You have questions. I have some answers.
Q: Did we see the season finale of "Prime Suspect: Tennison" after just three episodes? Weren't there supposed to be more? Will it return?
A: The "Prime Suspect" prequel about a young Jane Tennison originally aired on England in six episodes under the name "Prime Suspect 1973." For American telecast on "Masterpiece," it was edited into three 90-minute installments, which a "Masterpiece" representative said were created by the show's producer. "No significant editing was required and no plot lines were affected," she added. However, the change could lead to confusion, and not only for you; for example, my DVR listed the three U.S. "Tennison" installments as parts one, three and five � since each was made from two episodes.
The recent release of "Tennison" on DVD and Blu-ray contains the version that aired in Britain. (This, by the way, is hardly the first time a "Masterpiece" series has gotten a trim; the same thing happened to the beloved "Downton Abbey," with its U.S. releases on disc containing the "original UK edition.") But this appears to be the end of the line for "Tennison," since ITV has decided not to make more.
Q: Why is prime time TV from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. in the Eastern time zone but from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. in the other three time zones?
A: First, to be clear, prime time as we currently know it is from 8 to 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 7 to 11 p.m. Sunday in the Eastern and Pacific time zones. The Central and Mountain zones, as well as Alaska and Hawaii, have it all an hour earlier. There have been some changes in those times over the years, but the basic framework goes back to the earliest days of television and radio. One reason had to do with technology � when and how shows could be transmitted to different parts of the country, especially when such transmissions were still primitive.
But another reason, according to "Stay Tuned: A Concise History of American Broadcasting," was how researchers saw different parts of the country � with the East and Far West more urban and the Central and Mountain zones thought of as full of rural folks such as farmers with "dawn-to-dusk working schedules." Those "presumed early-to-bed habits," as the book put it, pushed broadcasts to earlier times.
Q: Did composer Henry Mancini briefly host a TV variety show? Several searches through Mancini's IMDB filmography didn't turn up anything for this. I distinctly recall "The Henry Mancini Show" ran a season on an L.A. broadcast channel on Sunday afternoons. I don't remember much of the format, except it had an orchestra. Help?
A: In 1972, the legendary composer ("Peter Gunn," "Moon River," the "Pink Panther" theme) began hosting a syndicated TV series called "The Mancini Generation." The weekly program featured Mancini with an orchestra and celebrity guests. It ran just one season. A "Mancini Generation" album of music from the series can be found on CD and as a download.
Q: Is Dinah Shore still alive? When and where was she born? Any marriage and children? I remember her having a TV show sponsored by Chevrolet and a cooking show.
A: The singer, TV personality and screen actress was born in Winchester, Tenn., in 1916. She died of cancer in 1994. She was married twice, first to the actor George Montgomery, with whom she had a son and a daughter. That marriage, and a brief one to Maurice Fabian Smith, a contractor and tennis player, ended in divorce. Shore also had a long relationship with actor Burt Reynolds.
While the Washington Post called her movie career "uneventful," she was a hugely popular singer in the '40s and '50s with decades of TV work. Her TV programs started in 1951 with a variety show (known for a time as "The Dinah Shore Chevy Show") and continuing both in variety and in talk, the last series airing on the old Nashville Network from 1989 to 1991. Cooking was often a component of the talk shows, and she authored several cookbooks, one titled "Someone's in the Kitchen with Dinah."
