Gatorman9
I was really surprised to find an 8.0 rating for this show when I looked it up on the IMDb. The truth is, it was a fairly heavy melodrama with largely contrived plots, pervasive overacting, and only selective loyalty to realism, something that always seems to characterize any fiction ever done about aviation on video. And yet, of all the shows I watched as a little kid and then got to see again as an adult, this is the only one that has really been able to continue to feel special to me in spite of all its flaws. Despite everything else, and at least during the first season with Lansing, it took its subject matter seriously and did not engage in dramatic license to too much excess (unlike in its last season-and-a-half). The episodes usually maintained internally consistent logic and emotional effect and careful attention was paid to editing; one remarkable feature was how well the editors knew their World War Two aircraft and were consistently able to synch the storyline and dialog of the combat sequences with the real-life combat footage inserted as part of those sequences. The aircraft interior combat sequences were all shot inside of the fuselage of a real B-17 (a permanently grounded wingless wonder that was a refugee of earlier post-war civilian uses like water bombing forest fires), so what you see there is as authentic as possible. Moreover, the brooding quality suggested by the subject matter (which Lansing was very effective in enhancing), the black & white photography, and the perfectly-conceived and executed bittersweet Dominic Frontiere theme and score, combined with flying, aerial combat sequences which included a great deal of real-life combat footage, and best of all, copious quantities of photography (both new and vintage) of the B-17 Flying Fortress, styled by one famous aviation photographer as "the most photogenic airplane ever built", created a unique kind of mood that has never ceased appealing to me since I was seven years old. As a result, after I grew up, I learned to fly and then through a stroke of exceedingly good luck just happened to find myself living in a city where one of the few remaining (there are only about a dozen) B-17's still flying was based, and there I joined the crew.However, in spite of what others have written, Robert Lansing was not perfect, even though he was certainly at least persistently interesting, and some attempt at verisimilitude was generally present in spite of the demands of dramatic license. And things only got even more contrived whenever an episode veered near Paul Burke playing the Joe Gallagher character. Thus, naturally, when Burke replaced Lansing in the second season it continued down the same track as the first except that its execution at practically every level was not up to the same standard. The contrived plots seemed even more contrived - not only was the acting of the new principal characters frequently weaker, but the writing itself was as well - and finally they went to color (it was by then 1966, after all), which fundamentally altered the mood, and yet something else was lost. In the third season, even the original striking score was largely abandoned for something a lot less brooding but also a lot less notable. Over that time the series went from a focus on high drama to much more of an action-adventure format, and started looking a lot more like THE RAT PATROL. As a result, both drama and even story details suffered in favor of variety and action, regardless of how realistic it made the end result. Even the editing became much more indifferent. Still, some new elements of interest appeared. Paul Burke's character, as the replacement for Lansing's, had some good, pretty credible dialog written to demonstrate his (as well as other senior officers') leadership ability, and he was pretty much up to the task of delivering it. In fact, there was a lot more believably representative dialog generally than in the first season, occasioned also by the fact that the newly formatted show at long last included some significant enlisted characters as well as more interaction among junior officers, and for the first time an actual sense of camaraderie developed at times between various characters; originally, every episode was limited to a confrontation between Lansing's character and whoever his antagonist of the week was. Moreover, a second extremely cool aircraft was added in the form of the legendary P-51 Mustang fighter, with excellent footage included, even if the plot elements to accomplish this were as often as not fairly strained, factually. But while these new aspects of the show gave the producers exciting new story opportunities it never realized its potential. Had the series capitalized better on this and stuck with the tighter writing and editing of the first season, perhaps it could have weathered the various changes, but it was not to be. Even after about Episode 8 of the third season, when the show actually did start to click pretty well as an action series, it was not enough to save it from cancellation. But still, 12 O'Clock High remains for me the thing that began my life-long love for the magnificent B-17 Flying Fortress, and eventually, for their real exploits and men that flew them.
space528
I recall watching this series as a kid and being a WWII war bird enthusiast, the series pretty much kept an accurate account during the times of the mighty eighth USAAF bombers and fighters based in England that was used during the European campaign of WWII. The fine acting of Robert Lansing and Paul Burke brought to the series a realistic display of how bomber commanders felt about their men and machines during the war. It wasn't just fly, bomb and strafe. They wrestled with the pilots and crews personal problems and orders that sent many a pilot and bomber crews to their death. Actual WWII footage was used and when the writers tired of the stories in the air, they sometimes covered what happens to pilots and crews who are shot down evading or being captured by the enemy. This series was a good one but with the widening war in Vietnam, the series was cut short do to loss of interest and the public tiring of war. It was a shame since the contribution made by these pilots, crews and planes help end the war with Nazi Germany and its campaign of extermination and conquest. Sometimes a series of war and why we're forced to fight in them should be made if not just to hear how our fighting forces faced the horrors and complexities and sacrifices of war.
jack_j_lucas
I miss many of the old time classic TV series including 12 O'Clock High and the Untouchables, but thankfully METV has come to ATT UVerse cable for my enjoyment along with the timeless series, Combat!. The one gripe that I had about Robert Lansing playing the lead as General Savage was that he came off about as lovable in love scenes as a dead wet carp that had been beached for several days. He may have been dramatic, but he certainly wasn't at all believable as being romantic.I wish that Hollywood would re-shoot many of the classic WWII war stories and battles, as too many of them that were made shortly after the war in the 1950's would feature hundreds of Americans attacking in battle with one fatality and a couple of casualties and hundreds of enemy dead, and that of course simply wasn't the case. 12 O'Clock High did a great job of making American casualties realistic and I'd love to see the series resurrected again.I just caught Frank Oberton on a rerun of Bonanza on METV as an embittered Father who's son is killed in a gun battle with Joe Cartright. Frank died of a heart attack in 1967, the same year as the last 19 episodes of 12 O'Clock High filming before it was canceled. Doe anyone know if he died while the series was still filming? If so, how was he written out of the script?
classic_outboard
The first season starring Robert Lansing as General Savage was, head-and-shoulders, the finest WWII TV series ever produced -- even better than Combat!, which ranks a close second. ABC cut the heart out of the series when Lansing was replaced and Savage was killed off. Nothing against Paul Burke, but he was not right for the role. Changing to color also hurt the series because all their stock footage was in black & white.I would snap up the first season on DVD in an instant. The "first season" would include episodes 1-33, including the final episode "The Loneliest Place in the World" in which Gen. Savage is killed (aired 9/13/1965). After that, no interest in later episodes.
