Television: The First Fifty Years

The documentary provides a trip down memory lane for many of us older folks, or a peek into TV's yester-year for younger folks. Anyway, viewers won't get bored since the unfolding segments follow in rapid order depending on content. That's because the interview segments are understandably a little longer than clips from individual series. Of course, this also means favorite performers may not get as much time as a viewer wishes. But then this is a retro over-view that covers a lot of historical ground. My favorite interviews are Tony Randall discussing his career breaks, along with the delightful Betsy Palmer who provides program bookends, while Jonathan Harris from Lost In Space supplies theatrics as an cranky old man. My one real complaint is the glaring shortage of TV Westerns from the 50's when that format dominated much of the programming, Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, et al. All in all, take a look at IMDB's "cast" lineup and you should see some of your favorites. Whether they get enough film time, of course, is something else. Nevertheless, it's an extensive documentary so you may want to survey it a number of times as I have.