Q: I thought Tom Hanks was producing a World War II series about the Allied air forces, similar to “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific.” Did this fall by the wayside?

A: It’s coming. “Masters of the Air,” a nine-part drama, will arrive on Apple TV+ on Jan. 26, 2024, with two episodes, followed by weekly episodes through March 15. Coming from Hanks, Steven Spielberg and Gary Goetzman, who also produced “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific,” the series “follows the men of the 100th Bomb Group (the ‘Bloody Hundredth’) as they conduct perilous bombing raids over Nazi Germany and grapple with the frigid conditions, lack of oxygen and sheer terror of combat conducted at 25,000 feet in the air.” It’s based on the book by Donald L. Miller.

Q: I was watching, and immensely enjoying, the “Yellowstone” prequel “1923.” There looked (to me) to be eight episodes in the series. As I watched Episode 8, the end seemed premature, as there was no resolution to several stories. Any idea how I might be able to see the conclusion?

A: The eight episodes of “1923” constituted a first season, with the sort of cliffhanger viewers often encounter. A second season of eight episodes has been ordered, stars Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren are expected back and those episodes will reportedly end the series. Right now, there’s no air date for Season 2, which has been delayed by the now-settled writers’ strike and the ongoing actors’ strike.

The “Yellowstone” universe’s mastermind Taylor Sheridan told Deadline.com that the second season of “1923” is “really the second half of the (first) season.” Instead of doing one 10-episode season, as he did with “1883,” Sheridan realized “I need to make more episodes to finish this story. I need to do this in two blocks. An eight-episode block and a second eight-episode block to wrap this up.”

Q: I seem to remember a supernatural serial that ran concurrently with “Dark Shadows” in the late ‘60s named “Strange Paradise.” Do you know about this series or if it might be available on DVD?

A: “Strange Paradise” was a syndicated, daytime drama in 1969-70, and sold to stations as a companion to the ABC series “Dark Shadows” (1966-71). The book “Total Television” directly calls it “an imitation of ‘Dark Shadows,’” with storylines about “voodoo, communication with spirits, and family curses.” While I do not know of an authorized release on DVD, I did find many episodes on YouTube.

Q: I watched eight seasons of “Suits” on Netflix and discovered there is a ninth season. I had to go to another streaming service to watch it. Please inform your readers of this information. Season 9 is a must watch that ties things up.

A: When I wrote about “Suits” recently, I should have clarified its streaming locations. Most likely for rights-related reasons, eight seasons are on Netflix, but nine seasons are on Peacock. (The nine are also on Prime Video.) By the way, Peacock also has the single season of the “Suits” spinoff “Pearson.”

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Q: I recently finished watching all of “Suits” on Netflix. I know it ended, but is there a chance of new episodes? I really enjoyed it.

A: As you may know, “Suits” became a sensation this summer, four years after its original nine-season run ended, when it spent three months at the top of the ratings for streaming shows. That, of course, led to fans’ hopes for more — and hesitation from “Suits” creator Aaron Korsh, who said “it’s really hard work to come up with plots for a show that you love and care about and want to be great.” But not long ago, the Hollywood Reporter said Korsh “is in the early stages of developing a show set in the world of (“Suits”) … but it’s not a reboot or sequel. Instead, the potential series would feature new characters and a new setting, similar to other multi-show franchises.” The report added that any return of the original shows’ characters “is a question for much further down the road.”

Q: When I was a young kid in parochial school, we watched a movie about a young boy who lived at a monastery. I believe the setting was in Spain. He went to a place in the monastery and saw Jesus on the cross. Not sure if the boy was ill and I think he talked with Jesus and in the end died in his arms. Any chance of finding this?

A: That is “The Miracle of Marcelino,” a 1955 movie. Places to find it include Tubi, YouTube and on DVD.

Q: Several months ago, I saw an announcement about a new series coming soon, “Matlock,” starring Kathy Bates. I know that the Hollywood strikes have affected production schedules, but I was hoping you could assure me the series is still planned.

A: CBS still has the series on its consumer website, with the optimistic declaration it is “coming soon.” Soon, of course, depends on when the actors’ strike might be settled.

For those of you tuning in late, the new series is said to be “inspired by” the Andy Griffith legal drama from the 1980s and ‘90s. According to the network, Bates plays “Madeline ‘Matty’ Matlock, a brilliant septuagenarian who achieved success in her younger years and decides to rejoin the workforce at a prestigious law firm where she uses her unassuming demeanor and wily tactics to win cases.”

Q: I recently rewatched all of “Grimm” on Comet. I seem to recall that when it originally ended, there was talk about making a continuation series featuring the grown children of Nick and Adalind. Was that ever a thing, or just a dream of mine?

A: I haven’t found reference to that specific kind of series, but there has been talk for years about reviving the supernatural drama, which originally aired on NBC from 2011-2017. There was a burst of excitement in 2018 when NBC reportedly began planning a spinoff focusing on a different, female Grimm but with some of the characters from the old show. Unfortunately, that plan went nowhere.

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Q: I really liked “Will Trent.” Will they be making more?

A: Yes. A second season has been ordered of the fine drama starring Ramon Rodriguez and inspired by the books by Karin Slaughter. With the actors’ strike ongoing at this point, a return date for the series is not set. And even if the strike is settled soon, this and other shows may not be ready for telecast until 2024.

Q: We enjoyed watching the movie “Salt” again recently and have always wondered what happened after she escaped. Was a “Salt 2” ever proposed?

A: The 2010 spy thriller with Angelina Jolie was a box-office hit which many saw as the setup for a whole series of “Salt” movies.

Deadline.com reported in 2011 that Sony Pictures “is moving forward” with a sequel, and that Jolie wanted to do one “if it comes together right.” There were reports about the hiring of a director and a screenwriter, but — according to many reports — Jolie was not happy with the script and decided to pass. In 2016, the focus appeared to shift to a television series — airing first in Europe, ScreenDaily.com reported, since the film had been especially successful overseas. But as far as I can tell, nothing has come of that, or any other concrete project, aside from more talk.

Q: We were watching a Hallmark film set in Italy, and I recalled to my wife that I had seen a wonderful film with Laurence Olivier and a young Diane Lane that was titled ( I believe) “A Little Romance.” Couldn’t find it anywhere. Do you know if it’s still available?

A: The 1979 film, which was directed by George Roy Hill (“The Sting,” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and other features), did charm a lot of people. The best results of my search for it were releases on DVD and Blu-ray; I have seen copies for sale on Amazon.com and MoviesUnlimited.com, or you may find it at your local library.

Q: Do you know where one might find Erich von Stroheim’s classic silent film “Greed” for TV viewing? I believe there is a version consisting of what remains of the movie combined with still shots and commentary.

A: “Greed” is a 1924 film written and directed by Stroheim, famous for his extravagance (and in later years for his acting in films like “Sunset Boulevard”). Based on a novel by Frank Norris, its first cut ran around 10 hours, according to “The Oxford Companion to Film.” (The time varies some in other sources.) Stroheim, who had seen other movies taken out of his hands, was faced with demands for cut after cut of “Greed,” reducing it finally to about two-and-a-half hours. While even that truncated version has its admirers, those few hours “give only an outline of Stroheim’s conception,” says the Oxford book. But that was also the only known cut for many years, and it was said that the removed footage had been destroyed. Then, the Turner Classic Movies website says, filmmaker Rick Schmidlin “used more than 650 stills and the continuity script to fill in the gaps in the narrative.” This version, released in 1999, runs about four hours — and you can find it for sale and rent on Prime Video.

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Q: Where has “Conversations with Friends” on Hulu gone? Will it be back?

A: The series ended after a single, 12-episode season. Hulu removed it along with many other shows, reportedly as a cost-cutting measure. While streamers have often removed and added shows from time to time, removals have been more noticeable at Disney+, Hulu, Paramount+, Max, Discovery+ and other streamers. CNBC.com noted earlier this year that “after the initial bloom of new platforms and subscriber growth, aided by pandemic lockdowns and a surge of fresh content, the digital streaming industry has cooled. And Wall Street has turned up the heat on media companies, now focusing on if and when streaming will be profitable versus if those providers are putting up big subscriber numbers. … Removing content from platforms is a way for streamers to avoid residual payments and licensing fees.”

Q: When will “The Good Doctor” begin again?

A: That, like so many things, depends on when the actors’ strike ends. We have seen some programs return with the ending of the writers’ strike, but at this writing the actors’ walkout continues. As I mentioned some time back, we have seen some new scripted programs, but those were made before the strike.

Q: Vincent Price starred in a series of excellent comic/horror movies, including “The Abominable Dr. Phibes” and (I think) “The Return of the Abominable Dr. Phibes.” I’ve never been able to see or even find these movies on TV. Can you assist?

A: Price starred in “The Abominable Dr. Phibes” (1971) and “Dr. Phibes Rises Again” (1972). The authoritative “The Movie Guide” calls the first film “delightfully goofy” and the second “equally entertaining.” (Price would follow them in 1973 with the similar “Theatre of Blood,” a favorite of mine.) Both Phibes films have been released on DVD and Blu-ray, and are available to rent on Prime Video. The second film is also streaming on Tubi and Freevee; the first is on the subscription streaming channel Horror Drive-In. (There may be other places, but those offer some options.)

Q: Back in the late ’60s or early ’70s there was a series about women in a prison camp during World War II. They were held prisoner by the Japanese, I believe. It might have been on PBS and was a very good depiction of their survival efforts and put a female face to the war. I’m not sure if these women were nurses, military, or diplomat wives but I’d like to find it and can’t remember the name.

A: After we traded some information, it was clear you were thinking of “Tenko.” That series, which originally aired in the early 1980s, involved a group of women held in a Japanese prison camp after the invasion of Singapore. There were three 10-episode seasons, and I have found episodes online at DailyMotion.com. There is also a DVD set, which can be expensive; you may want to see if your local library has it.

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Q: Is there anything in the news about a new season of “Dark Winds”? At the end of the last episode, all of the heroes are literally riding off into the sunset.

A: AMC Networks recently announced plans for a third season of the drama based on the novels by Tony Hillerman, “with a target premiere date of early 2025.” One AMC executive said “there is so much storytelling yet to come.”

Q: We recently watched the first season “The Firm” TV series from 2012 on Prime Video. Now we are looking for Season 2 and cannot find it.

A: The drama inspired by John Grisham’s novel of the same name was canceled after a single season on NBC. Ratings were not good and the star, Josh Lucas, was miserable. In a 2012 interview with IndieWire, he said, “it was always very safe, very beige, very middle-of-the-road corporate mentality that drove it. No matter what Juliette Lewis, myself, or any of the actors, creatively did, it did not matter. In fact, our influence was thoroughly and completely dismissed. So it was a very heartbreaking experience because you’re locked into something you disagree with on a daily basis.”

Q: I am wondering if “World on Fire,” a World War II drama that aired on PBS early in the pandemic, will be returning for another season.

A: I’ve had many questions about the drama’s return since the first season aired in the U.S. about three-and-a-half years ago. But I can finally tell you that, after the six-episode second season was shown overseas this past summer, it arrives on PBS’s “Masterpiece” on Oct. 15. “Masterpiece” says “season 2 picks up in late 1940. ‘World on Fire’s’ return will take viewers from the war-torn streets of Britain deep into Nazi Germany, the resistance within occupied France, and the brutal sands of the North African desert—where troops struggle to adapt to a very different kind of combat.”

Q: Recently my husband and I discovered reruns of “Monk” which we thoroughly enjoyed. Unfortunately, only one season was available where we watched it. Do you know if additional seasons will be shown in the future?

A: One place to find it is on Peacock, which lists all eight seasons. The seasons are also on Prime Video and DVD. Earlier this year a new movie, “Mr. Monk’s Last Case,” was announced with production to begin in May. But it appears that it has been delayed by the Hollywood strikes.

Q: There was a kids show in the early ’50s, just when people were starting to get their first TVs, where you put a piece of paper (wax, I think) over the screen, and you drew things according to the instructions by the narrator. Am I remembering this correctly?

A: Pretty much. “Winky Dink and You,” which originally aired in 1953-57, has been called TV’s first interactive show. Viewers could buy a plastic piece (called a “magic window”) to stick on their TV screens, along with crayons for drawing and a cloth to wipe the plastic, says the book “Total Television.” The host, Jack Barry, would then make suggestions for drawing items on the screen — and remind the little viewers to erase when they were done.

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Q: My wife is a devoted “General Hospital” fan. With the writers and actors on strike, we assumed ABC would have to start reruns at some point but they haven’t. Did soap operas get some sort of waiver from the striking unions so they could stay in production? And, when not affected by strikes, what is the normal length of time between a soap’s taping of an episode and when it airs?

A: Issues like this are not simple, so I will turn to Deadline.com, which offered an explanation as the actors strike loomed: “Soap actors are employed under the SAG-AFTRA National Code of Fair Practice for Network Television Broadcasting (aka Network Code). It is different than the film and TV collective bargaining agreement that SAG-AFTRA is currently negotiating with the AMPTP. Negotiated between SAG-AFTRA and the Big 4 broadcast networks as well as other producers, the National Code covers soaps as well as morning news shows, talk shows, variety, reality, game shows, sports, and promotional announcements. The current Code agreement, reached a year ago, goes through July 2024.

“Daytime soaps tape well in advance. … For instance, ‘Days of Our Lives’ is six months ahead. In addition to the episode stockpile, the series remain in production and continue to generate new scripts. They are penned largely by financial core (fi-core) writers, who have resigned their WGA membership while benefiting from the guild’s contracts with the studios. Others, such as producers, assistants, and executives, also are involved in writing in some cases.” Deadline.com said.

In sum, the soaps go on.

Q: There was a television show in 2005 or 2007 about a married couple who were doctors working in a hospital. I think it was based in Canada. The husband is in a car accident and is in a coma, and his spirit walks around the hospital. I would like to know the name of the show and if there are reruns of it anywhere.

A: That was the Canadian drama “Saving Hope,” which originally aired in 2012-17 and starred Erica Durance and Michael Shanks. One place you can find it is on Hulu.

Q: In 1959 Frank Sinatra starred in a movie called “A Hole in the Head.” In the film Sinatra had an older brother played by Edward G. Robinson, who had a not-too-bright son named Julian. Would the actor playing Julian be James Toback, who 15 years later wrote and directed the movie “The Gambler” with James Caan?

A: No, but there’s a reason for your confusion. James Toback wrote “The Gambler” and the movie “Bugsy,” and wrote and directed other movies including “Fingers” and “The Pick-up Artist.” (He has also been repeatedly accused of sexual harassment, accusations he has denied.)

But the actor playing Julius was James Komack, who later became more famous as a producer on shows including “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father,” “Chico and the Man” and “Welcome Back, Kotter.” He passed away in 1997.

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Q: When will “The Gilded Age” begin again?

A: I have mentioned before that the acclaimed HBO drama will have a second season. But I can now also mention an air date: Oct. 29. Among the new season’s stories: Bertha still challenging the social system, Marian seeking her way in the world, Ada in a new courtship and Peggy tapping into her activist side. All of which makes for a very busy eight episodes.

Q: I seem to remember, from my younger days, two comedy shows. The first one starred Patty Duke and Richard Crenna, and the second one had Tom Poston as a clown in an apartment closet. Do you recall the names of these two sitcoms and if there is any DVD availability?

A: Crenna and Duke (then billed as Patty Duke Astin) starred in “It Takes Two,” which aired on ABC in 1982-83. They played a married couple where he was a surgeon and she was an assistant D.A. It’s also worth noting that their children were played by Helen Hunt and Anthony Edwards, both of whom went on to big careers.

Tom Poston played a clown whose only known name was Clown in the comedy “Committed,” which aired on NBC for a few months in 2005. The series was about “misfits in love,” according to one reference, with Josh Cooke and Jennifer Finnigan as the misfits; Clown lived in the closet of the woman’s apartment.
I do not know of authorized DVD releases of either show.

Q: I am trying to remember a delightful cooking show featuring two older ladies who traveled around Great Britain on a motorcycle with a sidecar. Not only were they good cooks, they seemed to really enjoy their crafts and travels at various venues across the country. Is it available anymore?

A: You are remembering “Two Fat Ladies,” which starred Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright as two cooks showing off their cooking at various locations. They favored, as the New York Times put it, “cholesterol-soaked dishes.” But there was also what the Guardian called “the unscripted whimsy of their on-screen exchanges.”

Paterson and Dickson Wright made about two dozen episodes of the show from 1996 to 1999, when Paterson died. Dickson Wright passed away in 2014. One place to see the shows now is on YouTube.

Q: Can you identify a TV show from about 1956 that featured a young woman named Susan, who sat on a chair and conversed with a talking table? I can’t recall if there were other people or puppets, but there might have been another piece of furniture that talked.

A: That was “Susan’s Show,” a CBS Saturday-morning program in 1957-58. It had begun as a local show in Chicago and was hosted by Susan Heinkel, a veteran performer at the age of 12, with — as Time magazine put it in 1957 — “big, fluttery eyes, shiny bangs and friendly full-moon face.” It indeed had a talking table (which also flew) and an array of other characters including “an all-animal orchestra which included Wolfgang, the violin-playing bear, flop-eared Gregory, the rabbit flutist, and Bruce, the world’s only drum-beating gopher,” Time said. There were also cartoons.

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Q: I was doing a puzzle where a clue was an actor turned down the lead in the movie “American Gigolo” because of its content — and the answer was Chevy Chase. Is that really true?

A: Vulture.com in 2011 indeed said Chase turned down the role because “he was uncomfortable with the sexual content of the film.” In an interview with HuffPost the following year, Chase said he turned down a lot of movies: “I turned down ‘Forrest Gump,’ I turned down ‘American Gigolo.’ There are many films — like ‘Ghostbusters’ — that I turned down … the first one I did was ‘Foul Play’ with Goldie Hawn, but I turned down ‘Animal House.’ I turned that down.” He regretted the rejections because the movies “made huge amounts of money and I would be very wealthy, but I don’t regret working with Goldie.”

By the way, Chase was in one film before “Foul Play”: the sketch comedy “The Groove Tube.” And “American Gigolo” inspired a TV series which ran on Showtime for one season in 2022.Speaking of inspirations …

Q: What happened to the “Lethal Weapon” TV show? I liked the action.

A: Fox carried a show derived from the Mel Gibson/Danny Glover movies for three seasons in 2016-2019. Its ratings were respectable at the end, says Deadline.com, but off-camera drama “sealed the show’s fate.” The drama included the firing of Clayne Crawford, in the Gibson role, in the second season amid conflicts with co-star Damon Wayans (in the Glover role) and accusations of bad behavior on the set. (Crawford reportedly had a different view.) Seann William Scott joined the show as a new character after Crawford’s departure, but then in the third season Wayans announced he was going to leave when the ordered episodes were done, leading to more scrambling behind the scenes. The show did not get a fourth season.

Q: A season ago on “The Good Doctor,” Lea and Shaun were married and had a baby. What happened?

A: The long romance between Shaun (Freddie Highmore) and Lea (Paige Spara) led to their wedding in the fifth season. After earlier troubles during pregnancy on the show, Paige had their child in the sixth-season finale in May. He was named Steven Aaron Murphy, after Shaun’s late brother and Shaun’s mentor Aaron Glassman. As for what happens next, we’ll have to see in the seventh season (delayed, like most screen entertainment, by the Hollywood strikes).

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Q: I watch the original “Perry Mason” on MeTV. I like the early episodes where they often show Perry, Della Street and Paul Drake at home, and other scenes that aren’t there anymore. Do you know why these scenes disappeared?

A: You have touched on a dilemma for viewers of older television shows: the adding of more commercial time than the shows originally held.

The amount of content in commercial shows has shrunk steadily from more than 50 minutes an hour to about 40, with the remaining space filled with ads. When older shows are replayed today, content is often cut or sped up to make room for more advertising.

MeTV’s statement on its content policy calls for “preserving the original viewing experience for all our series as best we can. For example, this is why we air the original opening and closing credits full screen. We also don’t add intrusive banner animations over shows. Additionally, MeTV airs significantly less commercials per hour than our industry peers. However, some classic series require content adjustments to allow for even these modest commercial amounts. We make these adjustments as carefully and considerately as we can and only where we must.”

As for “Perry Mason” itself, the company said, “MeTV airs this series in late fringe (time) without editing content. You will notice the show airs 11:30 p.m. – 12:35 a.m. ET/PT as a result, five minutes beyond the half hour. The weekday morning 9 a.m. – 10 a.m. ET/PT airing is the syndicated version that does have some minimal edits.”

Q: In flashbacks on “The Righteous Gemstones,” John Goodman looks noticeably younger. Are they using the same technique that was used in “The Irishman” on Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci?

A: We’re seeing more and more de-aging of actors, not only in “The Irishman” but in “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” I can’t say the “Gemstones” technique is the same, but it is painstaking tech. In an interview with Variety, “Gemstones” visual effects supervisor Bruce Branit said that creating what he called a “subtle and realistic” effect can take up to two months. “The VFX team requests to shoot the flashback episodes first in preparation for the tedious process,” Variety’s story added. And instead of just creating a CGI image or using a younger actor, the system modifies Goodman’s actual performance. “You’ve got John Goodman on camera, a national treasure, and the last thing you want to do is change his performance in any way,” Branit said.

Q: I sort of remember an episode from, I think, either “I Love Lucy” or “The Dick Van Dyke Show” where the mother had to rescue their child by lifting something heavy and their adrenaline “got stuck.” She then had super strength until something happened to them to get unstuck. I can’t find any mention of the episode anywhere. I’m beginning to wonder if I dreamed the whole thing up as a kid.

A: Our memories do play tricks, but in this case you’re not entirely wrong. Consider “Lucy, the Superwoman,” a 1966 episode of “The Lucy Show” (Lucille Ball’s successor to “I Love Lucy’). Says a description on IMDb: “When a heavy computer falls on Mooney’s foot, Lucy’s adrenaline kicks in, allowing her to lift the huge machine by herself. Strangely, her adrenal gland stays ‘on,’ giving her superhuman strength.”

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Q: Will the second season of “Dark Winds” be shown, and on which network?

A: The new season will air Sundays on AMC beginning July 30, with early telecasts the preceding Thursday on AMC+. According to the networks, “Lt. Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) reunites with Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon), his former deputy turned private eye, when their separate cases bring them together in pursuit of the same suspect. They find themselves in the high desert of Navajo Country chasing a killer who’s turned his sights on them to protect a secret that rips open old wounds and challenges Leaphorn’s moral and professional code.”

Q: I recall many years ago that there were codes in the TV listings for each program and that number was entered when you wanted to tape — thereby when the code was broadcast, the program taping started. It was almost fail-safe, as I recall. Do you think anything like that could ever be reinstated? It sure would simplify trying to predict when the football game would be finished (or whatever the delay was).

A: Your best bet is to simply add recording time to the programs you watch that are at risk from a live event’s overrun. But you’ve also had me thinking back to what was known as VCR+.

VCR Plus (or VCR+) was a system using a set of numbers to instruct your VCR to record a specific program. In earlier TV-watching days, I had VCR+ and it was not ideal. For one thing, its codes were based on a program’s original time, so like a DVR it did not factor in shows running longer than scheduled or coming on later than planned. And it could be cumbersome to set up and use.

In any case, as audiences shifted from VCRs to DVRs, VCRs became rarer, and publications’ interest in paying to include the codes declined.

I was surprised to learn that VCRs were made as late as 2016, adding to our tech memories good and bad. When the Washington Post reported on the end of VCR production, it wryly noted: “The life of the VCR, like all things, was one of complication and mystery. Why, for example, was the machine hellbent on eating every favorite VHS cassette? How did your cat manage to unspool 1,000 feet of tape from that black plastic box? And what do you mean you accidentally taped over our wedding video?”

Q: I just saw a rerun of “Cheers” where they were celebrating an anniversary of the business, and they invited the mayor of Boston to speak. The mayor sure looked like a young Mike Pence. When I Googled our former vice president, I found out he had gone to college with Woody Harrelson. Was it Mike Pence in that episode?

A: No. It was the actual mayor of Boston at the time, Raymond J. Flynn. But yes, Harrelson and Pence knew each other when students at Hanover College in Indiana.

Q: My friends and I enjoyed the first season of “The Gilded Age” on HBO and would like to know where we can watch the next episodes. The story of the families, the costumes and the actors were outstanding.

A: The drama will be back for a second season on HBO, although I’ve seen no air date beyond later this year. You can catch up on the first season on Max (formerly HBO Max).

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Q: I have watched “Yellowstone” but have not heard if it is going to continue. I’m hoping it will be. Would appreciate any info you have.

A: Yes, “Yellowstone” will continue, and then it will not. The rest of the most recent, fifth season will air on Paramount Network beginning in November. When those episodes are done, so is the series. Conflicts with star Kevin Costner over the shooting schedule reportedly led to the show’s demise. But the planning has gone forward on a so-far-untitled sequel which will begin airing in December; reports indicate that Matthew McConaughey will star in it along with some of the “Yellowstone” regulars.

Q: It seems I recollect several scenes in the 1976 version of “Midway,” featuring Mariette Hartley as Matt Garth’s love interest. However, in the many times I’ve watched the movie in more recent years, those scenes no longer exist. Am I just imagining Hartley in that movie?

A: You have encountered a TV oddity, the reediting of a theatrical film for telecast for reasons other than content censorship.

The “Midway” movie, which starred Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda and others, was expanded for showing on NBC in 1980, with the added scenes including a relationship between Heston’s character, Matt Garth, and a woman. The woman was played not by Mariette Hartley, but by Susan Sullivan. The expanded version was then shown across two nights on NBC. When the theatrical version is shown on TV these days, it is without that added-for-TV material.

NBC, by the way, did something similar in 1977, taking “The Godfather,” “The Godfather Part II,” additional footage and some censorship to create a four-night miniseries. Coppola reportedly agreed to the project to raise money to make “Apocalypse Now.”

Q: As a senior citizen, I am trying to remember the stars of the show “Family,” which aired many years ago. I don’t even remember what years it was on, but can see the characters in my mind, but not the names. It was really a wonderful TV series in its day!

A: “Family” was an admired drama during its 1976-80 run on ABC. It focused on the Lawrence family: father Doug (James Broderick), mother Kate (Sada Thompson), son Willie (Gary Frank) and daughters Buddy (Kristy McNichol) and Nancy. Elayne Heilveil played Nancy in the first season and was followed by Meredith Baxter, billed as Meredith Baxter Birney in those days. A later cast addition was Quinn Cummings as adoptee Annie Cooper. Frank, Thompson and McNichol all won Emmys for their work on the show. One place you can see episodes is the free streaming service Tubi.

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Q: Shouldn’t television producers be required to resolve major questions before a series is removed from viewing? Not alone, but probably most annoying was “Colony,” which created an entire set of circumstances and never resolved ANYTHING.

A: Networks and television producers make deals for a specific number of episodes in a TV season, although the number varies from one show to the next. Still, the people making the show do not always know if they are going to be canceled as they make their allotted number of episodes. I also remember one producer claiming he put a huge cliffhanger in his season-ending show to pressure the network to renew it.

But we see plenty of occasions when cliffhangers do not prevent cancellation. Some shows anticipating cancellation do offer a wrapping-up moment in their season finale; both “The Resident” and “East New York” did that this season. And “How I Met Your Mother” shot some wrap-up scenes in its second season, although the show ran long enough that the scenes were not used until years later.

But other shows press on as if they will see another day. And once they’ve completed their deal, it takes another round of deal-making to make a finale episode possible, and a network’s willingness to air it, and those are money decisions more than creative ones.

Speaking of other TV aggravations …

Q: I just read about “Alaska Daily” being canceled. I really enjoyed the show, but when there are three-and-a-half months between episodes ABC should have run a crawl stating that they canceled the show.

A: Quite a few readers wrote in about the cancellation of the Hilary Swank drama. More than one mentioned the months-long hiatus at midseason was a problem. While many shows take midseason breaks, this was an extensive one, especially for a show that needed some nurturing to draw an audience. And some wanted to take their complaints to ABC, which you can do with the “submit programming feedback” link at support.abc.com.

Q: When I was very young (5 or 6), my mother took me to a movie that was so violent I insisted on leaving. This would have been around 1947-1949. I’ve always wondered what the title was! It involved a robbery of a high-end jewelry store, then one of the robbers being shot in the stomach, then operated on by one of his henchmen. At this point, we left!

A: That is most likely “The Asphalt Jungle,” a crime classic directed by John Huston, from 1950.

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Q: A lot of my friends and I are VERY upset that “Dancing with the Stars” moved from ABC to Disney+. There are so many shows that do not provide us with wholesome entertainment while “DWTS” did.

A: Then you will be pleased to learn that the show will be back on ABC in the fall, with simulcasts on Disney+ and next-day telecasts on Hulu. Several reports noted this will give ABC an unscripted program to fill time if the writers strike delays production of scripted shows for the fall.
There will be changes in the show. To the delight of many of my readers, Tyra Banks will no longer host. Alfonso Ribeiro, who co-hosted in Banks’ last season, will be back as host along with Julianne Hough. Judges are Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli and Julianne’s brother, Derek Hough. (Longtime judge Len Goodman stepped down from the show last year and passed away in April.)

Q: At the conclusion of “Modern Family,” there was no reference to the fact that the families had been the subject of a documentary. I expected the documentary maker would be revealed, the way “The Office” did. It seemed like a huge loose end.

A: When the long-running sitcom ended in 2020, co-creator Christopher Lloyd told EW.com that the show did not want to reveal the documentary crew. “Obviously, we started out in our pilot having that person be a character,” he said, but the show felt that would take the audience out of the family stories. “And then having lived in a mockumentary form without literally a crew for 250 episodes, it felt like it might’ve been too meta or too cute to maybe do that for us. … We were just using (the documentary) as a technique more than a sort of an actual reality.”

Q: I am wondering if “Only Murders in the Building” on Hulu is likely to be renewed.

A: The comedy-mystery starring Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez has a third season on the way. And during his tour with Short, Martin said the new season arrives on Aug. 8. Look for Meryl Streep and Paul Rudd in the cast.

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 I am wondering about “American Ninja Warrior.” It used to be on an NBC Sports channel and suddenly the channel and show disappeared.

NBCUniversal shut down its sport channel NBCSN at the end of last year and has moved its programming to other services including USA Network and to the companion streaming service Peacock. When the decision to drop NBCSN was announced a little over a year ago, the Wall Street Journal noted that the sports channel had struggled competitively against other sports operations. USA was also losing audience, so “by putting popular sports on the USA channel, NBCUniversal is hoping it can increase its value of USA Network to distributors. Having more sports on USA will also make it a more viable competitor to … TBS and TNT … which also carry a mix of entertainment and sports,” the paper said.

As for “American Ninja Warrior,” that was being shown in repeats on NBCSN with episodes airing first on the NBC broadcast network. A new season, the show’s 14th, is in the works. And there are repeats out there, including on Peacock and the Bally Sports channels.

 I am an avid William Petersen fan and watched every episode of the original “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” in which he starred. Last season he returned in “CSI: Vegas” but now it seems to have disappeared. What happened, and will it return?

“CSi: Vegas,” which blended some veterans of the old series with a new cast, made 10 episodes of its first season and aired them all. (As I have said before, TV series’ seasons vary considerably in the number of episodes.) The show has been picked up for a second run to air sometime in the 2022-23 season. But Petersen, who reprised his role of Gil Grissom on the new series, reportedly signed on only for the first season as an actor and will not be on camera in the second season (he remains an executive producer). In addition, Jorja Fox – who played Grissom’s colleague and lover – will not be back for the second season either. As Grissom goes, she tweeted, so goes Sara.

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One of my favorite shows is currently in limbo and I suspect will likely be canceled through simple neglect and inattention. Any comments on whether it’s likely that “Pennyworth” will continue?

The series about the adventures of Alfred Pennyworth before he became Bruce Wayne’s aide will be back, but in a different location. First made for Epix for two seasons, it will have a third arriving in 2022 — on HBO Max. (Max will also begin showing the first two seasons early next year.) According to HBO Max, “Season three begins after a five-year time jump: The civil war (in England) is over, and a cultural revolution has changed the world for better or worse — ushering in a new age of Super Heroes and Supervillains.”

It appears that after a break, “The Resident” went into a time warp. Conrad was done grieving and thinking of returning to the hospital, and the baby was suddenly a poised 4-year-old. What’s going on?

As ET Online explained it, “The decision to fast-forward several years was, from the producers’ perspective, needed following the devastating death of Conrad’s wife, Nic.”

Said showrunner Peter Elkoff: “Conrad losing Nic is a terrible tragedy and we felt like if we were going to tell a true story of grief, it would last for a really long time. … We felt like we would play the loss and the grief … for a couple of episodes, and then do the time jump so we could find Conrad recovered, on the brink of, ready for whatever new version of his life there would be.

“It was really to avoid a prolonged grieving story because we wouldn’t want to shortchange it and have him suddenly, three episodes later, without jumping time being like, ‘No, I’m fine now.’ ”

Will “9-1-1: Lone Star” be coming back soon? They are a diverse group of co-workers that blend into a great storyline.

The third season arrives on Jan. 3, 2022, in the “9-1-1” time slot while that show takes a break. According to Fox, “After the events of the second season finale, the 126 is shut down and the crew is dispersed across the city. In the multi-episode opening storyline, a massive and unexpected arctic front hits Austin with an ice storm, causing widespread chaos.”

Any idea when “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” will return?

The wonderful Prime Video series will be back for a fourth season on Feb. 18, 2022, with two new episodes every Friday for four weeks. Says Prime Video: “It’s 1960 and change is in the air. Looking to hone her act, Midge finds a gig with total creative freedom. But her commitment to her craft — and the places it takes her — creates a rift between her and the family and friends around her.”

— Tribune News Service

I was shocked to hear that the FX on Hulu series “Y: The Last Man” was abruptly canceled! What happened?? I was enjoying the show and looking forward to more episodes and seasons! Is there hope another streaming channel will pick this up? It cannot just leave off with episode 10!

The drama fell prey to economics, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Long delayed by off-camera changes and COVID, the show had reached a point where it would have to pick up the contract options for the cast while not knowing if, in fact, the show would keep going. “Ultimately, FX brass declined to pay $3 million to further extend options,” said the publication.

But the makers of the show have held out hope that someone else will pick it up, and the Hollywood Reporter noted that HBO Max might be a good fit because of corporate ties between the show and the streamer.

Showrunner Eliza Clark said, “It is the most collaborative, creatively fulfilling and beautiful thing I have ever been a part of. We don’t want it to end.”

Can you tell me the name of the song and the composer for the lead-in to Marvel movies and TV programs? It sounds like a John Williams composition.

It is not. What is simply known as the Marvel fanfare is reportedly by veteran composer Michael Giacchino, who has a long resume of work in TV and movies, including such productions as “Lost,” “Up,” “Rogue One” and “JoJo Rabbit.” An earlier version of the fanfare was by Brian Tyler.

Ed Asner was the star of a made-for-TV movie in the 1970s or ’80s in which he played an alcoholic and had a son who was also an alcoholic. Can you tell me the name of this movie and the actor who played Asner’s son?
You are probably remembering “Vital Signs” from 1986. Asner played an alcoholic doctor with a doctor son who had a drug problem. The son was played by Gary Cole, who lately has been appearing on “NCIS” as Alden Parker, the replacement for Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon).

I enjoyed “Last Tango in Halifax” immensely. Can you tell me if it will be coming back?

The series starring Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid ended in 2020.

I read recently that actor Sam Rockwell celebrated his 53rd birthday. At 88 years old, I am still a fan of the B Westerns of my youth and wondered if Sam Rockwell is related to the character actor Jack Rockwell, who appeared in so many of those old movies.

Sam Rockwell, an Oscar winner for his performance in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” does have an acting bloodline as the son of actors Pete Rockwell and Penny Hess. But I have not connected them to Jack Rockwell, the actor you recalled.

Our question is about the television show “Timeless.” Is there any hope of a revival or will someone be streaming the episodes?

I do not know of any plans for a revival of the time travel drama. You can find the old episodes streaming on Hulu, including the series finale.

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I enjoy watching “SEAL Team,” so I was disappointed that while they began the season on regular TV, they quickly left for Paramount+. I refuse to pay to watch (don’t enjoy the show enough to pay) but I feel like I’m being held hostage. Do you think more shows are heading that direction?

Yes. We have already seen several series migrate from broadcast or cable to streaming. CBS moved both “SEAL Team” and “Evil” from broadcast to Paramount+, which is also the home of the “Good Wife” spinoff “The Good Fight” and several successors to “Star Trek.” NBC had “A.P. Bio” for two seasons before it was moved to the streamer Peacock. Some shows get rescued by streaming services, as when Netflix commissioned extra episodes of ABC’s “Designated Survivor” after the network dropped it. The recently canceled “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” will be back with a Christmas special on the Roku Channel on Dec. 1. “Leverage,” after running on TNT from 2008 to 2012, returned this year as “Leverage: Redemption” on IMDbTV.

But this is all a case of old strategy/new venues. Broadcast shows moved from one network to another going back decades; for example, “Father Knows Best” went from CBS to ABC, “My Three Sons” from ABC to CBS, “Diff’rent Strokes” from NBC to ABC. The same thing has happened with broadcast and cable, with one recent case being the announcement that CBS’s “All Rise” is making new episodes for OWN, Oprah Winfrey’s network. In short, if the telecaster of a show no longer finds it useful, another entity still might — delighting fans, bringing them to the new viewing home, and assuring that the studio behind the show can make more money. With streaming, there are many more places for shows to go.

I was wondering about “The Amazing Race.” Have they filmed a new season yet?

They have completed a new season after a long, COVID-related delay. Telecasts will begin with a two-hour premiere on Jan. 5.

What happened to the new “Fantasy Island?” I rather liked it, and the girl who assisted Ms. Roarke left “The Bold and the Beautiful” to take a part.

Fox has renewed the summer series for a second season. It will also have a two-hour holiday episode on Dec. 21, and the previous season’s telecasts can be found on Hulu and On Demand.

Years ago, there was a family show with adorable Kellie Martin as sister to a young man with Down syndrome. Do you know the name of the show and did the young man continue acting?

The show was called “Life Goes On” and aired on ABC from 1989 to 1993. It involved the Thatcher family, with parents Drew (Bill Smitrovich) and Libby (Patti LuPone) and children including Becca (Kellie Martin) and Corky (Christopher Burke, who like his character has Down syndrome). Burke, now 56, continued acting for about a decade after “Life Goes On” ended. He has also worked in music and has had a decadeslong association with the National Down Syndrome Society, including as a goodwill ambassador and on the society staff. By the way, there were reports not long ago that a reboot of “Life Goes On” is in the works with Martin as a star and producer.

— Tribune News Service

What happened to Gibbs’s dog on “NCIS”? For a couple of episodes, he had a rescue dog named Lucy. In his last appearance, he was in Alaska, with no mention of the dog at all. Is it in his house all by itself?

In the episode “Unseen Improvements,” which first aired in May, Gibbs gave Lucy to his young friend Phineas. “Dogs pick their people,” Gibbs told Phineas. “The minute you got here, she picked you.”

I thought “Transplant” was a unique medical drama. The first episode was a bit unbelievable, but very dramatic. The few episodes that followed were quite interesting. Will it reappear?

NBC made a deal for a second season of the series, which was a hit in Canada before airing on the U.S. network. The second season finished shooting a couple of months ago, but there’s no official airdate that I have seen. CTV, its Canadian home, just says the new season will arrive “soon.” And it could well be that NBC will not air it until 2022.

My husband and I absolutely loved “God Friended Me.” It was our favorite show, and we were so disappointed that it only lasted two seasons. Why? Poor ratings? The cast and writers and crew were notified far enough ahead of time about the cancellation to wrap it up. Is there any chance of a reboot or of another network or a streaming service picking it up for more episodes? Can reruns be found anywhere?

Poor ratings indeed led to the demise of the drama. As I mentioned after its cancellation in 2020, while the show had a good-sized audience, at least at first, Deadline.com said it was not big with young adult viewers prized by network advertisers. And TVLine.com noted that, both with young adults and in total viewers, the show had dropped 20% or more in its second season — not at all a good sign for long-term survival. I do not know of any plans for a reboot. Some places where old episodes are available are Amazon Prime Video, VUDU and Apple TV, with a fee for viewing.

Is Casey leaving “Chicago Fire”?

Yes. Jesse Spencer, who played Matthew Casey on the series since 2012, decided it was time to move on and said goodbye in the show’s 200th episode. According to The Wrap, Spencer told reporters that “I realized I’ve been doing TV for a long time. I added it up, and I think this year is my 18th year of network television.” (You may recall his long run on the series “House.”) “I called (showrunner) Derek (Haas) and broke him the news, said I thought it was time to leave the show, and he agreed that we should at least get Casey to 200 episodes. It was a difficult decision because I’ve loved the show from the start, but there are other things that I would like to do in the future, and there’s some family that I need to take care of, and 18 years is a long time.”

It should be noted that Casey was not killed off but simply moved on. There’s always a chance he could make a return visit to “Chicago Fire” or one of the related shows.

— Tribune News Service

I saw a list recently of the best songs in James Bond movies and there was no mention of the best Bond song ever, “We Have All the Time in the World”! I forgot the name of the movie, but I’m pretty sure that Bond gets married in the movie, his wife gets killed and his last words to her are “We had all the time in the world.” Please tell me the name of that Bond movie.

That is in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” the lone Bond film to star George Lazenby as 007 (with Diana Rigg as his doomed wife). At the end, holding his dead bride, Bond tells an inquiring officer, “It’s quite all right, really. She’s having a rest. … There’s no hurry, you see. We have all the time in the world.”

Both the film and the song, performed by Louis Armstrong, have resonated with many Bond fans. “We Have All the Time in the World” comes up in the latest Bond, “No Time to Die,” which is also Daniel Craig’s last appearance as Bond — and has Craig saying, “We have all the time in the world.” As film historian Jon Burlingame wrote in Variety, “The melody is heard in Hans Zimmer’s ‘No Time to Die’ underscore right after Craig says the line in the pre-credits sequence. It returns in another, moving scene, near the end of the film — and the full, original Armstrong vocal then plays under the film’s end credits.

Do you know when “Ozark” will be returning?

The Netflix series starring Jason Bateman will debut what it’s calling “Season 4 Part 1” on Jan. 21, 2022. That seven-episode run is the first part of the show’s final season, with the remaining seven episodes to air at a not-yet-announced date.

On “The Rookie,” the first episode of this season had Jackson killed off. Did the actor who plays him decide to leave the show?

Yes. Titus Makin Jr., who had played young policeman Jackson West, reportedly decided to leave and the show then killed his character. As of this writing, Makin has not made public a reason for departing the series, where he had been appearing since it began in 2018.

While we were living in Arkansas in the late ’80s we saw a movie called “End of the Line,” we think. Wilford Brimley was in it, we think. It was a story about a railroad that I think was closing. I am not really sure about the rest. Is this a movie that exists?

Your thinking is fine. “End of the Line” starred Brimley, Levon Helm, Kevin Bacon, Holly Hunter and others, and was released in 1987. I have seen it streaming for free on Plex, IMDb TV and VUDU. It is also for rent and sale digitally on Amazon. There was a DVD release quite a few years ago, and even a VHS release.

— Tribune News Service

But for viewers, and even more for the networks, the TV season never really ends. Not anymore. The official ending was just a hiccup before new shows start.

The TV season is an ancient construct based on the idea that viewers do most of their watching from the fall to the spring. A standard TV season ran 39 weeks, and shows made enough episodes for each week, then devoted the summer to reruns.

But as the cost of making a TV show grew, studios and networks steadily reduced the number of episodes they made each season. A traditional broadcast network show can now have roughly 22 to 24 episodes over a full season, although that number varies considerably.

Meanwhile, the idea of summer reruns has steadily faded over the past 30 years, ever since cable networks realized that summer was a good time to put on their original shows. The broadcasters saw their audiences go to cable and, in many cases,­ never come back.

At first, the broad­casters’ response was to put on inexpensive reality shows — both “American Idol” and “Survivor” began as summer series, in 2002 and 2000 respectively — to keep their investment low. While reality shows still have a summer home — witness “America’s Got Talent” (returning Tuesday), “So You Think You Can Dance” (Wednesday) and “Big Brother” (June 25) — networks discovered that many viewers preferred scripted fare, and not just shows that were cheaply cast and made.

So now networks put new shows on during the summer, and sometimes find hits that way. The Canadian-made police drama “Rookie Blue” begins its fifth season on ABC on June 19, and CBS’ summer 2013 hit “Under the Dome” will begin its second season on June 30. Oscar winner Halle Berry will be a summer star for CBS when her new series “Extant” premieres July 9.

Beyond the summer situation, reruns are in bad favor generally, since cable will counter-program even during the regular season — and the availability of previously aired shows on-demand and online make them less attractive over-the-air fare.

Cable, for that matter, is not a fan of repeats of its original series (while replaying broadcast shows constantly); such shows as “Major Crimes” (returning June 9) or “Longmire” (June 2) come and go as new episodes are available, while “Mad Men” will use a split-season approach, ending the first half of its final season tonight (at 10 on AMC) before returning with the second half in 2015.

At the same time, in broadcast, even expected suc­cesses are not always designed to run a full season, preferring shorter runs for narrative reasons or to attract big stars who would not commit to a 22-episode year. (See Berry, above.) This, too, can have mixed results.

Fox was successful with “Sleepy Hollow,” its 13-­episode first season allowing for tight plotting and plenty of thrills without much filler. (Its reported expansion to 18 episodes may therefore work against it dramatically.)

More recently, the competitive landscape has become larger with such online services as Netflix putting on original shows. Binge viewing, something people used to do by loading up episodes on their DVRs or waiting for cable marathons, is now something to be expected when Netflix puts an entire season of “Orange Is the New Black” online at once (as it will do with the second season on June 6).

Competition keeps the TV schedule in flux, on broadcast certainly but also on cable. A&E dropped “Those Who Kill” after two episodes and ratings declines; it resurfaced later on Lifetime Movie Network. Viewers search constantly for their favorite shows, or wonder if and when they will return. Indeed, it can be months before they realize a show is gone for good. So we are left scouring network websites for return dates, or flipping through the TV channels in the hope that something else good can be found.