Show Your “Cards”

If, in this second decade of the 21st century, the popularity of a TV series can be judged by the number of folks who want to try their hands at refashioning its opening title sequence, then Netflix’s often-cutthroat American political drama, House of Cards--now in its third season--is very popular indeed.

The fan-made videos below were found on YouTube. They all employ the same sort of time-lapse photography used in the original House of Cards introduction (embedded above), and every one of them features Jeff Beal’s theme music. However, the first nine imagine the series’ action being moved to other cities than Washington, D.C. (a real treat for someone like me, who enjoys traveling). Clips 10 and 11 provide an identical style of opening, but adapt it to other familiar TV programs, while the final clip reworks the House of Cards introduction in imitation of another admired political drama.

New Orleans, Louisiana


Vienna, Austria


Budapest, Hungary


Paris, France


Amsterdam, The Netherlands


The Hague, The Netherlands


Pisa, Italy


Brasília, Brazil


Beijing, China


Breaking Bad TV opening, House of Cards-style


Sherlock TV opening, House of Cards-style


House of Cards TV opening, The West Wing-style

Inspect This!

The best news of the day (so far): The British crime drama Inspector Lewis will return to PBS-TV’s Masterpiece Mystery! series this coming Sunday night, offering the first of three new episodes. The plot of that October 5 installment, “Entry Wounds,” is described this way: “Faced with a crime that bridges the worlds of neurosurgery, blood sports and animal rights, [newly promoted Detective Inspector James] Hathaway works his first case as DI with the help of his new partner, DS Lizzie Maddox [played by Angela Griffin]. [Robbie] Lewis, struggling to adapt to retired life, jumps at the chance to rejoin the force when Chief Superintendent Innocent seeks his help.” The program will begin at 9 p.m. Word is that this is the final season for Inspector Lewis, which means fans like me must appreciate it all the more. Learn more here.

A “Rockford” Anniversary

Fan and blogger Jim Suva reminds us that today marks 40 years since the debut, on March 27, 1974, of the pilot film that launched The Rockford Files. Also known by the title “Backlash of the Hunter,” that 90-minute NBC teleflick found perennially broke ex-con private eye Jim Rockford (James Garner) being approached by a young bikini-shop proprietor (played so delightfully by Lindsey Wagner), who is convinced her wino father was murdered, rather than having committed suicide. She wants Rockford to prove that she’s right.

The Rockford pilot ranks as one of my all-time favorites of the breed, and it spawned what I believe is the best gumshoe series ever broadcast on the American small screen. If you haven’t seen the film before, or would enjoy watching it again, you’ll find it here.

How’s This for Forgotten TV?

I never thought I’d see this happen: RLJ Entertainment is planning to release a DVD set of Barbary Coast, the long-unavailable 1975-1976 ABC-TV series starring William Shatner as a disguise-obsessed government agent working to fight crime in 19th-century San Francisco. The series also starred Doug McClure as his reluctant, saloon-owning partner. TV Shows on DVD says this four-disc set will go on sale June 3, priced at $59.99, and offers this précis of the show:

Golden Globe winner William Shatner (Star Trek, Boston Legal) is Jeff Cable, an undercover agent patrolling the wild streets of 1880s San Francisco. Filled with casinos and saloons, this bustling slice of post-Gold Rush California runs on corruption, greed, and violence. And it’s Agent Cable’s job to crack down on the numerous criminals who have made a home there. Even top public officials can’t be trusted, so Cable weaves elaborate ruses to uncover the Barbary Coast’s many plots.

He also relies on the slick but beleaguered Cash Conover (Doug McClure, The Virginian), proprietor of the Golden Gate Casino. Conover reluctantly puts his business and well-being on the line for Cable time and again. The charismatic pair often find the cards stacked against them, but that doesn’t stop them from having a rollicking good time as they police a town mired in vigilante justice. Also starring Richard Kiel (The Spy Who Loved Me), this Emmy-nominated series is a playful take on traditional Westerns with a terrific cast.

TV Shows on DVD doesn’t specifically address the matter, but this forthcoming set may well contain the 1975 Barbary Coast pilot film, which was written by Douglas Heyes and starred Dennis Cole as a more laconic Cash. How else would this be a 14-episode offering? There were only 13 hour-long episodes shot, following the success of that pilot.

Meanwhile, Warner Archive has just released a DVD of the 1972 pilot for The Delphi Bureau, starring Laurence Luckinbill as Glenn Garth Gregory, a government agent possessed of a handy photographic memory. In the pilot, explains IMDb, Gregory “is assigned to solve the disappearance of an entire fleet of old Air Force planes.” Only eight episodes of the subsequent ABC series were produced, all shown as part of a Thursday night “wheel series” titled The Men. (The other two “spokes” of that wheel were Robert Conrad’s Assignment: Vienna and James Wainwright’s Jigsaw.)

A few years back, Mystery*File’s Michael Shonk reviewed the Delphi Bureau pilot, which was subtitled “The Merchant of Death Assignment” (even though almost all of the series’ later episodes ended in “Project,” not “Assignment”); you can read his remarks here. The new DVD is priced at $18.95 and can be purchased here.

The Past Frontier

Had it not been for the fact that my wife and I went to see the big-screen film American Hustle last weekend (a truly exceptional production, with special kudos deserved by Christian Bale and the ever-lovely Amy Adams), I might not have heard about the six-episode Discovery Channel mini-series Klondike, set to debut this coming Monday, January 20.

As it was, we arrived at the theater early, and had to sit through all of the pre-feature ads, one of them promoting Klondike, which the blog Dark Horizons says “follows two childhood best friends who risk everything to pursue their dream of striking it rich during the 1890s gold rush in the brutal Yukon Territory.” (You can see a preview of that mini-series here, with more information available here.) As somebody who’s written a good deal about the Klondike Gold Rush (including here), you can bet that I’ll give this Discovery drama a shot. How about you?