Mon Martien favori

My Favorite Martian was an enjoyable waste of time. Starring Ray Walston as a man from Mars who had crash-landed on earth, and Bill Bixby, as Tim, the young newspaper reporter who found him. Tim saw dollar signs, fame and fortune in his eyes when he found a Martian, but unfortunately, never did get to tell his story, in spite of the fact that this Martian moved in with him. You see, the Martian, who passed himself off as Tim's Uncle Martin, would not admit to anyone but Tim what he really was, and Tim would have appeared crazy to insist that Martin was REALLY a Martian!

Martin had some interesting powers: he was able to turn invisible by raising some pretty cheesy looking antennae from the back of his head; he could also point at something and make it lift and come to him. He was also able to read minds, and had a vast knowledge of technology. Apparently the Martians were much more advanced than we were.

The show lasted for three seasons on CBS, giving lots of time for Tim and Martin to have some interesting adventures, all the while trying to repair his ship and return home to Mars. Like ALF some years later though, he never quite made it.

By the early 1960s, as Americans and Soviets orbited the Earth, and the race to place men on the Moon was everyone's favorite after-dinner topic, television had produced a variety of space-oriented shows, mostly stodgy adventures of square-jawed heroes facing the cosmos in fanciful rockets...yet the series that would achieve the greatest popularity didn't feature a human, at all, but a Martian in a crashed 'flying saucer', attempting to 'pass' as human while repairing his spacecraft. Similar in concept to Gore Vidal's "Visit to a Small Planet", "My Favorite Martian" was a sweet-natured comedy with low-budget FX, often silly scripts, but one of the most engaging stars in television history, Ray Walston.

At 49, Walston was well-established on Broadway ("Damn Yankees") and had enjoyed success as a character actor in film (SOUTH PACIFIC, TALL STORY, THE APARTMENT), but, despite guesting on television for ten years, he had never starred in his own series, primarily because he didn't have a traditional leading man 'look'. Small, slender, with a mischievous smile and thin grayish blond hair, he was a hard actor to 'type'...which made him the perfect choice to play an extraterrestrial! "My Favorite Martian" was a wonderful showcase for his many acting skills, and, when teamed with young Bill Bixby, cast as 'Tim O'Hara', a reporter who grows to love his 'Uncle Martin' enough to keep his secret, and offer him a cover and sanctuary, there was a magic that almost leapt from the screen.

Bixby, at 29, had been a regular on "The Joey Bishop Show", but seemed doomed to blandly pleasant supporting roles, until "My Favorite Martian" displayed his remarkable comic timing, and, more importantly, his 'likeability' to television audiences. The series would serve as a springboard to a very successful career on the small screen, that would continue until his tragic death from cancer, at 59, in 1993.

As the series grew in popularity, the role of snooping but endearing landlady Laura Lee Brown (Broadway/movie veteran Pamela Britton) would be enlarged and softened, eventually becoming a romantic interest for Martin, and a new regular, Detective Bill Brennan (character actor Alan Hewitt), a veteran cop suspicious of the O'Hara's, and also enamored of Mrs. Brown, would be introduced. Both actors were great fun in their roles, and provided some very memorable moments, during the second and third seasons.

Among Martin's 'powers' were invisibility (whenever he raised the mini-TV antennas in the back of his head), reading minds, and levitating objects with his finger, as well as limited abilities that would appear and disappear whenever he became ill, ate the wrong foods, etc. But his greatest gift was an understanding heart; despite an occasional aside about the human race's primitive nature, he truly loved our planet, and enjoyed watching us 'mature' over the ages. For an alien, he displayed remarkable humanity!

While Walston enjoyed making "My Favorite Martian", he was not devastated when the program was finally canceled, after three seasons. With some of his finest work still ahead of him (THE STING, "Stephen King's The Stand", "Picket Fences", "Star Trek: The Next Generation", and the classic FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, just to name a few), he would be revered as one of the entertainment industry's most beloved and respected actors when he passed away, at 87, in 2001.

"My Favorite Martian" transcends the silliness of it's scripts with the talent and charisma of the remarkable cast. It was, and remains, a well-deserved audience favorite.

From personal opinion, the 1960s was a great decade for television, seeing shows with creative concepts and memorable characters that fascinated and appealed at the time and still hold up now ('The Addams Family', 'The Munsters', 'Doctor Who', 'Bewitched' and 'I Dream of Jeannie' are just a few examples, have a soft spot for 'Batman' too).

'My Favourite Martian' is another one of those shows. When it comes to sci-fi and comedy, individually and meshed together, 'My Favourite Martian' is a landmark and still holds up as enormously enjoyable. The third season sadly doesn't live up to the high quality of the first two, with story lines that were predictable, repetitive, disjointed (with them having one half of something and then a second half of something else entirely) and got overboard with the silliness to the point of redundancy, also relying on a formula that got stale too early.

With the first two seasons, the story lines were the complete opposite. They were engrossing, imaginative and clever, succeeding as entertainment and provoking thought. Likewise with the hilarious and intelligent writing, with dialogue that makes one laugh and think. The chemistry between the well-defined, the titular character one would go as far to say is iconic, characters is simply magical.

It is impossible to think of anybody else so well suited to the title role than Ray Walston, a role he was born to play. Bill Bixby shows remarkable and perfectly pitched comic timing and works so well with Walston. All the supporting cast are very good, J. Pat O'Malley is particularly fun and Pamela Britton is charming.

Production values don't look too primitive. Although 'My Favourite Martian' does look pretty good in colour, it fares to me better in black and white where things look smoother and more atmospheric. The sets and effects are pretty inventive. The music is a good fit and it is hard to forget the theme music.

Overall, a genre landmark and a near-classic if it weren't for its disappointing last season. The 1999 film that bases itself on this is not worth bothering with, the only emotions one will feel watching it are sheer disappointment, anger and questioning the point of it. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Ray Walston used his considerable acting talent & charm to create a hit series. First show, he crashes on earth. His rescue is engineered by Tim (Bill Bixby), a nosy reporter who can't believe what he has seen, & what Martin can do.

This is a family style of sitcom without kids. This show is really the talent of Ray Walston playing off everyone. Bixby is brilliant to as the single reporter who is always getting in trouble thanks to Martin. Many times because of Martin, Tim can't get that Pullitser prize he is after to become a great reporter.

What really makes this series go, is that Uncle Martin always seems to have an unending bag of tricks that only he, a Martian, can do. When we were kids, we got introduced to a friendly alien with this show. Martin would always foil Tim every having a steady girl friend too.

While the special effects seem crude now, when this show ran they were highly imaginative. There was even one episode where Martin put up his antenna & had snowy reception, just like my TV always did with the rabbit ears.

I recently came across episodes of this show on Youtube. It is especially memorable for me because it was telecast during the same years I was in college, starting in 1963.

The overwhelming feeling watching these old episodes again is "how easily we were entertained back in the 1960s." It was a different time, shows were more family oriented, sexual references were very indirect, and there was no objectionable "blue" language.

Ray Walston was the title character who became known as Uncle Martin to avoid revealing where he really was from. After his Martian craft crashed, he was found by Bill Bixby as columnist Tim O'Hara who took him and his damaged spacecraft in. Much of Martin's thrust is to get his craft repaired so he can return home. Other than that each of the 107 episodes was acting out some humorous situation.

Fun TV series, brings back good memories.