L.A. Firestorm, on Reelz

According to retired Fire Captain Rich Snyder, the dangerous combination of weather, topography, and combustible fuel (brush and houses) were plain to see well before the Eaton and Palisades fires erupted in Southern California one year ago. Perhaps the lack of planning, organization, and local governmental competence were also predictable. Regardless, multiple survivors make the same point, over and over. When it came to saving their homes and property, they were on their own. Some succeeded and some did not, but all their stories are genuinely harrowing in showrunner-writer-director Tim Prokop’s three-part documentary mini-series L.A. Firestorm: Inside the Inferno, which premieres tomorrow on Reelz.

As a survivor-witness David Low remembers the winds were unusually, but not shockingly, high, while the air was dry. He was keenly attuned to both, as a surfer and a professional cellist (humidity affects stringed instruments). Obviously, this also has huge implications for forest fires. Consequently, when the Eaton and Palisades fires ignited, they spread like—you know—wildfire.

Tragically, the fires quickly engulfed densely populated neighborhoods, including Snyder’s. He called dispatch directly, but all trucks were already engaged, so instead he recruited several fellow department retirees and his nephew to combat the embers endangering his house.

It wasn’t just homes that were in the line of fire. Lee Borsay explains the safety protocols he activated to protect Getty Villa Museum’s collection, as a member of their emergency response team. Likewise, staffers at the Zorthian Ranch, a working animal farm and artist colony went to extraordinary lengths to evacuate their livestock. However, they were severely limited by fire, traffic, limited trailer capacity, and the animals’ own skittishness, so Thomas Messina stayed behind with the remaining sheep and cows in ranch’s central corral, to protect and reassure them as best he could. Many people claim to love animals, but Messina truly walked the walk.

Indeed, the survival stories collected in L.A. Firestorm are truly hair-raising. Frankly, it is incredible how much they were able to save, thankfully including artist Nani Nam’s four dogs, whom former EMT Caleb Serban-Lawler ferried to safety, along with their owner. Yet, it is worth noting Prokop’s interview subjects are entirely civilians. Of course, it makes sense LA Mayor Karen Bass never appears, because she was out of the country during the fires.

Indeed, only the final ten minutes start to question the official response and questionable funding decisions made prior to the outbreak of the Eaton and Palisades fires. It is not like they did not have any warning. The Franklin Fire had just scorched nearly 50 buildings in Malibu only one month prior. In some ways, Prokop buries his lede, when survivor Erin Kyle confirms firefighters tearfully admitted to her that they ran out of water while fighting the January 2025 blazes. However, several participants put the blame on LA’s antiquated water system, which experience massive pipe breakage, because so much of the network is above ground.

Elizabeth Montgomery: A Bewitched Life, on Reelz

It is a little odd that nobody ever thought of Elizabeth Montgomery as a genre star, even though she is best known for playing a witch and an axe-murderer. She also guest-starred in four of the five greatest genre anthologies: The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, One Step Beyond, and Thriller (hosted by Boris Karloff). They only talk about the Zone is this nostalgia-baiting profile, but obviously, there is a long discussion of Bewitched in Elizabeth Montgomery: A Bewitched Life, which premieres tomorrow on Reelz.

Sadly, Montgomery died far too young in 1995, so a lot media consumers probably have not thought about her much in recent years, even though her titular sitcom has constantly remained in reruns. She was the daughter of Oscar-nominated Robert Montgomery, but their relationship was always fraught with issues, including political disagreements. They never worked together on-screen, even though she invited him to play her dad on Bewitched, of which he did not approve. However, The Legend of Lizzie Borden really scandalized him.

Of course, the greatest amount of time is devoted to Bewitched, the beloved sitcom about Samantha Stephens, a witch who is married to the mortal Darren. Naturally, the whole “Two Darrins” phenomenon is covered at length, but when you understand how much pain Dick York (Darrin #1) was in during his final days on the show, it now longer seems so funny.

In fact, you could consider it one of those “cursed” projects, along with “The Wizard of Oz” and “The Twilight Zone Movie,” because the first day of rehearsals started under the shadow of the Kennedy Assassination. Plus, Montgomery and her then husband, the show’s producer and frequent director, William Asher, both had affairs with people associated with the series, which led to their ultimate divorce.

Still, it was always a family show. In fact, Erin Murphy, who played young Tabitha on the original series (but not the teenaged Tabitha in the short-lived spinoff) narrates the profile and serves as one of the primary talking heads.

MASH: When Television Changed Forever, on Reelz

During the early to mid-1980s, if you didn’t want to the local nightly news, you probably had to watch MASH instead (or maybe Taxi). Therefore, even if you did not love the show, you still might have some nostalgia for it. That makes it perfect for Reelz latest nostalgia package. Producer-director-cowriter-narrator Bruce Osborne revisits the show with surviving cast-members (who didn’t have something better to do) in MASH: When Television Changed Forever, which premieres tomorrow on Reelz.

To Osborne and Reelz’s credit, the show acknowledges it all began with a novel written by Dr. Richard Hornberger, a former Korean War surgeon writing under the pen-name Richard Hooker. However, Dr. Hornberger’s later MASH novels reflected a much more conservative political perspective than the film or TV series. We also hear briefly from Elliott Gould, discussing the Robert Altman film.

A handful of TV critics maybe overstate matters a little when they give MASH credit for pioneering multiple storylines within one half-hour sitcom episode. However, they have a point when they single out episodes that break new ground, by breaking format, like “The Interview,” conceived as a black-and-white TV documentary, profiling the MASH unit.

Mike Farrell, Jamie Farr, Jeff Maxwell (who often recurred as Pvt. Igor Straminsky), and the late Burt Metcalfe (the series’ final showrunner, to whom the special is dedicated) are all present and accounted for, which is probably enough for most hardcore fans. However, nobody mentions the brilliance of Johnny Mandel’s theme, wisely retained from the film. As soon as you hear it, it changes your mood, priming you for the show’s blend of humor and tragedy (check out Grady Tate’s rendition here).

Of course, without MASH, there would be no After-MASH, but nobody mentions the short-lived spinoff. Indeed, it is all positive, so nobody addresses the controversy surrounding the character Capt. Oliver “Spearchucker” Jones, even though he was played in the series by Timothy Brown, one of only four holdovers from the film. Brown’s exit from the show was also somewhat controversial, at the time, being the only black recurring cast-member.

Star Trek: The Unknown Story, on Reelz

Sadly, there are very few cast and crew members left to discuss Star Trek in documentaries. Just recently, we learned of the passing of Laurel Goodwin, the final surviving co-star of the original pilot, “The Cage,” with Jeffrey Hunter playing Captain Christopher Pike. Still, there will always be plenty of commentators and fans to serve as talking heads in programs like Star Trek: The Untold Story, which premieres Saturday night on Reelz.

Real fans know Lucille Ball, the owner of Desilu Productions, saved Star Trek when she agreed to pay for an unusual second pilot. Frankly, the early genesis of the classic series is probably explored in greater depth during the first episode of History Channel’s The Center Seat. It also boasts relatively fresh interview footage with Walter Koenig (a.k.a. Chekhov). There is also a good deal of time devoted to the initial rivalry between William Shatner, the ostensible star, and Leonard Nimoy, who was getting all the publicity as Mr. Spock, but that Trek history is more fully explored in the documentary, For the Love of Spock.

At least Untold gives Paul Fix his due as the second doctor, Dr. Piper, in the second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” after John Hoyt in “The Cage” and before DeForest Kelley took over as Dr. McCoy. It also gives more time to the letter-writing campaign than Center Seat. Unfortunately, discussion of all subsequent series and films is just a blur of titles and dates.

Alice Cooper: Frontman, on Reelz

If the Evangelical Christian media were cooler, they would totally embrace the story of Alice Cooper. Truly, it is one of triumph and rebirth, because the notorious rocker overcame his addictions and inner demons, by returning to the faith of his pastor father. Yet, he never gave up his hard rock or his horror movies, so he doesn’t fit in their little aesthetic boxes. Regardless, he was up, he was down, and he is still bigger than ever, so he is a natural subject for the Reelz treatment in Alice Cooper: Frontman (produced and directed by Sean Grundy), which premieres tomorrow night.

Cooper’s installment of the Frontman franchise follows the same general outline as the feature documentary, Super Duper Alice Cooper, including the extended Jekyll-and-Hyde metaphor to describe the tension between Cooper’s regular identity and his sinister stage persona, “Alice.” Logically, both films cover much the same biographical events.

While Frontman lacks the animated interludes and extensive celebrity voices incorporated into Super Duper, it has plenty of commentary from Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider, who must have a holding arrangement with Reelz (where he was just seen in The Guest List). Dr. Drew Pinsky’s colleague, Dr. Judy Ho also offers some insight into the addiction issues he faced (but it is unclear whether she has any connection to the rocker).

Frontman also has the advantage of covering more recent events in Cooper’s life, including playing King Herod in the live network production of Jesus Christ Superstar. Even though he portrays an evil figure, the production’s sacred nature brings full circle the redemptive role Christianity played in Cooper’s later life. Indeed, Frontman probably emphasizes Cooper’s re-awakening more than Super Duper did.

The Guest List: The Station Nightclub Fire, America’s Deadliest Rock Concert, on Reelz

If you don’t know you’re 1980s metal hair bands, you might confuse Great White with Whitesnake. Neither band would like that, especially the latter. Whitesnake’s biggest hit was “Here I Go Again,” which featured Tawny Kitaen dancing on a car. Great White’s biggest hit was probably “Once Bitten Twice Shy,” but they will be forever infamous for the 2003 fire at a nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island, sparked by their pyrotechnics. One hundred people lost their lives that night. David Bellino exposes the negligence that caused the tragedy and captures the community’s lingering trauma in The Guest List, The Station Nightclub Fire, America’s Deadliest Rock Concert, which premieres tomorrow on Reelz.

To document the Station fire, Bellino had a lot of eerily relevant primary video sources available to integrate into the doc. As fate would dictate, there was actually a cameraman in the club, who recorded the stage erupting in flames behind Great White frontman Jack Russell. Mercifully, we see only brief snippets of that footage. However, we watch extensive excerpts from a preceding interview conducted backstage, by two aspiring college rock journalists/DJs. The interviewer survived the fire, but the cameraman did not.

A great deal of the blame fell on the club owners, Jeffrey and Michael Derderian, one of whom was ironically also a broadcast reporter, who had previously covered a trampling tragedy in another nightclub. Yet, perhaps the most eye-opening aspects of Guest List reveal the extent to which state government corruption made the fatal fire possible and helped sweep it under the rug afterward.

Guest List’s talking heads generally judge former Attorney General Patrick Lynch (D) to be a problematically passive prosecutor rather than a crusader for justice. The judge who presided over the case, Francis Darigan (appointed to state courts by Govs. Garrahy and Sundlin) probably comes across even worse, due to his rulings stifling victims’ statements during trial. Of course, the film’s harshest judgement is reserved for the West Warwick fire marshal, who like the Derderians, refused to participate in Bellino’s film.

To his credit, Russell talks very frankly and at-length on-camera. He is clearly a very flawed person, but he doesn’t duck any of the questions. However, the real “star” of the film is Joe Kinan, who was the last survivor to make it out of the Station alive, suffering severe full body burns in the process.

The Real Hunt for Red October, on Reelz

Tom Clancy wasn't just a #1 bestseller. He changed publishing, making the “technothriller” a legitimate thing and encouraging scores of military veterans to try their hand at fiction. Some of them were pretty good at it too. Maybe he also helped win the Cold War as well. Some commentators suggest as much in The Real Hunt for Red October, which premieres tomorrow night on Reelz.

Everyone thinks they are a writer, yet a lot of the talking heads in Reelz’s “true story” special think it was odd that an insurance salesman from Maryland could sit down a write a publishable first novel. Yet, Anthony Trollope and Wallace Stevens had written extensive bodies of literature, while also maintaining full-time office jobs. Seriously, it was not so outlandish. The question is whether Clancy was fed classified information by intelligence agencies for the sake of scoring a soft power victory. (Clancy himself always claimed he got his information from specialized media, like Jane’s Defense, but why settle for a conventional explanation, when you opt for something more dramatic.)

Much of the Real Hunt focuses on the circumstances surrounding the sinking of the Soviet submarine K-129 and the clandestine CIA campaign to salvage it, echoes of which can be found in Red October. This is also the best stuff in the nonfiction program. It was a huge undertaking, masked by a fictional seafloor mining enterprise headed by Howard Hughes, whose legendary eccentricity was an asset to the operation. We even see a promotional video for the enterprise hosted by TV character actor Richard Anderson (from The Six Million Dollar Man and appropriately, Cover-Up). For years, the salvage operation was considered mostly a failure, but several interview subjects suggest it was more successful than the CIA let on.

Clint Eastwood: Hollywood Outlaw, on Reelz

If you want to talk about box office longevity, consider the fact Clint Eastwood scored two of his largest grossing hits after he turned 75: American Sniper and Gran Torino. Yet, you couldn’t get much more “outlaw” in Hollywood than endorsing Trump in 2016. (However, Eastwood was subsequently disappointed by the chaos, because he actually had experience governing as mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea.) The remarkable career of the jazz-loving actor-director is surveyed somewhat fannishly in Clint Eastwood: Hollywood Outlaw, which airs tomorrow night on Reelz.

It is immediately clear a career as long and accomplished as Eastwood’s cannot be done justice in an hour-long special. Frankly, the same was true of Richard Schickel’s Eastwood Directs, a DVD extra-doc that had a special screening at Tribeca, which was a bit longer and predated Sniper, Sully, The Mule, and Richard Jewell. Still, it offers us an opportunity take stock of the legendary maverick and make note of films we want to revisit, which is the point of this review. For instance, Firefox is only seen in passing, but it is a nifty espionage-techno-thriller.

Regardless, Hollywood Outlaw, from supervising producer-director Randy Martin and writer-producer Travis Mabrey is a brisk tribute that provides a decent thumbnail of the man and his movies. Happily, there is indeed a clip from his uncredited debut in the classic Revenge of the Creature. They duly cover Rawhide, the Spaghetti Westerns, Dirty Harry, his work as a director, including his first foray, Play Misty for Me, and his Oscar winners, Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby. Strangely though, they give rather short shrift to Sniper, which remains his top grossing film of all time.

Logically, Richard Jewell gets considerable time, since it is his most recent. Happily for jazz fans, Bird gets an overdue ovation, but all the great non-fiction music documentaries he has helped shepherd, like Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser and Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way go unmentioned—that is probably a logical editorial choice, but it just shows Martin and Mabrey really needed more time to tackle Eastwood’s body of work.

Follett’s World Without End

It was a time of poorly planned military adventurism, punitive taxation, and talentless heads of state demanding unquestioned obedience.  Fortunately, our times are nothing like England circa 1327, except for those last three points.  The Builders have erected the cathedral at Kingsbridge, but their descendants have fallen on hard times in the sequel to Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth.  The priory runs the town—badly—and the cruel French queen sitting on the British throne nurses a mysterious grudge against Kingsbridge residents in the four-part World Without End (promo here), which premieres on the Reelz Channel this Wednesday.

The fictional Kingsbridge has both a priory and a convent.  The former controls the city charter but the latter was entrusted with the purse strings.  The nuns are progressive, supporting modern medicine and dignified conditions for the common people.  The brothers are backward fear-mongers, who insist on smothering sick patients with dung.  People assume Brother Godwyn is a progressive, by virtue of his youth, but when he is elected prior, he proves to be an exceptionally ruthless Luddite.

As one might expect, Kingsbridge also has a bridge.  Unfortunately, it has become too narrow to facilitate traffic to the Fleece Fair, the town’s most important commercial event of the year.  The priory naturally looks to the knuckle-dragging Elfric to build a similarly inadequate replacement, but the commercial guild hires his innovative apprentice, Merthin, the disgraced son of the former Earl, violently purged by the Queen’s new tax collector, Roland.

Those taxes will be high too, even by the standards 2012 America.  Queen Isabella holds Kingsbridge in particularly low regard, partly because Sir Thomas Langley found sanctuary there, becoming a monk well regarded by both his brothers and the guildsmen.  Circumstantial evidence suggests he also murdered King Edward II in prison, on Isabella’s orders.  He is not talking about his past, but his presence remains embarrassing to certain people in power.

Langley’s arrival ignites all the scandals that will follow in Kingsbridge.  Merthin will pursue his star-crossed love of Caris, while her devious kinsman Petranilla schemes to protect her sociopathic son Godwyn.  Meanwhile, the Black Death and the Hundred Years War are wrecking a grim toll on the British, particularly in Kingsbridge.

A prestigious period piece co-executive produced by Ridley and the late Tony Scott, World is a throwback to the 1980’s style cast-of-dozens miniseries.  Sometimes it works on that level, but it is a maddeningly slow starter.  The production works best when focusing on the mystery surrounding the murder of Edward II and Isabella’s subsequent Machiavellian machinations. 

Indeed, amongst the sprawling ensemble, Ben Chaplin fares better than most as intense Langley.  He just looks like a man with a history.  Similarly, longtime MI-5 veteran Peter Firth knows how to chew the scenery as Roland, the somewhat reluctant Nottingham of Kingsbridge.  Indeed, his character has one of the richest development arcs of the series.  Also, look for 24 regular Carlo Rota (a.k.a. Morris O’Brien) as Caris’s not so fast on the uptake father, Edmund.  In fact, he is pretty convincing when facing the rough justice of the royal court.

Unfortunately, as the on-again-off-again lovers, Tom Weston-Jones (so appealingly hardnosed in BBC America’s Copper) and Charlotte Riley are rather colorless.  Cynthia Nixon is instantly unlikable as Petranilla.  Nonetheless, her vampy character is so anachronistic and blatantly on the make, it is hard to buy into her intellectually and Nixon never sells her on an emotional level.  Miranda Richardson tries to give it all high tone when appearing as Mother Cecilia, a sort of a Fourteenth Century Iron Lady, but World’s melodramatic inclinations are insurmountable.

If there is one thing that comes out loud and clear throughout End it is Follett’s antipathy for the Church.  Aside from Langley and his closest cronies, the brothers are uniformly depicted as superstitious misogynists.  Yes, there are plenty of documented excesses in its history, but this was also a time when the Church was single handedly preserving the wisdom of ancient western civilization.  Frankly, World’s anti-clerical bent gets intrusively heavy-handed.

There is something engaging about a big juicy costume drama epic, especially when it has enough time to sufficiently unfold every intrigue and double-cross. Director Michael Caton-Jones (whose credits include Scandal and Rob Roy) clearly understands that appeal.  However, the inconsistent cast and didactic point-scoring quickly become distracting.  Not really recommended for audiences beyond Follett’s diehard readers, World Without End airs on Reelz Channel, beginning this Wednesday (10/17).

(Photo: Copyright TANDEM COMMUNICATIONS)

Pope Joan the Apocryphal

She was a figure of anti-Catholic lore largely but not decisively debunked by Protestant scholars. For centuries millions truly believed in the existence of a legendary female Pope. Indeed, enough references could be found in various sources (before you ask, this definitely includes Martin of Troppau’s Chronicon Pontificum et Imperatorum) to provide Donna Woolfolk Cross the hooks on which to hang a speculative novel about Johanna Anglicus, the woman who would be Pope (allegedly). The most likely apocryphal and very definitely controversial story comes to television when director-co-adapter Sönke Wortmann’s two part Pope Joan (trailer here), debuts this Sunday on ReelzChannel.

Like the other Joan, the life of Johanna (not yet known as Anglicus) will be short but epic. Her father is a priest from Britain who came to convert the godless Saxons. Unfortunately, most of his zeal is reserved for terrorizing his family. Despite her natural aptitude and general thirst for knowledge, he refuses to allow her any formal education. However, through the intercession of an unusually progressive Bishopric, Johanna eventually begins her studies at the Cathedral school, while staying as a guest of Count Gerold. She quickly forms a deep emotional bond with the Count, but not so much with the Countess.

War will soon disrupt their lives, but it offers Johanna the opportunity to assume her younger brother’s identity and take his place in a monastic order. There she will begin her ecclesiastic career, living in constant fear her secret will be revealed.

Pope Joan is not exactly a love letter to the Church (there was only one at the time), but not all of the clergy depicted are intolerant Savonarolas. In fact, at critical junctures of her life, Johanna is championed or protected by many men of the cloth, usually of the older and wiser variety. Frankly, one of the most sympathetic characters is Pope Sergius II, whom Anglicus (as he/she is then known) loyally serves. Still, her dogmatic father is so unremittingly abusive, it makes several of the early scenes punishingly difficult to watch.

Despite the gender-bending element of Anglicus’s supposedly suppressed story, Pope Joan is not really preoccupied with psycho-sexual issues. Instead, it is a more traditional feminist critique of an old world social order that afforded little or no opportunities to women. It does so with healthy doses of war, pestilence, and intrigue.

Having previously played an acting president on The West Wing, an unlikely British monarch in King Ralph, and the mother of all governors, Huey P. Long, John Goodman rounds out his resume with the portrayal of a Pope. While he somewhat stands out amid the European cast, his larger than life presence fits Sergius nicely.

Obviously, Johanna is the trickiest part to cast, because she must be boyish enough to pass for male, yet feminine enough to attract the attention of the manly Count Gerold. Frankly, that is probably impossible, but Johanna Wokalek has enough of a Tilda Swinton vibe to suspend disbelief in each context. With credits including The Lord of the Rings trilogy and 300, David Wenham brings plenty of hack-and-slash action credibility to the proceedings as Gerold, also developing some relatively convincing chemistry with Wokalek.

Pope Joan follows in the tradition of the epic miniseries so popular in the early 1980’s, but with a Euro sensibility. It recreates the early medieval era quite well, featuring production values at least a notch better than Spartacus. Wortmann has a good handle on the sweeping battle scenes and keeps the skullduggery humming along nicely. Recommended for fans of chewy historicals with a somewhat revisionist bent, parts one and two of Pope Joan premiere this Sunday (12/18) and Monday (12/19), respectively, on ReelzChannel (TimeWarner channel 131 and RCN channel 140 in New York), the network that brought viewers the Emmy winning Kennedys miniseries. It also plays in its entirely New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. (For help finding the network in your area go here.)