THINGS I'VE HEARD, READ, SEEN OR WATCHED RECENTLY

In last week's column, I discussed my typically over-elaborate TV  viewing (on DVD or Blu-Ray)schedule, where I typically alternate a handful of "A list" programs with a much larger "B list," but as I was finishing up the column, my computer failed to save the last four entries, so I'm continuing with that gripping tale this week.

Here is the rest of my current A list:

Sherlock - I have to admit, not every episode is top-notch, but then that can be said for virtually every television series ever produced. But I love the casting (Rupert Graves as an intelligent, helpful Lestrade!), the visual style, and the wonderful modern interpretation and reinvention of the classic characters. It became one of my all-time favorite series in its first season, and that opinion hasn't wavered.

Star Trek - I wrote about the early episodes in a recent column. The latest one I watched, "The Corbomite Maneuver" (directed by Joseph Sargent!), demonstrated that same lived-in quality that I suspect was lost in later seasons. One scene showed the end of an hours-long meeting with Kirk and his department heads, with coffee being poured and Sulu napping face-down on the table. Uhura was even part of the meeting, suggesting that at this early point in the series, she was seen as more than just that nice lady who answers the phone.

The West Wing - Something keeps me from loving this show as much as I might -- maybe it's the generally bland feeling, typified by W.G. Snuffy Walden's score. But the elegance and old-style craft of Aaron Sorkin's writing is always appreciated, and the cast is stellar, especially the late John Spencer, Richard Schiff, and most particularly the magnificent Allison Janney.

The Wire - I can't imagine I can add anything to what has already been written and said about this truly extraordinary series but to agree with the sentiment that this is the finest TV series ever produced. I will mention that its greatness only serves to emphasize the uselessness of the Emmy Awards. In its five seasons, running from 2002 to 2008, The Wire -- which from its premiere on received absolute rave reviews -- managed to score only two Emmy nominations, both for writing, one for the third season episode "Middle Ground" and one for the series finale. Compare that to Alias, which I hope no one will claim is a better series than The Wire. In Alias' five seasons, from 2001 to 2006, it received four Emmys and 36 nominations, including four nominations just for Jennifer Garner. So in the five years of The Wire, no nominations for the performances of -- to name a particularly outstanding few -- Clarke Peters, Wendell Pierce, Sonja Sohn, Michael K. Williams, and a special favorite, Andre Royo as Bubbles. I think Senator Clay Davis would know the right word to say about these oversights.

I've also been watching the handful of TV movies I have on DVD, especially the science-fiction and horror movies I grew up with, like Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (an iffy video transfer, and a surprisingly bleak story) and Genesis II. The one I watched most recently was not a genre piece, but a very good and remarkably grim prison drama from 1972, The Glass House, which was controversial at the time of its airing, particulary for its prison-sex/gang-rape subplot. Though the DVD transfer was iffy, the movie held up surprisingly well, helped by a chilly score by '70s TV movie stalwart Billy Goldenberg. It's strange to picture this unflinching drama airing on the same network that showed The Waltons and The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

I've also been making my way through my much longer "B-list" of episodic television, including the following series:

Thriller - "Man in the Middle." This is one of the early, crime-oriented episodes. The most interesting thing about these episodes is that many of them are actually based on novels, so they have a surprising amount of plot for a 50-plus minute TV episode. This one wasn't particularly good. The lead was legendary standup comic Mort Sahl, whose dramatic acting here was pretty one-note, and the plot was laden with characters behaving stupidly, from the menaced hero who thinks nothing of answering the door in the middle of the night, to the master criminals who loudly plot a kidnapping in a bar.

UFO - "Confetti Check A-OK." This is truly a strange series. Not just strange because all the women on the moonbase wear identical purple wigs, and the men wear mesh shirts that reveal their nipples, though that's pretty strange all on its own. It's a lavish TV series with top-notch effects, about aliens threatening to invade Earth, and a shockingly small amount of the series is spent on either aliens or even alien spaceships. This particular episode was a flashback story showing how the decade-long creation of SHADO (Supreme Headquarters, Alien Defense Organization) led to the collapse of Col. Straker's marraige. An earlier episode had Straker's young son getting hit by a car, and due to complications from Straker's job the kid ends up dying. I guess I shouldn't complain that a sci-fi thriller series actually spends time on its characters, but some sci-fi thrills would be appreciated. I only learned this week that Ed Bishop, who played Straker (as well as a shuttle pilot in 2001), was also "Klaus Hergesheimer" in Diamonds Are Forever. If you've never seen Diamonds, that means nothing. If you know Diamonds as well as I do, it's a pleasant surprise.

Veronica Mars - "Meet John Smith." It took a while for this series to win me over, partly because I kept mentally comparing it to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and except for Kristen Bell and Enrico Colantoni as Veronica and her father, the regular characters were nowhere near as well developed and perfectly cast as the Buffy gang. But the mysteries are consistently clever, Bell and Colantoni make one of the great daughter-father pairings in TV or movie history, and the series accumulated a lot of emotional weight over its three seasons. This particular episode had an especially good twist and a strong guest performance from Melissa Leo.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea - "The Price of Doom."  It was only the fifth episode of season one, but happened to be the first monster episode, as the Seaview and its crew are menaced by enormous, mutated plankton. The guest cast (including Jill Ireland) is sizable enough that some of the actors aren't credited, such as Pat Priest (who that same year would begin her most famous role, as Marilyn Munster), and the Victor Buono-ish Dan Seymour, the veteran Warners contract player whose roles included "Abdul" in a little movie called Casablanca. Amusingly enough, it was written by "Cord Wainer Bird," aka Harlan Ellison, whom legend has it physically attacked one of the show's producers during a script meeting for this episode. Hugo Friedhofer and Alexander Courage shared the scoring credit.

The Wild Wild West - "The Night of the Casual Killer." A more traditional Western episode than usual, but with a lot of opportunity for Ross Martin to ham it up.

The X-Files - "Conduit." A pretty typical alien-abudiction episode from early in the series. X-Files may be the best example of why I'm almost never sad when a favorite show is canceled, as I'd rather a show end too soon than too late. If X-Files were just the first four or five seasons, it might be one of my all-time favorite shows.