was taking itself, i doubt it did very much. i'd rather consider it some kind of parody on secret agent movies. it's another guilty pleasure for me and a lot of fun to watch.

"the man from u.n.c.l.e." is napoleon solo (robert vaughn), agent of the united network command for law and order, an international organisation fighting crime. he is teaming up with illya kuryakin (david mccallum), a russian agent (we're talking about a show here that was made in the darkest depths of cold war and that -- apart from having african agents as well -- must have been a mild sensation back then). their oponents are the agents of an organisation called "thrush", seeking power over the world. solo and kuryakin are no supermen, they get thrashed quite frequently, they tend to walk into traps all of the time, but it's even more of a pleasure to watch it because of that.

btw, i wasn't born yet when it was first shown ...

that's all for now. i've got to watch "eastwick" and "the forgotten" to be ready for the marathon of great thursday shows tomorrow.

please let us know, what shows that aren't broadcasted anymore you like, what you grew up with and what your personal guilty pleasures are.