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Dick Tracy starts reasonably strong, which one forgets as the serial plods through the near five hours of its fifteen chapters. The first chapter’s a decent enough pilot, with lead Ralph Byrd actually solving a crime, something he doesn’t really do later on. It doesn’t even open with him, instead read more

Brothers United, sadly, does not feature much in the way of brothers uniting. Much of the chapter is spent with Ralph Byrd begging Carleton Young to remember his identity and Young not remembering his identity and running away. There’s no uniting. It’s actually the most red herring of a chapter read more

The Devil in White is the penultimate Dick Tracy chapter, which is great. It means there’s only one left. And it even has an interesting cliffhanger. It doesn’t have an interesting cliffhanger resolve. It has another easy cliffhanger resolve; I don’t think the serial’s had a single good resolve. read more

So, unfortunately, Ralph Byrd (you know, Dick Tracy), doesn’t get shot in the cliffhanger resolution. He dodges. Because they all heard the Spider approach because the Spider has a club foot. Except they also all think the Spider is wearing a disguise, implying the club foot is a part of that disgu read more

The Trail of the Spider is the clip chapter. After the current winner for laziest cliffhanger resolve in the serial–Ralph Byrd turns a steering wheel to get out of danger–Byrd and the cast get together with three new characters to hear all about the Spider. Although Byrd’s been hunting the Spider read more

Harbor Pursuit starts and finishes in the harbor. For some reason, crackerjack G-Man Ralph Byrd never pieces together the harbor might be a base of operations of the Spider Gang. Just one of the many obvious connections Byrd’s been missing since chapter one. Or two. Byrd at least seems competent in read more

The Gold Ship is the tenth chapter of Dick Tracy. It’s the first chapter where Ralph Byrd even entertains the notion his brother might still be alive, even though brainwashed and surgically disguised brother Carleton Young has been running afoul of Byrd since the second chapter. Young just hasn’t read more

The Stratosphere Adventure isn’t much of an adventure, but it is a fairly interesting chapter. The entire chapter takes place right after the cliffhanger resolve. A cop-out cliffhanger resolve, where federal agent Ralph Byrd puts his own safety before civilian Wedgwood Nowell (big surprise), but st read more

Nowhere near as many wipes this chapter, but that lack doesn’t really help things. The cliffhanger resolve is another reveal one; turns out it wasn’t the bad guys shooting those guns off-screen, it was the good guys. So there wasn’t really a cliffhanger at all. Like always. It’s never a cliffhanger read more

The Ghost Town Mystery has a lot of wipes. Half wipes, quartering wipes, circular wipes. Wipe, wipe, wipe, wipe. I swear there haven’t been this many wipes in the serial until now. There’s also some terrible insert shots of lead Ralph Byrd when he’s listening to someone. Edward Todd, Helene Turner, read more

Dangerous Waters opens with an unbelievable cliffhanger resolve. Not unbelievably good, unbelievably cheap. I can’t imagine what made me think they wouldn’t go unbelievably cheap. I was clearly giving Dick Tracy too much credit. After the resolve, the chapter’s back to “formula.” It’s even read more

Death Rides the Sky does not follow the concerning pattern of the previous two chapters where information falls into Ralph Byrd’s lap and he ignores it only to discover it’s of vital importance. In Rides, he knows the information of vital importance right off. Cuts down on later confusion. The chap read more

With The Fur Pirates, Dick Tracy starts to show some problems; outside the obvious acting ones considering the supporting cast. There’s another fast cliffhanger resolve, with the disaster not being anywhere near as dangerous as originally suggested. After that resolution, there’s some decent specia read more

The Bridge of Terror gets off to a somewhat rocky start. The special effects on the cliffhanger resolution are outstanding. The actual resolution itself? Pretty lazy stuff. It immediately goes into Ralph Byrd (as Dick Tracy) getting in a police plane to track the giant villain aircraft, just called read more

The Spider Strikes opens the Dick Tracy serial with an awesome sequence–a group of crime bosses meeting up on a train to meet with the big boss (The Spider). One of them tries to stand up to the unseen Spider, only to have his plans foiled… supernaturally it seems. The Spider then hunts the man read more

I know, I’ve been away for awhile and I kind of left you all hanging without posting the last chapter of Dick Tracy vs Crime Inc. Well, better late than never, right? And, for those of you who may be just joining us, or who just want to catch up, here are the previous posts for this serial:1, read more

"Welcome to the Coffee Pot.  Your home away from home.  The special today home style pot roast with apple pie for dessert for a dollar.  What can I get ya'?" "The special sounds good, Miss." "Sure thing.  One special, Cookie!  Oh, you've got the afternoon paper.  Gee read more

Okay, gang, it’s Saturday again, and time for another installment of Saturday Breakfast Serial and our ongoing chapter play, Dick Tracy vs Crime Inc. And, for those of you who may be just joining us, here are the previous posts for this serial: 1, 2, 3, 4,  5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. Ah, read more

Okay, gang, it’s Saturday again, and time for another installment of Saturday Breakfast Serial and our ongoing chapter play, Dick Tracy vs Crime Inc. And, for those of you who may be just joining us, here are the previous posts for this serial: 1, 2, 3, 4,  5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Since we miss read more

Okay, gang, it’s Saturday again, and time for another installment of Saturday Breakfast Serial and our ongoing chapter play, Dick Tracy vs Crime Inc. And, for those of you who may be just joining us, here are the previous posts for this serial: 1, 2, 3, 4,  5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Last week we bega read more