Just to let you know...Aaron Spelling was very familiar with the concept of a killer robot, as 17 years prior, he produced Honey West, which featured an episode about a killer robot at a toy company ("The Fun-Fun Killer", which you should be able to view on YouTube), an episode that is far more enjoyable in a half-hour format and without a cast of name actors!
4 Reviews
Who Shot Troy Donahue?
JasonDanielBaker15 August 2011
Electronics company CEO Richard Hoyt (Monte Markham) is set to be overthrown by his brother Willie Hoyt (Troy Donahue) in a proxy fight. Willie wants to shut down a costly development project of the company called "Joey's World" a life-size Video game with robots named Joey. One of the robots picks up a loaded .38 and pumps Willie full of lead.
John Gordon Boyd (David Cassidy) the erratic genius who designed and programmed the robots and created Joey's World is the obvious suspect though plenty of others have motive. Herman Burnham (Norman Fell) a competitor of Hoyt's and a man who Houston has dealt with personally and come to despise is one of the suspects.
My general criticism of the series tended to be the windows through which Houston found himself in these investigations. Here he has multiple ones where in a lot of episodes he had no believable ones. Here Houston's accountant Murray (George Wyner) ropes him into investigating, not because Houston has a stake in the company nor because Herman Burnham, a man Houston loathes is accused either of which would have made sense.
Here Murray has a stake in the company via a children's charity connected with it and "hires" Houston but the real client is John Gordon. Pretty convoluted when they could have just made Houston a Hoyt Electronics stockholder.
The cheap "Lost In Space" style set for Joey's World is comically low-grade but other than that this is still a pretty fun episode compared with the others in the first season of this show, The killing of Willie Hoyt was actually filmed like the iconic shooting in the "Who Shot JR?" episode of Dallas in a clear homage. If one is going to hire Troy Donahue to appear in a murder mystery in a whodunit like this it is rather wise to make him the victim. He gets whacked at the beginning so we are spared his bad acting in the rest of the episode.
It is odd that Houston or C.J. were not investigated for serial killing of washed up old TV stars since on his show an enormous critical mass of them got whacked over the course of its history.
This show gave work to a lot of former stars from old TV shows. The cast here is filled with them, You also might recognize Paul Petersen - Jeff Stone from the Donna Reed Show playing one of the uniformed security guards.
H.B. Haggerty who played Tiger-Man the bodyguard for Princess Ardala portrayed by Pamela Hensley on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century appears here as Herman Burnham's bodyguard. Even this early in the series they were casting actors who had worked with the series stars before. George Wyner who played Murray on this show also worked with Lee Horsley on Nero Wolfe.
It is a very small group of people that make movies and TV in Hollywood and people who have worked well together in the past like to do so over and over again where and when they can. Hollywood is more than just a very exclusive club. It is a collection of exclusive clubs that get more and more exclusive depending on how successful people are. Sometimes actors just work with the same people simply because they share an agent.
Paul Brinegar and Dennis Fimple who played Houston's comic relief ranch-hands Lamar and Bo are credited as having been in this episode but they are only seen in the opening montage.
John Gordon Boyd (David Cassidy) the erratic genius who designed and programmed the robots and created Joey's World is the obvious suspect though plenty of others have motive. Herman Burnham (Norman Fell) a competitor of Hoyt's and a man who Houston has dealt with personally and come to despise is one of the suspects.
My general criticism of the series tended to be the windows through which Houston found himself in these investigations. Here he has multiple ones where in a lot of episodes he had no believable ones. Here Houston's accountant Murray (George Wyner) ropes him into investigating, not because Houston has a stake in the company nor because Herman Burnham, a man Houston loathes is accused either of which would have made sense.
Here Murray has a stake in the company via a children's charity connected with it and "hires" Houston but the real client is John Gordon. Pretty convoluted when they could have just made Houston a Hoyt Electronics stockholder.
The cheap "Lost In Space" style set for Joey's World is comically low-grade but other than that this is still a pretty fun episode compared with the others in the first season of this show, The killing of Willie Hoyt was actually filmed like the iconic shooting in the "Who Shot JR?" episode of Dallas in a clear homage. If one is going to hire Troy Donahue to appear in a murder mystery in a whodunit like this it is rather wise to make him the victim. He gets whacked at the beginning so we are spared his bad acting in the rest of the episode.
It is odd that Houston or C.J. were not investigated for serial killing of washed up old TV stars since on his show an enormous critical mass of them got whacked over the course of its history.
This show gave work to a lot of former stars from old TV shows. The cast here is filled with them, You also might recognize Paul Petersen - Jeff Stone from the Donna Reed Show playing one of the uniformed security guards.
H.B. Haggerty who played Tiger-Man the bodyguard for Princess Ardala portrayed by Pamela Hensley on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century appears here as Herman Burnham's bodyguard. Even this early in the series they were casting actors who had worked with the series stars before. George Wyner who played Murray on this show also worked with Lee Horsley on Nero Wolfe.
It is a very small group of people that make movies and TV in Hollywood and people who have worked well together in the past like to do so over and over again where and when they can. Hollywood is more than just a very exclusive club. It is a collection of exclusive clubs that get more and more exclusive depending on how successful people are. Sometimes actors just work with the same people simply because they share an agent.
Paul Brinegar and Dennis Fimple who played Houston's comic relief ranch-hands Lamar and Bo are credited as having been in this episode but they are only seen in the opening montage.
Hooray for Texas.
valstone524 February 2020
Frowsy effects make for a silly show
aramis-112-80488022 October 2023
In the days when the height of video games was Pac-man, Matt Houston gets caught in a life-sized "video game." Though where the "video" comes in is unclear. Though it's good for a wet T-shirt competition.
The usual guest stars of the period pop up, including David Cassidy, Monte Markham and Norman Fell.
And the video game? Rather frowsy. Doors outlined in red tinsel. I never quite understood the point of the game. Matt and CJ might have been ahead of their time with Baby but this is all rather inexplicable. Don't they realize the point of a game is a goal? Unless it's just a rat maze. Even so, it should have some clues.
Most interesting is their take on AI. Remember the robot on "Buck Rogers in the Twenty-Fifth century"? It's kind of like that, though with a pleasanter voice. Something of the kind also appeared on "McGyver."
Back in the day, in movies and TV, computers and gizmos were invariably perceived as the enemy. Big Brother. So, people around my age have an adversarial relationship with them. Why do we keep listening to those dopes?
The usual guest stars of the period pop up, including David Cassidy, Monte Markham and Norman Fell.
And the video game? Rather frowsy. Doors outlined in red tinsel. I never quite understood the point of the game. Matt and CJ might have been ahead of their time with Baby but this is all rather inexplicable. Don't they realize the point of a game is a goal? Unless it's just a rat maze. Even so, it should have some clues.
Most interesting is their take on AI. Remember the robot on "Buck Rogers in the Twenty-Fifth century"? It's kind of like that, though with a pleasanter voice. Something of the kind also appeared on "McGyver."
Back in the day, in movies and TV, computers and gizmos were invariably perceived as the enemy. Big Brother. So, people around my age have an adversarial relationship with them. Why do we keep listening to those dopes?
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