Here’s what’s up for ‘Doc’
Q. I thought this year would feature a season finale for “Doc Martin.” What’s up?
A. I get a lot of questions about the whereabouts of British series “Doc Martin,” which operates on one of those British we’ll-make-more-when-we’re-ready schedules. Here’s what recent reports have indicated: There will be two more seasons. An eighth, which began production in March, will air overseas later in 2017 before coming to U.S. airwaves late this year or early in 2018. Then the show will take a break to prepare for a ninth season, which, at this writing, expects to be the series’ last. That ninth season will air in the U.K. in 2019 and here in 2020.
Q. I am a fan of “Grey’s Anatomy” and have watched it from the beginning. In all the operating-room scenes, the scrub nurse is a constant. Is she a technical adviser or someone special to the cast?
A. That role, of nurse Bokhee, is played by a woman also named Bokhee. Former “Grey’s” co-star Sandra Oh pointed out in a tweet several years ago that Bokhee has also been a surgical nurse in real life. Added Oh: “She’s like my 2nd mom, she’s the best.”
Q. How did the song for “I Married Joan” go? It was a ’50s sitcom with Jim Backus and Joan Davis. I remember “I married Joan/What a girl/What a whirl/ What a wife ... You can’t deny/ That’s why I married Joan.”
A. “I Married Joan” originally aired from 1952 to 1955 and starred Backus and Davis as husband and wife. You can find old episodes on YouTube, which is how I gathered these song lyrics: “I married Joan/ What a girl, what a whirl, what a life./Oh, I married Joan/What a mind, love is blind, what a wife./ Giddy and gay, all day she keeps my heart laughin’/Never know where her brain has flown./To each his own/Can’t deny that’s why I married Joan.”
Q. Could you please tell me who the new “Georgia Gold” KFC Col. Sanders is?
A. That would be the actor Billy Zane. You may remember his villainous turn in “Titanic.”
Q. Please tell me about Ken Wahl, who was on the TV show “Wiseguy.” I’ve been watching the reruns, and what a great show! When was it on, and where is Ken Wahl now?
A. “Wiseguy” originally aired on CBS from 1987 to 1990. Wahl, now 62, played Vinnie Terranova, an undercover fed pretending to be a mobster. Jonathan Banks, more recently seen on “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul,” was Vinnie’s handler.
No fan of Hollywood, Wahl had a reputation for being difficult and left the show before its final season (Steven Bauer became the new “wiseguy”); he returned as Vinnie for a TV movie in 1996, but that’s his last listed acting credit on Internet Movie Database. According to a story in the Huffington Post in 2013, Wahl suffered a broken neck and severe spinal injury in 1992 following a fall down a flight of stairs after “a romantic dalliance.” The injuries left him in so much pain, even after operations, which he told the Post were botched, that his acting career was cut short.
More recently, he has done some work on behalf of several charities he supports — as you can see in his tweets as @KenWahl1. You may also want to look for some of his movies, especially “The Wanderers” and “Fort Apache, The Bronx.”
Write to Rich Heldenfels at P.O. Box 417, Mogadore, OH 44260, or brenfels@gmail.com. Letters may be edited. Individual replies are not guaranteed.