You have questions. I have some answers.
Q: I was watching the first episode of Season 3 of “Superman & Lois” and noticed that their son Jonathan Kent has been switched out for someone new. What happened?
A: Jordan Elsass, who played Jonathan during the first two seasons of the CW series, departed for what the studio called personal reasons. In June 2022, not long before the announcement of his leaving “Superman & Lois,” Elsass said in an Instagram post that “I’ve been struggling recently with a number of things all pretty much revolving around mental health and well-being,” and he was getting help. Australian actor Michael Bishop now plays Jonathan Kent.
Q: Do you recall a show from 30-plus years ago where Tony Randall played a judge?
A: I do. It was “The Tony Randall Show,” which aired on ABC and then CBS in 1976-78. (“The Odd Couple,” which so memorably starred Randall and Jack Klugman, had ended in 1975 after five seasons.) Randall played a widowed Philadelphia judge, Walter Franklin, “serious about his work, sometimes a bit stuffy, but kind at heart,” according to one reference book. The show came from MTM, home to “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and other gems.
The Randall show “was good work, and it deserved a better fate,” then-MTM leader Grant Tinker said in his memoir, but off-camera conflicts led to its too-soon demise. By the way, just as “Superman & Lois” saw a change in its acting family, “The Tony Randall Show” underwent one: Devon Scott played Franklin’s daughter during its season on ABC, and Penny Peyser took on the role when it moved to CBS.
Q: Why was “New Amsterdam” canceled? It was a smart and well-made program.
A: Several factors came into play, as Deadline.com reported last year when it was announced that the fifth season would be the last. Ratings had declined, for one thing, and that was more of a problem because the show was relatively expensive. Its ratings suffered partly from what Deadline called “air-pattern challenges,” meaning that events such as the Olympics and special programming kept it from airing week after week. The COVID-19 pandemic also threw a wrench into production. And there were signs of a creative decline, with one critic lamenting that the fourth and fifth seasons “declined from the series that was so great in its earliest stages.”
Q: Back in the 1980s, a local station broadcast a movie in prime time without commercials called “Threads.” It was a British movie about nuclear war and its aftermath in Europe. Given the situation with Russia today, I was wondering where a copy of that movie might be now.
A: “Threads” originally aired in 1984 and was one of several dramas about nuclear war in that period; others included “The Day After” and “Testament,” both in 1983. While it starts slowly, "Threads" is an especially graphic rendering of the physical impact of such a war. I watched it again recently on streaming service Tubi (with commercials). Other streamers listing it include Shudder and Kanopy; it is also for rent on Prime Video, and for sale on DVD and Blu-ray.
———
