The Plot Podcast - Episopde 7 - Ultraviolet (1998)

The Ultraviolet team in their prison vault. Don’t call it a cemetery.

The Plot Podcast in Hallowe’en Month at the When It Was Cool Network goes from tongue in cheek to deadly earnest. We’re joined by Odessa Steps Magazine contributor Justin Jones (@xPrimusPilusx) to discuss one of his all-time favorite TV shows, 1998’s Ultraviolet. The British show, written and directed by Joe Ahearne, stars Jack Davenport, Susannah Harker, Philip Quast and a young Idris Elba as a team trying to fight the good fight against … well, they call them Code V’s or leeches, but those monsters who want our blood to stay alive. We discuss how we both found the show here in the early 2000s, the premise of the show, and what we love about it. Since there are only six episodes, we discuss each one in detail, so spoilers ahoy. We rave about the quality writing and acting on display, some of our favorite scenes and more. It’s a Valentine in October to a program I often describe as “The X-Files and Blade fight Vampires.”

The Plot Podcast - Episode 6 - 1960s Spy Shows and ... Creatures?

Martin Landau as Count Zark in The Man From UNCLE’s “The Bat Cave Affair.”

As part of When It Was Cool’s Hallowe’en Month, the pod looks at some of its favorite 1960s spy TV shows and what happens when they run into some creatures. Or do they?

First, we have the Man from UNCLE and the second season episode “The Bat Cave Affair.” What is THRUSH’s “Operation Night Flight” and why does the agent behind it, Count Zark (Martin Landau using his Bela Lugosi impression 30 years before Ed Wood), seem to be dressed as a certain Transylvanian nobleman? Can Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) and Ilya Kuryakin) stop him from grounding the world’s aircrafts?

Next up, it’s the Avengers and the fifth season episode "Never Never Say Die.” When a man hit by a car doesn’t stay dead, it’s up to Steed (Patrick Macnee) and Mrs. Peel (Diana Rigg) to find out how and what does it have to do with the secret government lab run by Professor Frank N. Stone (Christopher Lee)?

Finally, we go full on spy spoof with Get Smart and the first season episode “Weekend Vampire” (not to be confused with the band of a very similar name). When CONTROL agents are being found dead with two puncture marks on their necks, Max (Don Adams) and 99 (Barbara Feldon) are sent to investigate the disgraced scientist Dr. Drago (Martin Kosleck).

We’ll be back soon with a slightly more serious look at spies and the undead in the 1999 British TV show Ultraviolet starring Jack Davenport, Susannah Harker and a young Idris Elba. It’s The X-Files plus Blade vs Vampires in the next episode of the podcast.

The Plot - Episode One - Mission Impossible 1966

What happens when a safecracker breaks his hands? Willy (Peter Lupus) and Terry (Wally Cox) from the Mission: Impossible pilot episode.

We’re happy to debut a new podcast series in conjuction with the When It Was Cool network with the first episode of The Plot. What’s that, you ask? It’s going to be an examination of the spy/heist genre. It will look at film, television, comics, cartoons and whatever else that can fall under that umbrella.

First up, we go to the very top of the genre for me, the original Mission Impossible TV show, which ran on CBS from 1966 to 1975. Naturally, we start with the Pilot, which starred Steven Hill as Dan Briggs, the team leader, along with regulars Barbara Bain, Greg Morris, Peter Lupus, Martin Landau and guest star Wally Cox. We look at the background on the show and then some brief chat about the episode itself, where the team goes to a Caribbean country to stop a dictator from using newly-acquired nuclear warheads against the United States.

We also look at arguably the most-remembered episode of the show, Season 3’s The Execution. We have Peter Graves in his second year as Jim Phelps, the regular team and guest villains Vincent Gardenia, Val Avery and Lew Askew. The team needs to get the goods on a mobster trying to control food prices and must get a hitman to rat out his boss by making him believe he is days away from being killed in the gas chamber.

This episode was a little shorter than we planned, but didnt want to just add filler. It was the demo episode, so please forgive any hiccups or glitches. We’ll be back soon with another episode.

Thanks to Karl for the invitation. Make sure you sample the other shows on the When It Was Cool Network.