US TV

An archive of articles about US television programmes and production.

US TV

Ashley Crow: from Probe to Heroes

14 July 2009 Rob Buckley Post a comment

When Heroes first came out, I did the usual thing of checking the cast list to see if there was anyone I knew whom I liked on the list. “Masi Oka? Okay, he’s in Scrubs. Ali Larter? Ooh, I liked her in Legally Blonde. She’s really hot, too. Greg Grunberg? That’s that pal of JJ Abrams who’s on Alias and everything else JJ Abrams has ever done, isn’t it? Adrian Pasdar? Profit!”

However, I was probably the only person to go: “Oh my God. It’s Ashley Crow! Mickey from Probe!”

Ashley Crow? She plays Claire’s mum Sandra on Heroes. And here she is on Probe:

Ashley Crow in Probe

Probe was one of those shows back in the 90s when the UK SciFi Channel started up that got repeated over and over again because they didn’t have the rights to anything else. So I got to watch a lot of it. It’s one of Isaac Asimov’s few interactions with television and bears all his hallmarks: reclusive scientific genius with few social skills investigates technology-related crimes with the assistance of his secretary Mickey, who brings him out of his shell. It’s basically Murder He Calculated, with a very small amount of Moonlighting thrown in.

It wasn’t a great show, but it was fun. And I liked Ashley Crow in it, even if she did have a thankless role. Below, you can watch all of the first episode on YouTube and there’s a fan site over here if you want more information. I just like the fact that the hot sidekicks of yesteryear still get to work in the 21st century. All that stuff with Sandra telling Claire about when she was a kid and doing what Claire was doing – it almost felt like a nod to Probe.

US TV

Ashley Crow: from Probe to Heroes

14 July 2009 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

When Heroes first came out, I did the usual thing of checking the cast list to see if there was anyone I knew whom I liked on the list. “Masi Oka? Okay, he’s in Scrubs. Ali Larter? Ooh, I liked her in Legally Blonde. She’s really hot, too. Greg Grunberg? That’s that pal of JJ Abrams who’s on Alias and everything else JJ Abrams has ever done, isn’t it? Adrian Pasdar? Profit!”

However, I was probably the only person to go: “Oh my God. It’s Ashley Crow! Mickey from Probe!”

Ashley Crow? She plays Claire’s mum Sandra on Heroes. And here she is on Probe:

Ashley Crow in Probe

Probe was one of those shows back in the 90s when the UK SciFi Channel started up that got repeated over and over again because they didn’t have the rights to anything else. So I got to watch a lot of it. It’s one of Isaac Asimov’s few interactions with television and bears all his hallmarks: reclusive scientific genius with few social skills investigates technology-related crimes with the assistance of his secretary Mickey, who brings him out of his shell. It’s basically Murder He Calculated, with a very small amount of Moonlighting thrown in.

It wasn’t a great show, but it was fun. And I liked Ashley Crow in it, even if she did have a thankless role. Below, you can watch all of the first episode on YouTube and there’s a fan site over here if you want more information. I just like the fact that the hot sidekicks of yesteryear still get to work in the 21st century. All that stuff with Sandra telling Claire about when she was a kid and doing what Claire was doing – it almost felt like a nod to Probe.

Classic TV

Weird old titles: The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Mysteries

14 July 2009 Rob Buckley 38 Comments

There was a time when every kid with an imagination and who read books would have known about those young detectives the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. If you were a boy, you read about brothers Frank and Joe Hardy and their intrepid investigations; if you were a girl (or called Rob Buckley), you read about Nancy Drew and her equally intrepid investigations.

And when I say was ‘there was a time’, it was a very long time indeed, since the original books came out in the 1920s and continued to be must-reads into the 90s.

Times have moved on, and there have been attempts to update the books, and dramatise them on TV or even in the movies – Nancy Drew getting the latest movie treatment, a slight pisstake with Nancy as a goody twoshoes struggling with modern teens; Ben Stiller and Tom Cruise are still working on a movie with them as the grown-up Hardy Boys. These updates haven’t been totally successful and the characters are fading somewhat into history.

Back in the 70s, though, The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Mysteries was the Saturday night show to watch. The show starred teen heart-throb (and future TV show writer) Shaun Cassidy as Joe Hardy, Parker Stevenson (future star of Baywatch and Isaac Asimov’s P.R.O.B.E.) as Frank Hardy and Pamela Sue-Martin (future Fallon on Dynasty) as Nancy Drew (she was replaced towards the end of the second season by Janet Louise Johnson).

The format of the Mysteries was a bit weird. In the first of the show’s three seasons, it alternated each week between the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. By the second season, only three episodes featured Nancy Drew by herself and the rest had her as a ‘guest star’ in the Hardy Boys’ episodes. And by the third season, Nancy Drew was gone altogether, and the show became The Hardy Boys Mysteries.

Whatever you think of the show itself – and you can still catch an episode or two on YouTube (look, here’s one with Melanie Griffiths) – the opening titles for the second two seasons were weird and creepy, as was the theme music. They also quite cleverly managed to add the members of the cast to the then-famous book covers. Over to you weird old title sequence:

Monday’s E4-ing Erica news

13 July 2009 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Doctor Who

Film

British TV

  • ITV to charge for Britain’s Got Talent clips
  • Four HD channels to launch on Virgin Media
  • Sci Fi acquires Warehouse 13
  • E4 acquires How I Met Your Mother and Being Erica to air in October

US TV