Before “My So-Called Life” or “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” or “Awkward” or “Freaks and Geeks,” there was “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.”
The series was one of the first on television to depict the angst of the teen years with any kind of authenticity or delicacy. For the generation that missed it, the full series, 21-set DVD arrives on shelves Tuesday.
The show starred Dwayne Hickman as Dobie and Bob Denver as his beatnik pal, Maynard G. Krebs. The show was written by humorist Max Shulman, based on his series of short stories. Price is $140.
Usual suspects: Imagine having Frankenstein, Dorian Gray and a gaggle of characters from “Dracula” all converging in Victorian London and haunting your living room.
That’s what will happen when Showtime presents its series, “Penny Dreadful,” which begins filming this fall. Dubbed a “psychosexual horror series,” the eight-episode tome is executive produced by Sam Mendes and John Logan, who last worked together on the James Bond movie “Skyfall.”
Fussy, fussy: “Rizzoli &Isles” returned to TNT for another season this week. Sasha Alexander, who’s so perfect as the finicky medical examiner, Maura Isles, on the show, co-starred on “NCIS” before that.
Alexander confesses she was not so happy on that series.
“I was not fulfilled there. I felt I did my time and it just wasn’t a home for me any longer. I knew the show would be on for a million years … I left it saying I need to pursue and live the life that I’m here to live and this job will not allow me to do that.
“Every place and every job has its own culture, and though I had wonderful friends, working on a show year-round 10 1/2 months a year, 17 hours a day would not allow me at 30 years old to have a family. It was impossible.”
She’s happily married and now has a son and a daughter and a more time to devote to her family.
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